If ever there was a monument to the power of tribalism, it is this comments section, in which 99 words are written on the unassailable virtue of the Resistance for every one acknowledging, even with Douthat spoon feeding it to the masses, the possibility that both sides are flawed. Douthat could have written the same column 100 different ways -- not that this version isn't excellent! -- but the effect on the NYT audience would have been the same: willful blindness.
32
"...the leaven of incompetence in his cruelty, his rejection of some of the disastrous ambitions of his predecessors and a certain amount of fool’s luck..." That's the essence of the Trump years. One pithy sentence earns a columnist his entire year's pay.
13
It's sad that Douthat wasn't alive in 1940. That was the year Chaplin released "The Great Dictator." It wasn't funny shortly after Kristallnacht and the 1939 invasion of Poland, and it initially bombed at the box office.
Douthat is so blinded by ideology that he can no longer tell right from wrong.
40
Telephone calls to a comedian who is President of Ukraine made by our game show host President. That’s a concept.
19
Dear Mr. Douthat, if you think that Trump haters don't laugh, I advise you tune in to the shows hosted by Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers, Bill Maher and John Oliver to name just a few. If you're aiming to influence readers, I would hope you'd be a little more connected to reality.
As to the FBI, I'd think that our collective memory of the behavior of J. Edgar Hoover would keep us on alert to their potential abuse of power. The sloppiness and incompetence displayed here only makes it a typical large organization. Mr. Hoover would consider today's bureau mere amateurs
32
"Tain't that funny, McRoss." This logical extreme of Republican extremism could end the Framers' noble experiment.
13
Ross makes a very good point: "That was in 2008; how young and naïve I was back then." I mean he's not young anymore, but the naiveté has hung on.
18
While you're at it, check out Jim Carrey in "Liar, Liar."
That was from 1997.
2
Sorry Ross, you'll have to excuse me if I don't join you in laughing my way through this parade of idiots, led by Trump, while his allies in Congress knock the bite out of impeachment. I suspect they'll regret rendering themselves watchdogs, sans teeth, when the Democrats regain the presidency.
15
The Nazis were ridiculous too, easy to lampoon and ridicule. Doesn’t mean they were comical. There is nothing funny about the Trump administration or the damage it is doing at home and abroad.
52
weird, your fantasy extends to thinking the Russians aren't interested in contact with Trump? would be kust as "funny" without being propaganda
9
A funny thing happened on the way to the Gulag....
10
The world laughs at you in the USA, so why shouldn't you laugh at yourselves? But in the end, as with people who laughed themselves silly thinking of certain clownish leaders in other countries who ended up killing them and their families, the joke will probably be on you.
12
Yes the Trump presidency has comedic aspects, mostly in an absurd way. But truly a tragedy is unfolding for the US and for the world. Proper governance has been thrown overboard to be replaced by some sham telenovela, the purpose of which is evidently to distract from all the harm being inflicted to democracy, the planet and human values.
Let's enjoy the comedy for a moment but let's never forget about the underlying tragedy!
13
Mr. Douthat must have taken a big gulp of the Bill Barr Kool-aid if he sees the Mueller report as a fizzle. It's been treated as a fizzle, but it is damning.
54
I think this is one of Mr. Douthat's best essays. For the folks who say it isn't funny, have you heard of gallows humor? When soldiers make jokes before war, it doesn't mean they don't get the serious stakes. I recently thought of Trump as the Inspector Clouseau of international diplomacy bumbling incompetently towards peace. Or as I think Charles Blow said, and I paraphrase, fortunately his malevolence is exceeded by his incompetence.
15
I have always, from youth to the present, enjoyed cartoons. One of my favorite characters was Foghorn Leghorn. Trump reminds me of him except that Trump is lethal while Leghorn was just funny.
Lethal to our democracy that is. Supporting characters for Trump’s perverted Reality Show include such nitwits as Matt Goetz. Goetz actually said to a veteran “democracy is not sacred”. So, we have the bottom line now for Trump and his cult.
Another series of cartoons called “Mission Impossible” illustrates Pelosi’s challenge now. She accepted the challenge. Trump is now in deep kemshi as a result.
6
@Harold
Trump is Elmer Fudd.
6
Really, I couldn't finish this. Ross complaining that others are humorless and self important?
I can't imagine Ross laughing. Unless he was at a heretic burning.
36
Everyone, from the US to the UK, no longer wish to be led, they only want to be entertained. Therefore, Trump and Johnson.
11
Opposition to contempt for the rule of law seems humorless to Mr Douthat? That, itself, seems pretty humorless.
19
Douhtat continues his back peddling to white wash the trump WH. He could be played by Jack Black in the character of Carl Denham in King Kong, always working an angle but never quite dealing with the truth. The truth is that Trump has harmed many in detention centers at our Mexican border. He has uprooted the Kurds and made them shooting targets for the Turks, how many have died, how many are homeless. He is destroying our environmental regulations, for what, corporate greed.. But worst of all he has defamed our country, its Constitution and its place on the world. I am so sad you hear that you find that so funny Ross or is that a nervous laugh to cover your anxiety about his impeachment and the deplorable behavior of the Republicans.
33
You've got the wrong movie in mind Ross. Think back, a little further, to Polanski's "Chinatown" and the scene with Nicholson and John Huston, where Huston talks about the importance of "the future" while chomping on the head of a fish. It's "the future" that is at stake here - democracy or autocracy and the next year will decide which.
20
I, too, was unmoved by the movie back in 2008, but this is a great take. Such a strange brew - the turned-up-to-eleven seriousness of the apocalypse crowd juxtaposed against the laziness, amateurism, oafishness, and otherwise human folly of the actual actors on all sides.
May we all take a deep breath, and remember to take care of our garden.
4
For years the Democratic Party leadership repeated the fantastic claim that the President of the United States was secretly a traitor controlled by foreign enemies, a stooge of the Kremlin. The Mueller Report would prove this treason, we were told over and over . . . until it didn't . . . . Now they are impeaching Trump for the high crime, not of abusing immigrants or ruining the environment or supporting the slaughter in Yemen--but rather for asking Ukraine to look into Hunter Biden's no show job. Is stupidity contagious?
9
This is puerile thinking--'a pox on both your houses'! The adolescent brain uncoils its verdant sarcasm and cheap wisdom, purchased at the cost of actual thought and morality. Douthat shows no sense of the hard choices made by those bringing this case; particularly the choice to risk the republic for our shared values of honesty, commitment to American, and fundamental fairness. They risk the republic because, as Trump's long screed today shows, he is willing to tear down the house in which we all live to justify himself. He has in the letter made himself the fool: denying, prevaricating, dissembling in a tap dance of projection. And Douthat thinks this is fun? Perhaps it is time for him to leave his cheery New Haven perch and visit a bit more of the real world where people are suffering because of this president who seems motivated only to do harm.
28
A point always ignored by these right wingers when they claim the FBI spied on the Trump campaign because they were sure it was full of “Russian assets”, as Douthat claims here: Carter Page — the only person wire-tapped in this saga, had already left the Trump campaign when he was wire-tapped. So much for the charge of the overzealous FBI. But you won’t hear that from voices on the right like Douthat.
11
I do agree it's a nasty comedy, Mr. Douthat, but written from the grave by Terry Southern in his early bad-boy "Candy" mode, none of which can be uploaded here, and ending as his much later "Dr. Strangelove" ended, in which Southern (like yourself) managed to make light of the annihilation of the human race. I confess I like Southern's hyperbole better than yours, as he actually imagines the thing happening, and you can't.
7
After reading most comments posted so far, Ross, it seems a lot of us are just not aligned with you on your piece today. It does feel like Schadenfreude a bit, as one reader put it (Trump adversaries are necessarily pompous, insufferable). It sounds nice in the abstract, but I don't think your pitch script (two follies, one side squalid and corrupt, the other pompous, insufferable) would fly as a parallel to our current predicament. As an independent leaning right, I just don't see enough pompous, insufferably self-important actors from the never-Trumpers position, to the center-left, for this folly to connect with your target viewers . The larger group I see is comprised of very concerned Americans, still not fully understanding Trump's continued appeal to his "base" but pointing to building bridges and finding common ground with Americans supporting Trump. There is no excuse for condescension nor pomposity by Trump adversaries, but the messaging (to Trump's voters) is overwhelmingly principled: find common ground, unity, preserve the Republic and our system - we commit to finding solutions for those who lost from this system in the past 3 or 4 decades). I don't think your script would connect (will B.A.R. :-))
1
"Never Trumper" conservative pundits who failed to jump the Republican ship early enough faced the choice between fealty to the monarch or purgatory.
But few of those fortunate enough to enjoy refuge at MSNBC, CNN or the Times seem to take as much joy in mocking liberal angst over this psychotic White House than Ross Douthat.
Yes, there is a Marx Brothers quality to the current administration, but one can say the same thing about Kim Jong-Un and his gang of killers in North Korea.
I doubt that people whose lives have been ruined by Donald Trump's egomaniacal folly -- from dedicated civil servants to refugee families -- see much humor in it.
In particular, I find beyond ironic the lapel-pin "patriotism" of Trump's toadies while he demolishes the once-great reputation of our country and turns into a glorified version of Putin's Russia.
That's no laughing matter.
25
Ross you are presenting the worst aspect of the press. I disagree with what you are about. I read you. Hon, you are not funny. You are not close to ironic either.
10
You want to see the dark, even evil underbelly of American politics?............
Just watch the news - especially FOX News - on the Donald Trump Presidency...........
Hate, dystopian behavior, criminality, lying, self-dealing, inhumanity, misogyny encompases just a few of this administration's multitudinous shortcomings..........
Donald Trump has proven that truth can be far, far worse than
fiction .........
This presidency will go down in history's infamy as one of two things - either a totally failed Presidency OR the Presidency that destroyed democracy........
Some legacy !!..........
18
Brilliant column.
5
Still on the wrong Side, Ross. Have you written even one column exhorting Republicans to uphold American values, to stop spreading Russian propaganda? Have you once supported competence in government, instead of this shambling wreck that the Republican party has become?
Your trivialize severe threats to America, and repeatedly place yourself on the side of her enemies. Through cowardice, I assume. You don't appear to be stupid. You do appear to be knowingly supporting attacks on our nation.
18
Douthat writing about Comedy is like a conservative Catholic writing about Women’s Rights.
Oh, Wait.
22
“If you don’t laugh at my unfunny column, you have no sense of humor, and you are the reason Trump will be re-elected.”
13
Yeah, Trump's boffo comedy, and Hitler was merely Chaplin's Great Dictator. I prefer Alexander Pope's response to the corruption of England under a strong man leader: "My country's ruin makes me grave."
9
Trumps general incompetence and unintentionally comedic "bumbling" unfortunately has the effect of very successfully masking his complete malevolence.
While you're "laughing" at his stupid nicknames for people, his puerile insults or his third grade vocabulary, he's locking up children in cages with no remorse.
I reject the theme of this piece, there is nothing intentionally or unintentionally funny about this man or his administration.
Laugh at him and dismiss his apparent "bumbling" at your peril.
16
Shame on you, Ross. You may be a decade older but if anything you're more naive. Or perhaps just disingenuous.
11
Yeah, we all really need to lighten up.
Treason, corruption, pollution, racism, misogyny....just a barrel of laughs.
At least for a conservative white man with a good job.
13
Douthat wasted a lot of words here to make a thin point about having a sense of humor. We are past humor, Ross. The comparison to Obama, who was dealing with an inherited, volatile, and combustible war was odious. That kind of reflexive both-sides, what-about smartassness devalues the fact that we have the most reckless and unconstitutional administration in our memory in power now... and on the brink of four more years. Why would an intelligent, sophisticated writer at the NY Times indulge this kind of evasive sanctimony? Why would the NY Times publish it?
16
Ross must have a particularly warped sense of humor.
Except, there are crickets instead of laughter.
8
One would think that a person employed by a newspaper would not find laughable a president who is opposed to the very idea of a free press.
13
Douthat has an odd sense of humor if he thinks anything about the Trump Times is funny.
8
Sadly, the joke's on us. And it's really not that funny, more pathetic.
6
A real hoot. Make sure you tell it to the kids locked up in cages. Better yet, let's get him out of office and let Barack take another crack at him at the correspondence dinner. Now that would be funny.
10
Yeah Ross, it’s funny. To watch a a criminal moron crush our democracy under his heel. Very funny.
9
A modest proposal: all self identified Republicans like Douthat must study Russian.
Don Junior didn’t show up at the Trump Tower meeting expecting dirt on Hillary out of buffoonish incompetence. He has, perhaps, been floating his family’s oft faltering unreal estate empire with questionable Ru$$ian investment for years. In 2009, he told a real estate conference, in public, that Ru$$ian money was “pouring into” Trump Organization projects. In fact, he and Ivanka avoided mortgage fraud charges regarding Trump Soho, because the former family lawyer, Marc Kasowitz, and his firm ponied up a $25.000 campaign contribution to the actual incompetent buffoon of the piece, Cy Vance Junior. In 2014, GOLF DIGEST broke news when Eric Trump revealed that Ru$$ian money was keeping their golf courses from insolvency.
And whatever cockeyed, misplaced optimism impels Douthat to think thatTrump would leave if beaten in 2020, or after a second term? What makes him think a return to normalcy might EVER happen? Not funny, man.
9
Clearly, you are a privledged white male and elitist of the real kind. not the so called liberal elite , but the intolerate with money elite, the elite illiterate who will gaslight their way through life and lie to satisfy his own delusions and ideology of greed and deception to working people, who fall for your twisted perspectives of reality. You are not funny, nor have any sense of irony. That has always been a conservative problem, their humor is cruel, not ironic or intelligent. (dont mean to be too broad here , but I have found it moslty true)
8
Don't be stupid be a smartie,
Come and join the Putin Party.
(apologies to The Producers)
5
Seriously. Such a sad take on the state of affairs of our nation. How many straws will you grasp to protect yourselves from having to admit your culpability in unleashing this deranged menace on the country?
Sitting day after day after day, "IG REPORT", "DEEP STATE", "UKRAINE COLLUSION", waiting until finally one of the nitwits in the Presidents band of merry men that you discussed creates- or rather synthesizes, some minutia of deflection and you rule the entirety of the investigation and the Presidents transgressions as a "farce" and Democrat hitjob.
Our country is doomed. Dunning Kreuger and confirmation bias have destroyed conservative brains. You can no longer critically think. I'm sorry, this man is your god king and you don't even have the mental fortitude to realize it.
7
Today a functional toilet, tomorrow the world.
2
“You’re part of a league of morons.”
Apt summary of the Democratic Party and it's Never-Trumpist sycophants.
2
Every time Ross Douthat writes a column, the world becomes a slightly unhappier place.
Thank you for enabling and giving comfort to the traitorous, psychotic criminal who dares to call himself our "president."
If there were a world record for bad takes, you would own it.
10
good lord, off his meds?
this is why god made eds, to help shape an argument or arguments, or help shape one where there is none
3
Ross when you wrote this " Don Jr. shows up expecting a big intel deal and instead gets a lecture on Russian adoptions " did you know that "Russian adoptions" is a reference to sanctions imposed on Russia? Russia banned adoption of children by US citizens as a response to sanctions.
If you did not know it, how should you be called? A dolt? How should you be called if you did? Corrupt, maybe?
8
What horrid and disgusting simplification of a fascist movement in America.
8
This reminds me of Waugh’s 1930s novel Scoop, in which the Nazis are treated as bumbling fools. Ha ha! Hilarious! Until they turned out to be not so funny. Trump and his supporters are bumbling fools, but they are still dangerous.
9
Laughing ? Did you pull the wings off flies, as a child ?
Sad.
10
Douthat appears to have edited out L’Affaire Russe’s most farcical subplot — Giuliani’s quest for the best bowl of borscht in Kiev.
2
T-clown is NOT funny...trying to lighten the utter tragedy of this monster's election is a form of treason...Mr. Pope boy..
3
Please write what you know, Douthat, and since you have no, zero, nada, sense of humor, I'd stay away from that topic if I were you.
9
Ross: I don't particularly like your politics but I read your columns. This one is a real doozy. To relate this administration to any kind of humor is ridiculous. This administration is not funny. trump is not funny, in fact he is humorless and quite brutal. I know you're a diehard republican Ross, but I don't think you're stupid. I don't find the humor in any of this. The NY Times paid you for a nothing burger on this one.
9
This is a reminder that Jon Hamm is funny and has every right to be in this movie, even as a subordinate FBI guy.
I think that even if Trump isn't taking being mocked by late-night comedy shows particularly well, we expect these shows to mock the president and Trump is a much easier target than Obama was. But these shows can't deal with complexity well enough to mock the whole political situation we are in. I have never seen Comey on TV and became familiar with him from the U Turn on Constitution Avenue incident. You can take that as either comic or tragic because from what we understand, Comey thought he was doing a heroic thing for the republic--and in the greater scheme of things it was very small. It's easy for people whom Trump has shocked into political consciousness to think that everything is tragic because every attempt at a heroic effort seems to fail. It's also possible to think that these attempts at heroic efforts are funny because they were conceptually doomed from the start and not up to the standards of earlier heroism.
It is not farce that 12 RU army personnel hacked into DNC and Podesta emails which were released through Wikileaks and weaponized by Trump as a major campaign tactic to discredit Clinton. Russian interference was real and the use of the stolen emails a basis for Trump campaign strategy.The release of this data dictated how Trump would act on the stump.
2
It’s really funny. In addition to you, the other person laughing is Putin. He has put his useful idiot in the White House without actually invading us. He has captured an entire political party and has them doing his bidding without firing a single shot. He has undermined all our institutions without infiltrating them. Yeah, Ross. It’s a riot.
7
I am not a fan of Barrack Obama. While he made some progress on health care, he basically failed since we still have
millions without usable health insurance,
200,000 people dying each year who lives could have saved with today's medical care,
530,000 families forced into bankruptcy every year which contributed to the opioid epidemic & the rise in suicides and probably the declining life expectancy,
and we still waste about $1.8 TRILLION a year compared to other wealthy developed countries.
Obama did this consciously when he took off the table any health care system that these other countries showed would have been vastly more efficient than than ACA. He did this in the interest of gaining Republican support. How did that work out?
In addition, his stimulus program was severely too small & the he cut the deficit by 75% when people, businesses, & state & local govs were suffering (and still suffer) from a LACK of money. This gave us a glacial recovery in which most of the benefits went to the Rich.
But to compare his administration to the Republicans who preceded & followed him is false equivalence of the high order.
Bush II lied us into a war which killed almost 300,000 people & whose result was a further destabilization of the MidEast. He then proceeded to wreck the economy by what was almost our 7th depression.
I do not think I need to repeat the historic deficiencies of the Trump administration here,
Obama was a C- President, Bush II & Trump get F-.
5
@Len Charlap Obama hoped to get some GOP votes for the ACA, but it was the Blue Dogs like Lieberman who doomed any further improvement of that law. Also, while you can make the case that Obama should have fought harder (or maybe dirtier) for greater stimulus money, Congress was unwilling to appropriate more. The GOP were afraid that he would get all the credit.
5
Simply wrong. There's utterly no moral parallel between self-delusion and illusion. None. You see it again, squash it on the pavement.
Beyond that, though, is the persistence of snot in the ostensible Conservative calumny of generous-hearted persons, ever since Buckley proved that if you're going to be tapped for Skull & Bones anyway, you might as well resonate of some affliction of the hoisted nostril. Two entire generations have read Buckley by flashlight between the sheets at night, to gain what they flaunt today -- the noises of a learning finer than compulsory. It is they, who are to be compared with Trump's psychotic legions of religious extremists, not those who see right through them to the smirk of flabby party boys.
5
"... his administration is arguably responsible for fewer human tragedies so far than more high-minded, less personally degraded presidencies ..."
Ross has somehow managed to overlook the irreparable damage Trump and his Congressional Republicans are doing to our democracy and to our democratic elections. I don't buy the "fewer human tragedies" either. Not even a little. It looks too much as if Ross only values human tragedies pertaining to white conservative wealthy Americans. Think Yemen genocide: Trump is enabling and protecting the Saudis, for reasons that could very well be corrupt. Think our loyal allies the Kurds who lost more than ten thousand soldiers fighting on our behalf against ISIS: Trump abandoned them to the genocidal Turks and the brutal Syrian government. Think of the crimes against humanity committed by this administration on the southern border. Think Puerto Rico: the inept corrupt response of the Trump administration resulted in thousands of unnecessary deaths of American citizens. Think of the harm Trump is doing to poor and working class Americans as he, for instance, sabotages the ACA and destroys the food stamp program. Too darned hard for me to think of any of that as funny.
8
Laugh all you like. Then just think about this very carefully.
By the middle of October of 2016 Donald Trump had acknowledged that the conversation recorded on the Access Hollywood tape were his true words. And soon thereafter every single Republican voter who would go on to cast a ballot for Donald Trump had reached a simple, stark, unavoidable binary conclusion about the candidate.
Either the Republican nominee was a violent sexual predator who was caught bragging about his past rapes and other sexual assaults.
Or the Republican nominee was an emotionally crippled, deeply insecure man fascinated by sexual violence who fabricated stories about it in order to impress people.
Once the nominee and the campaign acknowledged the authenticity of the recording there was no other conclusion to be drawn beyond of those two. Either one, or the other.
I don't think that is the least bit funny. Do you?
10
If I were younger and smarter I think I might be hanging out with Titania McGrath and her friends nowadays.
Oh good.....wasn't really sure where you stood on things. The occasional criticism of Trump is always wrapped around the weird new default of "gotta level things out!" balancing act journalists such as Douthat & Stephens employ. "Trump is horrific, but remember what Lyndon Johnson did?!?!?! It's like an ADHD virus for journalists. "Trump is bad news for everybody.....BUT."
Still, the harsh criticisms of Trump allowed for some grudging respect.
Thankfully you have fully embraced the "Get over it" play of Mulvaney. That leaves zero doubt. Any objections to that are from an opposition that is humorless. Pretty impenetrable argument. Why not just call people fat or ugly, or not high enough on a 10 scale for you to argue with? You know, Trump style? In a way, you're being too timid calling us Humorless.
You are now fully on board with the Trump campaign. Yep, lots of laughter and a grand old time.
6
What Trump is doing to our Constitution is more like Read After Burning.
3
Like my father would say before swatting me for another mischievous antic: “This is going to hurt me more than it does you.”
So, the Democrats, the parent. must punish the bad boy — otherwise, he will grow into a rude and unruly adult.
The other children snicker.
He becomes emboldened by his “notoriety,” the others think he’s cool.
But if there were no discipline at all, he would become a criminal.
Besides, isn’t soliciting help from a foreign country to sway an election an actual crime? Why does the GOP say “there was no crime”?
He did it; and it is a crime.
We are now supposed to feel sorry for “the victim”?
Such hubris — like the teen ager who murders his parents, and then asks the judge for leniency — because he is an orphan!
3
The funniest thing that should happen would be to watch the voters purge every Republican who supports Trump and his philosophy from elected office, instead of the reverse for once.
5
An almost perfect grasping at straws. I wonder if we'd get the same if it were the RCC and a buffoonish Pope?
Russ Douthat trivializes this corrupt regime's behavior and makes a not credible "both siderism" justification which flies in the face of well documented revelations about the obscene kowtowing this President shows to Putin. The real question is Trump committing treason or just a willing fool enabling it. There is no excuse for this column.
7
Of all the farcical characters, Rudy Giuliani represents the pinnacle. It was Giuliani who whispered Ukraine conspiracies into the ear of a president who invited members of QANON into his Oval Office and praised Alex Jones for being one of the 'real news' media heroes. Without Giuliani and Trump's fear of Joe Biden (the Democratic candidate who challenges critics to push-up contests), there would have been no impeachment..... period. ...no circus atmosphere... no reality tv and twitter follies.
I honestly don't find much of an equivalence between Obama's Administration and the whole pack of Cabinet-level grifters and incarcerated campaign insiders of the Trump Administration. It's like comparing cool jazz with the Sex Pistols.
3
When ever will Ross try to react or answer to these comments? Maybe he afraid to hear the truth? Maybe, deep down in his heart he knows he is trying to deceive readers, or maybe, even, he knows deep down, he is deceiving himself. I almost feel sorry for him...
6
Why is Comey a comic figure?
1
The Democrats swore for years that the President was in fact secretly a traitor, a stooge of the Kremlin--and they would someday prove it. But now the President-as-Russian puppet stuff is completely forgotten. Instead they impeach Trump for the high crime of asking Ukraine to look into Hunter Biden's no show job. They are the laughing stock of the country.
1
Yes this president and the Republican Party merit ridicule, derision, and contempt - the "humor" of Swift or Pope. Nothing less. Ross, you intellectualize this and put yourself above it. No doubt you will find it hilarious if Trump wins a second term and further degrades the USA.
4
Ross, your column is a classic example of Soviet-style propaganda. You very effectively take down a straw man in hopes that will distract from the real issues. I had higher hopes for you.
6
Exactly what to expect from the party that brought us hypocrisy and lack of shame as an art form. What do you think would have happened if Obama had looked at Afghanistan and said, you know what, this is unwinnable and will cost too much in blood and treasure and we're out? You think your GOP cronies would have responded -- "you're right Barry. We respect our military too much to allow them to wallow there for another umpteen years while they literally bleed and we figuratively bleed. Let's put country over party." You should be ashamed and you should never write another word again.
5
Replacing one's personal fixer, who was a two-bit taxi hack license dealer, with America's Buffoon, is arguably amusing. Ha, ha. But the criminal acts by the President and his cronies? Not so much.
4
I can agree there’s comic incompetence on both sides, but it’s a challenging laugh. It’s like we’re witnessing a Shakespearean play with some comic relief for the humble crowd, while terrible things happen.
The President is singing about cheeseberders while clogging his toilet and asking EPA for help, while his political party is committing human rights abuses against their political opponents. Worse weather events, terrible fires, killing hundreds, and he’s picking fights with the weather service and with the dead for failing to rake leaves. He’s gotten an intern to write to the House speaker about how she’s abusing her power while we have no prospect of removing this twit because his party is abusing its power.
Our Constitution is losing its meaning because the President can’t read and his party would rather not. At least there’s still stuff to laugh about, but there’s this enormous weight that doesn’t come off. We’re getting conned, by these idiots, and (unless you can move a GOP Senator) all we can do right now is laugh because the Constitution lets them do it.
We have to hope enough of us vote, but there’s humor here too. Trump merch might be popular with your neighbors. Swastikas are in again with rural and some suburban folks. Trumpers are still waiting in line all day to listen to his slurred speeches and rants against windmills. We have to encourage all to vote, even these people who will vote for more cowbell.
“We’ve really let ourselves go” is understatement.
3
Just another Epic Fail take on something of extreme significance. Sad. Please don't " Dou-that" again.
3
You’ve fallen into the classic Trump trap, Ross. Everyone’s corrupt. Everyone’s an idiot. All politics and life is a cynical game. I’ll make you laugh at all these people. No matter how many lies I tell or criminal acts I conceal, nothing compares to that sweet elation of laughing at those in power. Sometimes it is funny. But this is how he always wins. Everything’s a joke. We’ll see in 10 years whether all Trump’s antics were so benign. After environmental safeguards have been gutted and foreign powers are welcomed into our election process. Who knows? Maybe you’ll still be laughing.
5
I thought 'Burn After Reading' was a middling Cohen Brothers movie; not up there with 'Fargo' and 'The Big Lebowski' but not as bad as 'A Serious Man' or 'Inside Llewyn Davis.'
1
I'm not laughing Ross. Trump and his GOP cowards are like civic cholera. It will take a long time to purge this virus from our country. Make a movie about that.
7
Yeah, Ross, it’s all “a regular riot” as Ralph Kramden used to say. Babies in cages... shredding the constitution... flouting the law... You may be laughing, but most of us can’t bear to watch the wreckage you and your party have wrought on this country.
9
I'm from the "its not funny" and not even a dark comedy camp. 2 million acres of fishing newly opened up for overfishing, oil spouting up from the earth directly into the breeding places of whales, the migratory bird act gutted along with the endangered species act. And that's just in the animal world.
Humans attending his rallies to listen to this ugly human perform hate crimes against citizens of our country; a president who desecrates his oath to the constitution and more.
Maybe I'll laugh after he's been removed from office. But, not right now.
6
Sir, you spend entirely too much time alone and with a Thesaurus. However, you could be the "poster child" for an aspect of our culture demonstrating how good intentions are completely ruined by stupid bias.
Back to the first sentence, how do you spend a day? To whom to you sit and talk - and LISTEN?
The NY Times tries very hard to present a broad spectrum of idea, opinions and judgements, ergo, you can contribute. But please don't think of this access to international review to be a compliment of your intelligence, politics or perception of life.
6
Reading the column and responses, on one hand I can’t help but think what a life of privilege led by Mr. Douthat.
Simply gross
4
The Shortest Straw
No biggie, no matter, if Trump goes or stays
To Impeach and remove – we know how it plays;
But the bore fest, the speeches, who wants to watch
Nadler and Schiff – I’d sooner just platz
Then repeat and repeat, over again
Bills of indictment cooked up by a Dem
Droning, unbending, the hearings unending
The old sawagain with Trumpster exclaiming -
“Perfecto the call, a partisan hoax
Cooked up by the Dems to con simple folks;”
End game he stays and wins re-election –
Dems defeated, a lefty selection
Waving the flag of Socialist dogma
Buried, a landslide, repeating their trauma
Of Hill undermined by the Trumpeter swan -
Pelosi, et al, the short straw they’ve drawn.
Well written (best on this topic so far, I think) both-siderism claptrap. The point seems to be just give up because the government of the US is inevitably nothing but farce.
Inglorious Basterds -- a parody of the Nazis.
Nominated for 8 Oscars. Winner of 1 for the cheeky depiction of a Nazi officer
Rogert Ebert: "it’s so bloody entertaining"
NYT: "Mr. Tarantino (the director) has polluted his love for the movies"
Moral: Obviously, you can poke fun at Trump or Hitler or anyone else. If you are a genius at your craft you can succeed at the highest level. Critics will love you or hate you depending on their perspective. Know your audience. And proceed with caution.
As Tarantino well knew, he was not breaking new ground. Charlie Chaplin had long ago gone there in the Great Dictator.
As for those commenting, put this matter in perspective. It's not a new issue. And, based on the comments I've read, you've got nothing new to say. It's all been said. Take one side or the other. Do what you must. Others will do the opposite. It goes with the territory.
This is what passes as credible conservative commentary these days. What an embarrassment.
6
The cynical, myopic, above-it-all tone of this article is, quite frankly, disgusting and exactly what many people have come to loathe about holier-than-thou punditry. I would generally agree that there is much to find darkly humorous about the publicly bumbling nature of the Trump administration, but it is mostly out of self-interest; one must laugh to keep from crying, after all. Moreover, the public bumbling distracts from the ruthlessly effective dismantling of the regulatory state and fundamental reshaping of the federal judiciary that is happening behind the scenes of the Trump administration.
Additionally, the dismissal of Russian interference in this article makes me question whether Mr. Douthat even read the Mueller report, which is far more alarming and damning than it is "fizzling;" I suppose Mr. Douthat is looking for more "pizzazz" than he is legalistic substance.
Mr. Douthat, I generally enjoy your columns, but this one misses the mark. Indeed, it does so in a way that is condescending and pompously out-of-touch in the extreme.
6
Peter Cook had a joke that applies well here. He said that the high point of political satire was during the Weimar Republic era, and they stopped Hitler in his tracks...
But if you are looking for a really good satirical prophesy of our current situation, Mike Judge's "Idiocracy" hits a pretty disturbing bullseye.
Surely you Jest Ross!...and stop calling me Surely!
Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain.
Doctor says, 'Treatment is simple. Great columnist Ross Douthat is in the paper today. Go read his piece. That should pick you up.'
Man bursts into tears. Says, 'But doctor…I am Ross Douthat.'
Good joke. Everybody laugh.
2
This is the most “unfunny” column I have read in quite a while.
5
Great column!
1
This is just another example of how we reason and scream, joke and cajole, laugh and cry, all in service of trying to deal with this presidential nutjob. Is he a hilarious deluded cartoon character, causing only local damage but much black humor, like each of the characters in BAR, or a clear and present danger to the republic? A useful idiot or Blackmailed Putin Stooge? Someday, maybe we will know. Right now, it’s making everyone crazy.
I’m seriously sick and tired of this corrupt vessel. I’m struggling every day with how to laugh about this, as the temperature rises. And it won’t cool down after he is “acquitted” by the Senate.
It is going to take a long long time to repair the damage to the USA caused by this escapade, and it might never be repaired. I hope we’ll all be able to laugh about this in 10 years.
1
Sorry.....remind us why America's mayor, from New York City, is in the Ukraine again?
What's hysterical is people willfully missing the point.
3
But here's the thing Douthat, whenever I watch a Coen Brothers movie, I know it's a farce - usually darkly and disturbingly comic, but I can relax knowing it be all make-believe. Trump isn't make believe - and I can find no humour and certainly no relaxation knowing that he and his enablers are at the helm . . .
8
Kudos to mr Ross Douthat for helping us ,ordinary people, get to the truth behind the comedy: James Comey did sabotage Hillary Clinton's candidacy,unwittingly earning the newly elected president's favours.
It appears that the US Administration running counter spying ,is so bureaucratic and secretive even to its own staff that the Coen brothers barely scratched the surface while seriously probing my funny bone.
All in all ,this op-ed is refreshing and brings back fun memories. In our dark times, it is something to be grateful for.
3
Regarding the Electoral College.
There is nothing in the Constitution that states must implement it as winner take all.
States could award their Electoral College votes proportionally like Maine and Nebraska.
5
America overall does not want representative democracy. She is satisfied with complaining and being told that she has the best ‘system’.
All the laughter doesn't erase the fact what is going on is eroding diplomatic, legislative, constitutional practices that will render less credible our government. I am also sure that Trump obscured by his lack of knowledge and obsessed by his self-absorbtion, does not realize the damage he is doing. And Republicans are happy to help him in his destructive campaign.
1
How could Douthat write a piece comparing "our present situation" with a Coen Bros farce and leave out Rudy Giuliani, or A.G. Barr, or Secretary Pompeo? I suppose he did not have the Giuliani interview story when he wrote this.
190
@Fred Frahm But, when he writes about "self-important dudgeon" and "pompous" and "humorlessness" he may be looking in a mirror.
26
It's easy for Douthat to laugh at Trump's degradation of the political foundations of the United States -- Douthat doesn't even believe in them! Don't take my word for it, though -- just read his column from 12/8/18:
"....if I had the magic wand to conjure a different elite, it would be a multiracial, multilingual Catholic aristocracy ruling from Quebec to Chile."
Yuck it up, Douthat, since you don't believe in representative democracy and church-state separation to begin with. Who cares if the whole system burns? It's a corrupt, non-Catholic, system anyways, so no harm done.
7
Correct, the movie of 2008 was unpredictably prescient. Fools and buffoons may have an undeserved power to affect elections and government policy. But it starts with corruption on one end and a lack of thinking ability on the other. That Trump and his cohorts are constant liars and have less interest in preserving democracy and the Constitution than in promoting their self-interest is evident. And on the other hand we have the Republican voters who are so easily and fully duped by the great scam artist. We are told that most (53%) of Republicans consider Trump a better president than Lincoln. Can you believe how fooling these mortals be?
4
It's one thing to suggest we should poke fun at a national scandal. It's quite another to brush the scandal off as a mere trifle. And it's something entirely worse to shrug off every sin the politicians on your side of the aisle have committed over the last 20 years while wagging a finger at Obama's attempt to address the mess that Bush left for him. Just another example of the new conservative belief: "It's only illegal if a liberal does it." Or to put it in ways Ross may understand, "It's only funny when conservatives do it." Keep on giggling, Ross. I hope you enjoyed the rule of law while it lasted.
8
Ross, of course you would be laughing. What's it to you, a white male surrounded by white males using their power over everyone in their paths to world domination? Ha, ha! How can you possibly suffer from that? Except, of course, what with our ecosystems collapsing, this can't last. Mother nature always wins. Not that this is a contest. Oh wait, according to Trump and his ilk, it actually is. And to the victor belong the spoils.
7
Well it looks like Ross Douthat, for one, bought the line that basically nothing happened at the infamous mtg with Jr, Jared, and the Russians.
5
Go read trump's letter to Nancy Pelosi to get a taste of a more up to date farce.
12
Perhaps it takes a committed Conservative to laugh while the Constitution, democracy and our Republic are flushed down the toilet by the complicit Republicans. To a former U. S. Army officer, it brings tears.
319
@PoliticalGenius I am on balance a progressive and mostly probably a liberal. But I am not an ideologue and I try to judge things on merits in a scientific fashion. I think we NEED 2 good Parties tempering each other and making solutions better via proper contention.
I did serve in military 4 years during war and honor the members past and present who sacrifice to protect us and our ideals. I am empathetic.
What you said is what I feel!!! It brings tears to my eyes too. Thank you for voicing the truth!
We need a real American GOP (I say this as basically a D Party person). We need honest contention! The GOP today is NOT that Party.
GOP is a radicalized cult party bent on transforming American into some version of theocratic authoritarian plutocracy. Truth, justice, and liberal democracy cast asunder. Winning and power trumps all in their mind. They are vicious, cunning, and willfully mendacious.
They have power - and a rabid unquestioning following - I cry for my Country.
47
The whole thing is pathetic for sure, but not something to laugh at. The FBI had to investigate. And Trump’s supporters are as dangerous if not more so than Trump himself.
6
Though there's a sizable gulf between him and me in terms of political leanings and world view, I enjoy reading Douthat's work chiefly because of his rhetorical and stylistic gifts. He's a helluva writer, and until now I could, for the most part, find at least a small parcel of information in columns on which we could both dwell. But this time he has lost me, and my respect. The false equivalency gambit not only doesn't work here, it's downright insulting. And giving Trump a cynical half-pass for not causing more pain, at least in his clearly limited and skewed view, is beyond disingenuous. It's dangerous. This is no joking matter, sir.
9
The great question of our times Ross is, how long do we have to wait for "Trump themed" comedies? Who will play Trump? (please don't say Will Ferrill), who will play Hillary?.....I can hardly wait.
I am sure you wish this was buffoonery and low comedy.
The President of the United States engaged in documented criminal activity and selling out the country isn't funny.
The report is damning all right -- to the President, his supporters, and his apologists. The minor procedural errors they found don't make the investigation credulous or overreaching.
No-one is laughing.
4
I stopped laughing long ago. There is no humor in the current situation, except for an occasional laugh at something stupid 45 has done (again).
5
"And then their investigation, which focuses on a couple of random, comic Trumpworld figures and comes up empty..."
Good job, Douthat, on not actually reading the Mueller report, or following the aftermath of the people that it put in jail.
Former campaign director Manafort is a "random" Trumpworld figure?
Does Douthat so quickly forget the 10 instances of obstruction that Mueller found? And does he not realize that it's entirely possible that the reason no evidence for collusion was found was *because of* those acts of obstruction? (this is usually why people obstruct, and why obstruction is a crime)
Douthat's analysis of how many people Trump's presidency has harmed is almost willfully childish -- so "harm" only happens to people in the present? What about the long-term effects of pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord. Or of shattering our allies' trust in the U.S., and the blow to democracy world-wide that this represents? And what about Trump's emboldening of dictators all over the world? (who literally copy and paste his rhetoric) I'm sure that no harm has come, or will ever come, from any of this.
SO LET'S JUST LAUGH IT UP!
Douthat used to be worth reading, but at this point he really should just starting writing for Fox News.
4
As long as you have so many nihilists LOL their way through political feedback, who buy the endless "anti-establishment" pr tripe that the campaigns source, that just want "liberal tears" and who listen to the cult TV that tells them that the other side's losses are somehow their gains in a democracy, then no, comedy won't fix matters. It's actually time to be far more seriously. They have gamed the system and are laughing at the people who pay the bills. They are nihilist bully crybabies who lack a comprehensive world view and feel that their age (they are mostly old) somehow allows them the right to destroy what the next gens are trying to achieve. Yes, they have craven collaborators. But the founders weren't laughing. We shouldn't either.
3
I have always wondered what happened with the actual citizens when the empires they were living in crumbled. I wonder if the patriots found themselves stuck to concepts and contracts and constitutions and political parties and sank in that same quicksand, and whether more practical people just kept surviving until their descendants found themselves existing within a new empire or nation-state or whatever. Or maybe while the Roman Empire was falling apart, every day looked like just another frame in a film that could only be seen in hindsight.
My mom was born in Poland at the tail end of WW2 around a lot of shifting borders and moved around in her early years, and her family moved around before that out of expediency and survival. My dad was born earlier in the war and his family had various ups and downs in their fortunes. But they all survived and I'm here now, and what are the chances that I keep their culture going here in the US. Immigrants, having the blessing and curse of being outsiders, necessarily take a longer view of history.
Luckily for me, I won't need to substantially update my wardrobe if the USA goes away, but I do hope that the flag-making industry will still be able to survive, because Lord knows, where ever that industry is located could use the jobs.
Sorry Mr. Douthat, like most of the public you have been gaslit into believing the Muller investigation "came up empty." Here are the established facts:
"A total of 272 contacts between Trump’s team and Russia-linked operatives have been identified, including at least 38 meetings. And we know that at least 33 high-ranking campaign officials and Trump advisers were aware of contacts with Russia-linked operatives during the campaign and transition, including Trump himself. None of these contacts were ever reported to the proper authorities. Instead, the Trump team tried to cover up every single one of them."
source:
https://themoscowproject.org/explainers/trumps-russia-cover-up-by-the-numbers-70-contacts-with-russia-linked-operatives/
5
I usually like Douthat's column, but this point was a stunner. How on earth could anyone calculate at this point the amount of human suffering this president is responsible for?
Abroad, seemingly embraces every autocrat and undoubtedly emboldens each of them to commit unspeakable acts of violence and sometimes, genocide.
At home, he cavalierly has been destroying Obamacare and offering nothing to put in its place. As a result, the uninsured and under-insured once again find themselves choosing between food and medicine. Undoubtedly, many are dead because of that ghastly plight. Drinking water standards and other environmental deregulation further endangers human health.
Last but certainly not least, we will probably not know for years how many will die due to the President's complete disregard for climate change and the years lost addressing it due to his intransigence.
6
I prize the meticulously curated urbanity and sophistication of Douthat's columns -- but here he's gone too far to showcase those qualities and done a disservice to the public servants at the FBI whom the IG report said were doing their jobs by opening their counter-intelligence investigation.
3
No, Mr. Douthat, not so funny.
Expecting FBI agents to make every investigative decision with sure-footed accuracy is unreasonable. The real world is a hot mess, as you correctly pointed out. Perps conceal their activities and they lie constantly. Consequently investigators will bounce off a lot of walls and boogie into a lot of dark corners, especially during the initial phases of an investigation when all you have is reasonable suspicion that a crime was committed.
The theory of case method is one effective framework for investigation. Starting out, look at the evidence in hand, form a case theory based on that evidence, then gather evidence in an effort to prove or disprove the initial theory. Unless you’re a wicked smart super genius, your first guess is usually wrong. So, form a new case theory based on all evidence in hand, and continue the process; investigate, evaluate, theorize, investigate, evaluate, theorize (rinse lather repeat :-) until you nail it down. When you do, you’ll know what crime or crimes have been committed and have evidence to prove your case.
Had I been investigating Russia, I would have bet my lunch money and a dozen donuts that the Trumps were in bed with the Russians. Turned out they are such inept bunglers they couldn’t figure out how to collude! Amazing. You’d think a career white collar criminal and con artist would ace collusion with agents of a foreign power. Maybe Mr. Trump isn’t as smart as he thinks he is.
2
I suppose I am going to have to watch the movie again, as the first time I watched it, I re-named it "Burn Before Watching."
While there are a few truths in this column, overall it is sophomoric, the kind of thing I see from oh-too-clever students, who are too lazy to think.
Column aside, it's really hard to get my head around what some people will sacrifice for That Guy, an ignorant, mendacious, oaf. He's the result of what happens when people don't pay attention. If revelation of tax returns were required of every single person who wants to run for office, we wouldn't be here. It reminds me of that old proverb: "For want of a nail . . . a kingdom was lost."
5
I think Late Night TV does a lot of humor about this Administration
to not only help us laugh, but to bring the point home how also very dangerous Trump and the Republicans are.
As far as other Presidents go, the one thing they did not do every day was make me feel that any moment now we can be wiped from the face of this earth or that my freedoms were going to be impinged upon on a day to day basis.
Now every moment I am awake I dread hearing any news coming from the White House. I actually had Trump invade my sleep a couple of times. In my whole life I have never had a dream about a President of the United States.
So Ross, I would prefer comedy to what we have now, which is tragedy every single day.
6
So nobody has been hurt by Trump? The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates at least 1.3 million lost health insurance in the first years of Trump’s presidency. Many other estimates are significantly higher, but the CDC’s estimate is considered the “gold standard” on the issue. Of course, Trump made it his personal crusade to destroy the ACA, so little wonder the number is at least over a million. The numbers are increasing, but nobody knows by how much because the a Trump Administration will not compile the figures, for obvious reasons. Ross, how many of those people died prematurely? How many children suffered with illness and disability? You don’t know, or is it you don’t care?
7
Let’s begin with the obvious. There are no humorous Republicans. The only conservative in the last 10 years who was funny was Christopher Buckley – and he doesn’t support Trump. And no – P.J. O’Rourke and Dennis Miller are witty but they’re not funny.
As for this absurd idea that Democrats have no sense of humor, has this columnist not been reading Alexandra Petri in the (excuse me for mentioning this to NYTimes readers) Washington Post who ahas been the one journalist keeping us sane? Has he not been watching virtually every late night comedian? Has he not been watching SNL or Randy Rainbow? Did he never watch any episodes of Veep?
That’s the whole problem. We have a President who thinks insults are the highest form or humor. Can you imagine McConnell, Graham, Romney, Collins, etc. telling a joke?
We Democrats get it. We understand George Bernard Shaw’s “Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.” We understand William Penn’s line – “Where wisdom has wit to express it, now there’ the best orator.” We’ve read Mark Twain, enjoyed Nora Ephron.
With all due respect, it is the fact that Democrats have a sense of humor that has kept us from complete depression.
Democrats have no sense of humor. LOL.
8
Bravo!!!
1
What a great synopsis! But unsophisticated corrupt practices of our political and media worlds surely didn't begin with this administration. After all, J. Edgar Hoover was the FBI director for 48 years.
3
You refer to the human tragedies that occurred under the Bush and Obama presidencies and suggest that fewer have occurred under Trump. Apparently, you are dismissing as unimportant Trump's craven abandonment of the Kurds in Northern Syria. We may never exactly know the human toll of Trump's folly--which has strengthened the hand of three of the most vicious autocrats around--Erdogen, Putin, and Assad. We should include not only the Kurds (including non-combatant women and children), but future residents of Syria and Turkey who will suffer the long-term effects of Trump's policies.
6
The "Russian dirt peddling" was done via a fake Russian dossier full of lies that was paid for by the DNC and HRC and used to get FISA warrants to spy on Trump's campaign. They never thought that they would get caught because they were trying their best to take out Trump so HRC would win. Biggest scandal in US history. The texts between Lisa Page and Strozk say it all "Trump won't be elected will he?" "No , No we'll stop it." says Strozk.
1
@P McGrath Forget that Ivanka Trump was friends with Christopher Steele for many years and that the Republicans were the ones who originally sought help from Fusion GPS. Why let those pesky facts get in the way of some sweet Donnie Kool Aid, right?
1
On the same day, Mr. Webster, the only individual to head both the CIA and the FBI, expressed a radically different opinion in Mr. Douthat's newspaper, the Times. It seems we have a choice: we can believe Mr. Webster or Mr. Douthat on the degree of the threat Trump poses to the republic.
6
I've tried to laugh and comfort myself with the thought that several billion years from now our sun will burn out no matter what humans do and humans probably won't exist at that time anyway. But it doesn't completely work. Not when I think of the rise of White Nationalism. Not when I think of the chants of "Jews will not replace us." So mostly I despair for my country, not due to politics which always has the element of farce, but when I think of the many racists, misogynists, homophobes, anti-Semites, and ignorant science deniers, who are my fellow citizens.
8
Could not disagree more with Ross but to imply Trump and his incompetent minions have caused less tragedy than his predecessors is simply ignorant. Explain that to the millions who will be displaced as the seas rise. Is Trump solely responsible? No. But his false statements and dangerous policies will go down as an indictment on his failure of leadership, if not worse.
4
Call me humorless (I'm not), but I have seen little to amuse me ever since the buffoon walked down those stairs in front of paid "supporters", to announce his candidacy four years ago last May. Farce, when it's real and happening in real time is as dangerous as it is funny when it's as art.
What I'm even more leery of is a "Wag the Dog" scenario. I would put nothing past this horrible man, even starting a war, if he thought he would benefit from it.
5
@TRA Not to worry. When Donnie causes the next GOP recession or starts the next GOP war, people will be screaming for the Democrats to save them, just like they did when they elected Clinton to correct the mess of Reagan/Bush and Obama to fix the disaster that was George W. Bush. The voters will then reward the Democrats by voting for Republicans who will proceed to undo the fixes Democrats implemented, causing yet another mess for Democrats to fix. Lather, rinse, repeat! We've seen this movie before and it's playing out now. If real lives weren't hanging in the balance, the real comedy would be the shortsightedness of the American voter, not Donnie Trump's criminality.
1
What did we learn, Palmer?
2
Mr. Douthat seems content to simply minimize the severe damage Trump has caused this nation and the world. Future generations will not be laughing with Mr. Douthat: they look back and see the actions of such a pathological liar and corrupt self-seeking man as Trump received only a very tepid moral outrage in response to his odious time in office. And worse Republicans stood by him.
5
And you yourself are now part of that same league, although I Doubtthat you can see it.
4
Cheers to this. It's impossible to not see the humor in this political climate. We just have to take a step back and appreciate the soap opera that we are subject to everyday. I'd pay to see Clooney as Steele and Arnett as Donnie Jr.
Thank you for the laugh.
1
I love the way Ross glosses over the worst of Trump. In passing he says, "Trump has indeed hurt vulnerable people." You think? And he completely ignores the handiwork of George W. Bush by saying "I don't just mean to reference George W. Bush and the Iraq war." No, Ross focuses instead on the 1,500 soldiers who died in Afghanistan. I would love to see all the columns by Douthat in which he stated his objection to our involvement there.
Any government administration could be made to look foolish in retrospect. Of course they could defend themselves, unlike Ross' one sided "humorous" take here.
One thing that is most striking on this take by Ross that Trump is essentially harmless is his overlooking the damage that Trump is doing to our environment. Trump has worked to make global warming worse and has created an EPA that has deregulated polluters making our environment less clean. Neither are laughing matters.
4
In the movie, the character Ozzie Cox wears a bow tie, sails on the Chesapeake and is a Princeton alum. His father worked in the State Department.
I saw the movie when it first came out and thought it was quite good, with scenes and characters that, in the future, are triggered into memory and reflection. This was before the Trump era.
3
Some people appear to be making Douthat's point by missing his point. In his concluding paragraph, isn't he saying that what's funny about the Left is that it has steeled itself against self-reflection? Everyone can see that about the Left except the Left. Douthat is asking the Left to be seriously self-critical, and the ensuing obliviousness is comical.
During the first five sixths of 2016, the media were borne along on a chorus of "the right side of history." Then when history itself turned out not to be on the right side of history -- silence. Only lately does the Left begin to wonder if history can carry a tune, much less an ideological side. But what the Left steadfastly refuses to contemplate is whether it was wrong not only about history's capacity for self-navigation, but about the destination it had supposed history had had in mind. There are some sound alternatives to the future envisaged by John Lennon's "Imagine." They are no laughing matter.
5
@Gary
Not sure what the Left being self-reflective means when the right is not self reflective but quite the opposite. They see the reflection, and they have no problem with it.
In our current times, the Right has had its members indicted 37 times, and 7 members have spent time in jail. These are members of the Right. This is ongoing...so there will be more.
So again, if I have to be self reflective, ok.....but things are wickedly off balance when members of the Right are seeing things as..."Get over it"
5
@M
Huh, no evidence of self-reflection in your reply. See what I mean?
Ross, to call it "amoral political buffoonery" is not to see the trees and not the forest. Right wing populism is on the rise in many places around the world. That trump behaves like a clown or a buffoon has provided cover, intentionally or not, for dark forces to become more and more entrenched, and emboldened. This era is one in which the 'Russia Investigation" is but one event juxtaposed with a series of concerted action to distract, erode, normalize. There is wholesale abdication of the checks and balances of government by almost the entire Republican party.
If laughter is an ally, then the rationale must be linked to something demonstrably helpful to counteract these trends or bring people together. Maybe it's only a good laugh to provide relief and help keep up the fight. What's the plan ?
5
I like Douthat's take on the FBI. What we boomers too often forget is that law enforcement attracts more power-hungry bullies than self-sacrificing saints. We knew better in the 60s.
3
I haven't seen the film but, yeah, it definitely sounds like what we've got right now, doesn't it?
Embarrassing... and tragic.
1
I have lost count of the Trump advisors and employees who have been convicted or are in jail -- Manafort, Cohen, Gates, Flynn, the Guiliani "clients"...etc. How exactly do these criminals fit into the narrative Ross attempts to spin here of farce and incompetence?
6
@philiphdc
37 indictments so far....7 have spent jail time.
Indictments used to be a serious thing....the Right is trying to normalize that.
2
@philiphdc
Exactly.
@M Years ago, the right also claimed to be for "law and order" and "family values". These days? Not so much.
Doubthat argues that "anti-Trumpists might be a touch more effective if they could recognize how humorlessness and constant self-important dudgeon frequently helps the Trumpian cause."
Doubthat makes the case we through unintentional folly we stumbled into the following scenario: ".... one squalid and corrupt but the other pompous, insufferable and paranoid in its own self-important way."
Well okay! They win! It's all been one big comedy of cover-up missteps. So, who shall we vote for: one squalid and corrupt, or, the pompous, insufferable and paranoid and self-important, or all the above?
1
Should we laugh at every lying Republican in congress, dutifully trying to blur the clear lines of fact and ignore the rule of law to serve an unqualified egomaniac? Should we laugh through every proudly lying, racist, misogynist pronouncement he makes, every Earth saving measure he lifts from our laws and every child he puts in a cage on the border?
This is not a movie, however much our reality TV star President and so many of his fans would like it to be. Russian interference in our election wasn’t a hoax, no matter how many times right wing media companies say it was. Facts are not the products of the most affective PR campaign.
We can laugh ourselves right into the cages of a dictatorship.
5
The mental gymnastics performed by conservatives like Douthat are the real farce here
I understand you are desperate to return to a world in which your tribe has some level of mainstream credibility among your elite peers. That time has passed, as the American right has become a political movement built on bigotry, cruelty, and stupidity.
Trump may seem like an outlier because of his behavior that is extremely unconventional by political standards. But he is the true face of American conservatism. The cult that supports him are the very same racists and fools that have been carefully groomed by the Republican Party since the southern strategy. These people have always been here, and they’ve always been the conservative base.
American conservatives would rather Putin pick our president than the popular vote.
8
Ha ha ha...let's just enjoy the comedy and ignore all the damage to our institutions, the generation- or longer- lasting tilt of the federal judiciary to the extreme right, the brain drain from the state dept, the destruction of the international order, the gratuitous undermining of our intelligence and defense establishment, the utter incompetence and malevolence of those who continue to "govern," etc. And, Ross, let's keep up with the false equivalence approach to everything, so nobody actually notices that this isn't just entertainment and that things actually have changed fundamentally. Plenty of time to cry later when the bill comes due.
7
"here Don Jr. shows up expecting a big intel deal and instead gets a lecture on Russian adoptions while Jared Kushner tunes out and checks his phone"
Ross, even you can't believe that the Trump tower meeting was really about Russian adoptions.
5
So in the Republican fable we are now told at the knee of our Mr Dothat, the bunglers in chief are those foolish high minded Dems with no tech savvy, and a former g-man who never should have been appointed in the first place, who is an equal opportunity offender. And we are all just meant to have a better sense of humor about everything, we insufferable sorts. Let's all just leave it to the adults in the room, Mitch McConnell , Rudy Giuliani, and take your pick; that barrel of laughs Rick Perry or maybe the Prez himself Mr Isolation.
What we worry?
9
This is classic Douthat. First acknowledge the incompetence and moral depravity of the GOP and their spawn, President Trump, and then, by some sort of twisted logic clearly driven by the desire for self justification, try to make the case that the "left" or the Democrats are somehow also at fault, and by association in this argument, somehow comparably so. And what's more, suggesting that the opposition to Trump is somehow humorless and self serious is utterly ridiculous, as the nonstop drumbeat of ridicule, usually extremely hilarious and well done, from several different nighttime television shows, has in some ways constituted the most effective counter point to the GOP party line. No Ross - we are not buying your standard false equivalence and your grotesquely distorted recasting of reality.
12
Hey, maybe tomorrow we can equate the villains of "It's a Wonderful Life" and "To Kill a Mockingbird" to the DT. And I'll bet Ms. Dowd has recognized already a resemblance between Cruella DeVille and the pussy-bow-wearing Melania.
1
@Dan
Yes, Trump loyalists all know Trump is much better than Lincoln, so so much smarter than everybody else, and a totally self-made man who hardly ever got any financial help from his super rich father.
2
The cruelty purposefully and cruelly inflicted upon the children who were torn from their parents at the border and caged is not funny. Mr. Douthat, a devout Catholic, should understand this better than most. I assume he does not mention it in his exposition of whataboutism because there is no handy example to compare it to
5
I always knew Douthat was one of the more sensitive intelligent articulate conservatives, but I didn't realize he was at heart, just as cynical and the worst of them. The scales have fallen from my eyes today.
4
Trump is "unfit to serve", but we should lighten up?
No, let us instead remain dead serious about our governance.
Nice try, Mr D.
6
I'm not laughing. This administration might be incompetent but it is also cruel in the extreme, and it admires other cruel bullies. There is nothing funny about any of that. You should know better as a Catholic than to make light of such evil.
6
We have our own constitution and our own system of government and for all intents and purposes the things of most importance to Canadians are under the purview of our provincial governments.
I have been watching the evolution of Quebec and the devolution of America for over 70 years and all I can say about America is that it reminds me of the old Bee Gees song; I started a joke that started the whole world crying.
I know my history especially 18th and 19th century British and American history and I don't know of any moment in history that approaches this breakdown in society like the schism in Robert Peel's Tory party before the eradication of the two million Irish souls in the Irish Starvation where over a million perished and over a million were expelled to the squalor of the new Industrial cities.
Ireland had more than enough food, its economy was based on food export and the time of the potato blight food exports boomed and every year saw more food exported than what was needed to feed all of Ireland's hungry for the five years of the blight.
The British Prime Minister Peel wanted the hungry fed and he didn't care whether the food was grown in Ireland or came from all the countries that were sending food to feed Ireland's hungry.
The laws were written by and for Ireland's land owners and with the new The Economist leading the cheering neoliberalism and enlightened self interest Peel's Tories split and Lord John Russell's Whigs oversaw the economic genocide.
Comedy?
1
@Montreal Moe
I am not amused, most of my 71 years the USA has had the capacities to destroy the planet's ability to sustain life but it never seemed intent on felo de se. America no longer works and with social, and philosophical difference so profound I would have thought someone might realize there really is no such country.
Now seeing that vilification and hatred is what moves far too many American citizens I would have thought the realization that the world cannot afford its mightiest nation to have moved from dysfunction to nonfunctional. Why you would have given up on the politics of one size fits all and shopped for a nation or nations that fit their citizens and the world is baffling given your wealth of real intellectual talent.
Nothing says this better than medicare for all, healthcare is a right or it isn't.
Nonfunctional government may be OK for Freedonia, or even Canada but a nonfunctional USA with its oversight responsibilities is not a joke. Trump is not a joke. A nonthinking GOP is not a joke and a deep state that no longer controls dysfunction is not a joke. The fate of this world in the hands of Louie Gohmert and friends is not a joke.
4
@Montreal Moe
Very well said. Thanks for contributing.
1
@TRA
Thank you,
I was in my mid fifties and living in Chicago when I first taught myself to write. I started by writing comments to the NYT. It is part of a routine I have for an inability to have a routine.
I love many people in the USA and in the world and I have said since Reagan Denial doesn't always end up in the Mediterranean.
Metaphysics always takes us back to first principles sometimes going back to first principle shows us where we took the wrong road.
Obama was a neighbour and our State Senator and always had our support but when the debate over healthcare began I asked if healthcare was a right or a privilege. America began with self evident truths and rights, it was a response to privilege.
1
There is NOTHING FUNNY about Trump. It was a fateful and foolish mistake for the media and politicians to make entertainment out of what is a very grave and solemn situation. This normalization of Trump has been a real problem. When did it become OK to condone making light out of criminal corruption, blatant lies, and abuse of power? We were warned after this disaster of an election not to normalize this "president," but that’s exactly what has happened. You can call me “pompous” and "stone hearted” if you want, but I fail to see the humor in the rise of authoritarian right wing extremism, either now or at any time in the future.
I would also point out the author’s comment that "this administration is arguably responsible for fewer human tragedies so far than more high-minded, less personally degraded presidencies,” does not take into account the acceleration of climate change the reversal of environmental protections as being a factor in human tragedy. I think those whose lives have been devastated by fires, floods and famine might disagree. You may not have seen the worst results of the destruction of the planet’s functioning systems yet, but believe me, what’s coming down the pike will not be any laughing matter.
10
bad take, but sublime casting choices, I must admit
1
Keep laughing through the trump era. Guess who will have the last laugh in November 2020 presidential election. All those with Trump derangement syndrome will be crying like children who do not get what they want.
4
@Girish Kotwal And who got the last laugh in 2018 and 2019? How did those elections go for you guys, by the way?
There are some Trumpisms that are actually funny. Some of my favorites are"windmills cause cancer", " I know more than the generals", or "I am a stable genius." Harmless and stupid.
And I like dark comedy (Prizzi's Honor) except when it's reality and then nothing is funny-like now.
5
NOT normal. NOT acceptable. NOT moral. NOT lawful. NOT democratic. NOT humane.
I’m sorry you’ve run out of ways to attempt to deal with what has happened to your party but you don’t get the right to justify what is happening not attempt to sweep it under the carpet. We are all going to suffer for generations to come due to the rejection of all of these which have been grossly violated.
And to think we all used to get under our desks and get in an eggshell posture to practice our response to Russian invasion. Now that’s funny! All they needed to do was waltz right in the front door of the WH... who knew?!
7
Ross, spare us your self-justifying nonsense. Yes, some of the leads in the investigation turned out to be false. Others were unverifiable. Still others did uncover extensive contacts. And there was malfeasance that were not uncovered in the inquiry - think of the Trump Tower meeting. It was indeed a bit farcical, but it also included all of the campaign’s senior officials. They provided the farce, and incompetence does not excuse malfeasance (though that is a stout plank of “mainstream” Republican defense). And that’s ignoring Stone and Wikileaks - if that’s not collusion the word has no meaning.
Rather, I would suggest you look inward. You were part of a party that gave us Trump and set in motion the disastrous trends that put him there (white resentment, misinformation, etc.). Your consistent attempts to blame liberal overreach may help you sleep at night, but they are as tired as any Fox News screed that make “responsible” conservatives blanche.
As Americans we all bear varying degrees of responsibility for Trump and the state of our country. I believe conservatives like you bear a disproportionate share for winking at, or at best ignoring, hatred in your party. I suggest you examine yourself and ask forgiveness before writing another snarky, empty column.
3
Interesting take that I tend to agree with. It reminds me of a saying that went something like, "When things get desperate, it is time to get playful." I have seen this strategy deployed with devastating effect..
Excellent article with just the right doses of satire. Laughter is indeed necessary to survive these strenous times, without it we could quickly find ourselves in the darkness of depression, brought about by a sense of helplessness and denial because we have to wait until January 2021 to escape the present chaos.
1
Let's see if Mr. Douthat can write a column like this in three or
four years after Trump gets elected in 2020. Don't laugh.
3
The center-left and the center-right have both shown their incapacity and unwillingness to deal honestly with reality. Putting them back in power will restore the gridlock of the Obama years or the follies of the dubya years. Income inequalities will continue to grow as the center factions argue about how much to slow the growth and how to do it. The weather will become increasingly erratic, giving some too much rain and some too little, and actions against climate change (like everything else) will continue to be ways for insiders to make money.
Bernie and Elizabeth are willing to cut the center factions down to size, but the center factions will respond by arranging for the economy to shrink and blaming the shrinkage on the lefties who are crippling the free enterprise of our current oligarchy. So we are left with Trump and the victory of the inside deal in which politics becomes a spectacle staged by insiders to entertain and distract the rest of us.
Meanwhile there are too many people in the world, and many of them will try to escape unlivable conditions by sneaking into here and Europe. Trump will keep them out of this country, and the unlivable conditions they are seeking to escape will kill them. The depressing story will be available, but relief will be only a click away.
The Mueller Report fizzled because Barr lied about it and journalists like Mr. Douthat dutifully repeated those lies. Anyone who actually read the report -- a group that excludes most of the American people -- knows that there was plenty of direct evidence of the Trump campaign's cooperation with the Russians, and strong circumstantial evidence that actual coordination was going on (Manafort supplying campaign research to Putin's henchman, the suspiciously convenient timing of the Wikileaks drops, etc.) And the president's guilty-as-hell behavior once he learned of the investigation, demonstrated by his firing of Comey and other repeated attempts to obstruct justice, were felonies in and of themselves. Here, Mr. Douthat plays his usual game -- appear reasonable, even anti-Trumpist, while spreading GOP propaganda.
14
The complete destruction of America's rule of law, our democracy and our free and fair elections by the extreme rightwing including Trump, McConnell, Graham, Jordan, Kavanaugh, Thomas, Bannon, Miller and others is not the least bit funny, Ross. You would do well to pay better attention. This is no movie.
6
The Russians "don't particularly want" contact with the Trump clowns? Really? that's why they sent Velnitskaya to meet with Dumb and Dumber at Dump Tower? That's why they had Maria Butina slinking around the NRA? And all the Russians indicted by Mueller? These are just the kind of elisions that Douthat and Brooks do time after time to posit a kind of "equivalence." Democrats bumble and screw up, too: but they haven't yet managed the kind of corruption and venality of the Republican party from, say, Gingrich to the present miserable moment.
8
I am just amazed by how brilliantly conservatives pursue their propaganda. It goes way beyond untruths and verbal sleight-of-hand. In this case, republicans have taken a system (FISA) whose brokenness has been well known for twenty years, and has manipulated its shortcomings into the appearance of political bias and even treason. Brilliant! The ACLU has fought FISA's potential for mistakes since nearly 2001- especially in 2012's Supreme Court case). They have done this primarily because the procedures have violated citizens' privacy - especially those of minorities. Someone in Trumpland must have said "I know: lets use the typical FISA errors to make this look like a deep-state." (In truth, we don't even know if the typical FISA case has more or fewer errors than those 17 so-called "treasonous" ones in the Trump investigation. Equally brilliant is this piece's attempt to normalize the whole situation by denying the evidence and comparing it to a film comedy. Lets all just laugh it off and go back to sleep until after 2020.
4
Exactly and the blame rests on the Electoral College of our dear Constitution.
me douthat...I do not disagree with the premise that this administration and many of the major characters in the investigations are buffoons. yet, paul manafort was involved in the campaign and was clearly entangled with the Russian kleptocracy. Yet, clearly almost every move that Donald Trump makes benefits Putin's goals. And while the best part of the current administration is how inept it is, it is still doing real and serious damage to american democratic institutions, and real damage to our global standing and ability to impact world events. hard to laugh about the forces that it has unleashed
The Coen brothers film Burn After Reading and politics and economics in the U.S. in the Trump era?
I think the Coen brothers expressed quite well hopes, fears and thoughts of average Americans with respect to politics and economics in the U.S. for decades now not to mention in the Trump era. It's utterly confounding when Americans live and hear this dual narrative of the U.S. 1) It is possible to understand government and economy, and so much so that you can have a Bush senior or junior or Clinton or wife of Clinton or Obama and even Trump in the White House and still America goes on. 2) Just try as an average citizen to make sense of all the bureaucracy, secrecy, law/business jargon of it all and tell me you don't come to the conclusion that you must be either stupid or nobody really understands what's going on, and certainly George Bush and Trump and probably all the rest back to Kennedy can't possibly be all that bright, and certainly not so obviously brighter than the Coen brothers themselves who by making their film unconsciously admitted they themselves feel stupid before it all or they probably would have made a film which actually explains things to us...
In fact directly ask the Coen brothers if they have ever understood U.S. government, politics, economics, and how they conclude the constant officials and Presidents know any better...I think the whole show is meant to be baffling, to benefit an inside group of Americans, or it's not understood by anybody at all.
1
Ross, your statement "his administration is arguably responsible for fewer human tragedies so far than more high-minded, less personally degraded presidencies." is an illustration of the second-story phenomenon. A man leaps off the roof of a tall building and as he passes a window on the second story, a person in the building calls out "How's it going" and the falling man replies, "So far so good!"
Trump, his co-conspirators and his enablers in Congress are gutting the federal government. They are destroying a generation's worth of expertise in the name of "deconstructing the administrative state". When Trump is gone, we will be left with half-empty departments, many with senior officials how are not only incompetent and unqualified, but openly hostile to the missions of their departments.
Trump is also reversing 60 years worth of progress in protecting the environment from industrial contamination and has done everything in his power to defeat any attempts to stop climate change, while at the same time, rejecting alternative energy.
Surely, prior presidents, both Democratic and Republican have made mistakes and embarked on ill-fated international policies. But Obama's military misadventure in the Middle East pales before the scope of calamity looming beyond Trump's reign of ignorance and cruelty which could adversely affect everyone on the planet.
6
When I think of the future of this country, where it relates to film satire, it is ‘Idiotocrasy’, where two rather dim people are transported to the future where they are the smartest people around and looked upon with suspicion. It is pretty clear to me that one party in this country wants to dumb down the population in order to slip past that population all sorts of corruption and use misinformation and lies to keep their power. Trump uses spectacle to get his followers all excited and worked up (it’s a drug for him, all that negative energy that he feeds off of). In return they believe his lies and half baked conspiracy theories and the news channel they listen to is almost exclusively FOX news, I doubt any of these people get their ‘news’ from any other source such as reading. Or they are online looking at conspiracy websites.
In these times of sheer stupidity, humor helps. My husband works for the EPA, so we know all about dark humor where it relates to this country, fortunately, he is retiring in 2 years. Now the Brits’ have their own version of Trump in Johnson and may be finding out the hard way when chaos comes to town. It will be interesting to see what happens. 11/2020 can’t get here soon enough.
1
Douthat has hit a new low. He has always supported Trump while clucking his tongue at Trump's behavior and policies. Now, he is actually laughing out loud at Trump's "high crimes and misdemeanors" and mocking those who think the Constitution is not just an old piece of parchment. Meanwhile, with his holier than the Pope Catholic piety, Douthat always writes about the moral high ground and conservative values. I guess that's a joke, too.
9
There has been real damage. Withdrawing from the Paris accord instead of stepping up and leading green house gas reduction.
Ending DACA without comprehensive immigration reform.
Eliminating ACA without any idea of how to go aoput healthcare reform
Ending the Iran nuclear agreement even though Iran was in compliance.
Ham handed China tariffs rather than the skill and finesse of TPP.
Putting blatant racism in the White House and placating White Supremacy
Coarsening the public discourse and further dividing the country.
Putting personal politics above the good of the country
And etc. Ha ha ha.
3
The problem is not that Donald Trump is trying to sell out this country for his own ambition, it's the humorless of the libs. Wasn't this the same argument that was trotted out against feminists?
4
For those who can't seem to find all that much humor in our present circumstances, I recommend "It Can't Happen Here" by Sinclair Lewis.
Considering the byline, I should have known better than to think the moronic behavior you referred to was the shadow diplomacy practiced by Giuliani et al, 8n which he's at last connected the final dots by stating unequivocally that Trump knew he was in Ukraine months ago and why. Will the Senate Republicans really continue to try to sell to the entire world the idea that Trump was concerned about corruption or will they stop trying to sell the Trumperor's invisible outfit to the public and acknowledge that this was really about Rick Perry's deal? How long will they be able to deny what's in plain sight?
1
This opinion writer is doing exactly what the president does daily by inciting us with his next ridiculous thought bomb.
The luxury of finding humor in unexpected places, like the Oval Office, or on a catholic church pew is not possible, today.
3
I agree that laughter is important in even the darkest times but I didn't find this column funny It made me upset. The new normal accounting of our Presidents?? Baloney!! Of course other administrations did really bad things, but Trump and his enablers, are churning the hate that has long simmered in this country and destroying our environment. Look what his incompetency did in Syria. Our soldiers are more at risk because of the instability around the world..Is North Korea less of a threat because Trump gets beautiful letters?? UGH
1
While I soberly reflect on William Webster's op-ed in yesterday's NYT, and your concern about the farce that is the FBI's bungling, I am reminded of times past. Ever since Hoover created an image of self-righteous do gooding, compiling dossiers on all and sundry while wearing his favorite dress the FBI has been attempting to belie that image, but mostly falls short.
Why a friend of mine, a Black activist, loved to tout his Caucasian bona fides displaying his FBI dossier, obtained through a Freedom of Information request, which clearly stated that this white man had pictures of known radicals on his walls, which they apparently saw during an illegal break-in.
Mr. Douthat, you do not need the movies to find ways to criticize the history of our own semi-secret police.
1
Ross- thanks for the tie to a forgotten, memorable, prescient film. The Coen's mine the fascinating veins of this scrabbled country.
Excellent article! Mr. Douthat: I'm so glad you've grown past your past earnestness.
1
As a last resort in facing down a lifetime of supporting political pigs, I guess laughing it off is attractive - to the one trying to face it down, anyway. The rest of us are not amused by the threat to the United States posed by this rogue administration and the Republican leader in the Senate, who have no loyalty to the Constitution or the US as we have known it since 1789. Have a nice chuckle, Mr. Douthat.
I can just see this author Douthat compare this president to Dr. Strangelove as a nuclear weapon is deployed from the Oval Office.
Mitch McConnell describes it as "desperate" actions to "guilty".
Take your pick, humorous is just as idiotic as desperate a term to use to describe the hardships Americans and their families all over the world are experiencing from this global shift to what amounts to George Wallace running the most powerful military of state on the planet.
We as a nation are desperate to get this president away from nuclear military action, and it isn't funny.
3
Demonization of half the country. Abandoning allies in favor of dictators. Kids in cages. The destruction of the environment. The normalization of the Big Lie.
But Mr Douthat says we should all relax and have a chuckle.
Now THAT is hilarious.
2
I actually just finished up an emotional meal with Putin. I cannot count how many times I said, what is it, bud? C'mon, it's just you and me here. What's getting at you, Poot? Long story short, the whole election scam was a passive aggressive way for a deeply sensitive man to reveal his true but desperately repressed desire to go legit and, to yes, influence elections in the US, but not as a meddler but as a citizen. He wants a proud day when he can drop off his ballot, watch and make sure they put it in the box. The aid to the Trump campaign was to hopefully improve Trump's opinion of foreigners and encourage Trump to accept immigrants from all countries, even from the Kremlin. I said, hey, bud, look at that, now it's all okay, huh? And then he said, I never like War and Peace. I pretend to read it but really dreaming about American film, Grease.
1
Mr. Douthat's joke is about as funny as telling jokes about concentration camps. I am sure there were plenty of Nazis who joked about that too, in order to get through the ugliness of those times. There is nothing funny about what happened then, and there is nothing funny about what is happening now. Humor has a time and place, but making fun of Russia interference in our election is not a laughing matter. Putin has a right to laugh about it, but I can't find anything funny about what has happened recently.
3
I think you have to have serious plutocratic tendencies to find this all that amusing. BTW the very lame attempt to equate Obama with G, W. Bush gives your game away.
3
Save impeachment, ridicule may well be the most potent weapon against Trump himself. That doesn't mean the Trump presidency is amusing.
Ross writes as if we share more than we do. So are we laughing about the same things. Ross for example is actually thrilled at Gorsuch and Kavanaugh being on the Supine Court. He approves of the misery they will very likely both justify and help unleash. So his fears are different than my own. He quotes Oscar Wilde but he certainly would want to put extreme constraints on Wilde if he were alive today. So is Ross laughing with him or at him?
4
.As Ross Douhat points out, it's not the plot lines that are funny, It's the participants bumbling through it that can be perceived as humorous. They advance a story by each doing their part without the understanding of how it fits together. Some like Comey, self- righteous, never saw what he did to Clinton as anything but being fair. The Trump kids and their participants operated on a day trade basis. Now enter people with a long view. MoscowMitch and his Democratic adversaries looking to the next election and beyond. This act is written. We should worry that the cast isn't up to a better act two. Trump sells trinkets in the lobby, he doesn't care what would happen if something goes wrong.
1
The balance of comedy and tragedy or horror in this situation will only shake out once we fully understand what Putin's mysterious hold on this president is. From changing the GOP platform on Crimea, to "Russia, if you're listening," to Jared Kushner's attempted backchannel, to secret conversations with Putin without transcripts, to telling Russian foreign ministers top-secret information in the Oval Office, to holding up Ukrainian military aid, to abandoning the Kurds, Trump has been the most valuable asset Russia could have asked for in American government. Pundits like Douthat have decided there was noting to this issue ever since Barr's disingenuous "summary" of the Mueller Report. If in time the truth turns out not to be so humorous, can we expect a mea culpa from those with powerful media platforms who may have turned a blind eye to treason?
1
Humor as a response? It's much healthier than the certainty of catastrophe that fills the daily thinking of many Democrats and those who align with them.
1
It would be funny if it weren't for the scars left on children from Trumps lying and bullying. It would be funny if it weren't for the years lost to the climate change fight. It would be funny if not for our allies who have been repeatedly stabbed in the back by Trump. It would be funny if the irreparable damage caused by the tax cuts in promoting inequality at the expense of the middle class and poor. It would be funny if not for the damage caused to our intelligence agencies by the constant beratement Trump has given them. It would be funny, but its not.
3
Mr. Douthat:
Find me some humor in what Mitch McConnell said today about conducting a trial without witnesses.
10
Mostly good points, Ross, but the FBI investigation did contribute to conviction of quite a number of Trump campaign aides. At least they are not laughing.
2
" ... the Mueller report fizzle ... "
Sounds like Mr. Douthat is buying Mr. Barr's phony summary of the Mueller report. In fact, "The report describes ten episodes where Trump could have obstructed justice while president and one before he was elected, noting that he privately tried to 'control the investigation'. The report further states that Congress can decide whether Trump obstructed justice and take action accordingly, referencing impeachment." Hardly a "fizzle".
12
In 1911, George Santayana made the following observation before a California audience:
. . .when Mark Twain says, "I was born of poor but dishonest parents," the humor depends on the parody of the genteel Anglo-Saxon convention that it is disreputable to be poor; but to hint at the hollowness of it would not be amusing if it did not remain at bottom one's habitual conviction.
Douthat points to ridiculous aspects of the characters in the Russia drama, and thinks something funny could be made of the mess in the right hands, but doesn't summon the wit to actually give us something to laugh about. I don't sense that those of us who abhor Trumpism feel any hollowness in our conviction.
6
With the conviction of Roger Stone, spinning that the FBI was keystone cop-like is disingenuous. The story is not yet complete, the facts are still coming in, many of the witnesses have lied or are staying quiet. Most of the Steele Dossier has been proven true.
3
A recent poll says that more Americans do not want Trump impeached than do. I read other headlines that suggest that impeachment is losing support. Trials can be tedious, but should we allow an individual proven to be drunk driving when he barely avoided a major collision to walk because some of the citizens like the drunk driver and others found the trial boring. Should we give the prosecutors and the jury a pass if they hold a sham trial and let the perpetrator off the hook, irrespective of the rule of law?
Ross Douthat is on to one thing, though. We too often view our government and its elected politicians as entertainers. We have learned to watch news shows that discuss the politics of everything in entertainment terms, irrespective of the gravity of the subject matter being politicked. Devoid of discussion about the ultimate impact on all of us.
Where does this leave us? I guess that when critically important, impactful things happen, we will not even know because we are too busy trying to figure out how it can be made entertaining. We take for granted our civic role in all of this, relegating ourselves to the role of a mere audience member here for the entertainment by the horror or the comedy of it all.
Civic responsibility, journalistic integrity, truthful public service, nation before party, are all tiresome, non-sexy, mundane requirements that, if ignored, will be exploited by some to destroy a functioning republic. Not funny, but true.
2
I take comfort in knowing that, if and when a true crisis hits this Republic, the buffoons of the present will be quickly swept away. And by necessity a class of serious professionals must again arise to take charge. As it has been oft said....peacetime generals make terrible wartime generals...and vice versa.
None of this has been very funny. My feeling is one of great sadness that such mediocre and incompetent people actually run this country , on both sides of the political spectrum. If you need any proof of the incompetence of all these people just read the WaPo story on Afghanistan and then try to identify somebody in power who is intelligent.
4
@Abbott Hall Also not very funny that we have opinions in the NY Times like this today that isn't based on truth or reality.
1
Great column Mr. Doutthat. I have been laughing while crying, and occasionally while vomiting for the last two years.
Most of the time the laughing and regurgitation is a reaction to the increasingly bizarre behavior of the President and the den of incompetents that surround him.
However, the fact that during the term of this loon, the economy is strong, unemployment is at all time lows, unending wars are being ended, and at least some effort is being made to deal with illegal immigration confuses me and I laugh at the irony.
Finally, I am laughing and gagging as I watch Socialist charlatans
preach that they can maintain the country with zero carbon output, provide free medical care for all, free college for all, and create an American utopia, while raising the national deficit into the stratosphere.
I am ready to laugh at comedies and take politics seriously again.
Trump should be removed from office in 2020 by an election of the people and a moderate Democrat will get my vote. No more loons on the right or the left please.
4
Although I do laugh at Colbert's monologue about Trump, I wonder if all the thousands of dead soldiers and civilians would find humor in the situation. How many soldiers would find funny how fruitless their sacrifices were. I've grown up in the Viet Nam era and lived through the other phony wars also. I like this country, but would not give my life up for it. These feelings were reinforced again and again when we find out what a waste they were through the lies were given...
2
Ahh Ross, how is it that someone who actually seems to believe that there is a God in Heaven can make me laugh out loud so frequently? Great work once again. Can't wait to watch the film. Love The Argument. Write on!
Mr. Douthat is, as usual, and as the English say, too clever by half. Too conflate mistakes by earnest and knowledgeable civil servants with the odious deeds of miscreants, prevaricators, and criminals that have and still populate the Trump administration is no laughing matter. How much warmer and polluted does the planet have to get, how much greater must the gap grow between 99 and 1%, how much sooner must most of us die because of a failing public health system before the faint smirk on Mr. Douthat's face turns into a frown. Perhaps we will have to wait until the end of a second Trump administration when his children are older, their future looks bleaker and he begins to realize that the swamp we are in can no longer be easily drained.
3
Ross Douhat is fiddling while Rome burns. His attempts to minimize and normalize Trump's corruption encourages pure cynicism. I find humor in many things, but not in repeated attempts to subvert our Constitution.
2
Nice job Ross
1
Once the impeachment trial is over and campaign season starts, the hostility we hold towards each other will perhaps take a turn for the worse. For now I do worry about how much worse it could get. Trump's second term isn't out of the picture, and I understand that prospect alone robs people of their light giggly heart.
But looking back I see rogue presidents and constitutional crises, with next-level seriousness, and we've come out stronger. Democracy demands our faith in each other. The fact that whistle-blowers have an official way of filing complaint tells us our rule of law is stronger, and union more perfect. And another decade, we might have better campaign finance laws and an amendment against gerrymandering. For the same reason, when we read wisdom and relevance out of yesterday's satire, we should laugh to make sure tomorrow's people can still do the same.
1
Sometimes we know when to laugh and when not to. The Colbert and SNL skits are funny but you're not talking about skits. And we'll never get back the time lost with regard to reversing climate change. A column like this shows Mr. Douthart really doesn't care how much damage Trump and his minions do. All he cares about is that Liberals are not in power implementing their agenda.
5
The FBI's exaggerated response? There were 100+ contacts between the Trump campaign and the Russians that were conveniently forgotten by his team members and only remembered after they were caught. We now have multiple indictments and convictions related to the Mueller probe.
Hardly exaggerated.
9
I would not vaunt Putin's Russians, so much however. It is plausible that while Soviet era physicists teach in our colleges and KGB veterans hold positions in our many varied security companies - that Putin's people mistook Donald junior for his father, set him a standard honey trap, and sent something up their bureaucracy that went farther than it should have. Also plausible is the post-Citizen's United FBI wishing to investigate the dark monies flowing around Republican Party circles and asking a longstanding cooperative business person to help by infiltrating a process the outcome of which seemed unalterable. It is also plausible that the businessperson had requested payment on taxable record for previous services as protection against some imaginable prosecution or defamation. Oh, laughable our human folly is indeed. Very plausibly. Now, plausably, the FBI needs to be preserved, protected, and defended; the President and the Presidency needs to be preserved, protected and defended; and even the Congress and the Constitution needs to be - well you know. Thank goodness the British Commonwealth seems poised to re-constitute itself should events warrant.
Relax, relate and release.....one of my favorite little sayings....we have to become more like Greta and not let this administration cause a loss of focus and fun!
1
Sorry, Ross, but I don't think there is anything funny about Trump or Trumpism. Trump may be incompetent and impetuous, but with incomparable power in his hands and staunchly supported by 95% of his party, he is more dangerous than any Caesar the Founders could have imagined. That his 2016 opponent and various Democratic (and Republican) critics have not been able to defeat or contain him reflects badly on their political skill, to be sure, but is more tragic than comic.
8
I’m sure it will all seem funnier in the afterglow of liberation. Something to look forward to.
4
You can look at this in two ways. One option is as comedy as Ross states - and it was quite a comedy of errors across the board. The other option is as tragedy. The tragedy of an incompetent, reality TV star getting elected president, compounded by the tragedy of an FBI so blinded by dislike of Trump that they were willing to cut corners, ignore evidence they didn't like, and lie to the FISA court in an attempt to get at the result they were convinced was true, but which wasn't.
The stupidity and overreach of some of Trump's opponents do not cancel out his obstruction of congress or his abuse of power. As for his administration being responsible for less human tragedy, Trump's reign of self-interest is not yet over. Who knows how many people will suffer and die because of his incompetence?
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The idea that Obama--the president who ended the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, killed Bin-Laden, and pulled us out of Iraq--did more damage than Trump is totally ridiculous.
Still, this is a nice little article that reminds us to keep a sense of humor. Make no mistake, we are heading towards a hellish, dystopian nightmare, but it is funny. The best comedy often comes from the worst situations. I like to think of classic Simpsons episodes that poke fun at family dysfunction in a town run by an evil corporation.
Liberals could take a political lesson here as well. Trump's greatest strength is that, in spite of everything, he's funny. Don't underestimate the power of a sense of humor. The current Democratic debates preach a stone-faced, secular fire and brimstone; they are endlessly ranting and raving about the miserable state of the world. It doesn't help that this sermon is coming from mediocre politicians with obvious messianic ambitions.
The Democratic nominee will need to be funny. Picture a Bill Clinton style liberal. He always maintained a goofy affability, even as he used the Executive effectively.
2
@Daniel Metz Andrew Yang for president.
1
We can laugh all the way into our dream where nothing gets done with the decrepit and dilapidated infrastructure of the third world standard, indeterminate wars, and never-ending nation-building while our treasury is bleeding dry, decreasing in school performance in an ever-competitive world, free for all industry policy leaving us biting the dust while others took them to the market place and bank the profit and etc.. These are serious business and all we can do is laugh in a fortunate empire born across two oceans without external threat is collapsing from within.
1
I have something in common with the MAGA hat wearers at Trump's rallies. I like a good comedy show. I like to laugh. I think that's what Donald Trump has given those "forgotten men and women" who have been laughed AT and maligned by the politically-correct and cultural elites for years. It's their time to laugh back. But their favorite comic entertainer is also president and commander in chief of the United States of America, and underneath his wise-cracking, he is a selfish, immoral, heartless, vindictive, lawless, power-hungry man. Four years of payback laughter should be enough for his rally audiences.
6
I find it hard to stomach the continual reframing of Trump’s abuse of power as somehow normal. We have never seen so much clear evidence revealed in a case that goes to the heart of the American Constitution. I can only describe this as yet another apologist serving partisan ends.
9
This is... so spot on. Nice job!
1
One line of this critique reminds me of the title of David Halberstam's great work "The Best and the Brightest".
Squalid and corrupt is light years worse than pompous and self interested paranoia. If you think that pompous is somehow in the same universe as corrupt, then that answers my questions about why Republicans do not support the Constitution...amorality and anarchy, pure and simple.
6
I see little humor in this debacle.
9
Over the years Douthat has shown himself to be a master of straw-man argumentation, devoting far more words to what he pretends the left believes than to what he himself believes....
His mastery of this dubious technique is on full display when he dismisses as as a "fizzle" an investigation that led to the indictments of twelve Russian intelligece offcers for election interference.
11
Ha ha ha very funny.
YOUR party; YOUR president, YOUR policies, Mr. Douthat.
It’s no joke. It’s a national catastrophe.
November 3, 2020
No Republicans. None. Not one.
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Some readers might feel that the comments section bears out Mr. Douthat's thesis.
5
Trump Worlds--I have one foot in a world that smells and sounds like an approaching forest fire that I am unable to outrun. And I have one foot in a world that looks practically identical to my world in 2016: Wake, work, eat, sleep. Laugh and cry. Enjoy time with friends, family, kids, grands. Mow the lawn, fix the ceiling fan, read a book, watch tv.
3
A rough response to Ross D's ingenious think piece -perhaps a way to make its argument work better- is to recall that for something to count as good or even great comedy it doesn't have to make you laugh. Comedy was traditionally defined as a genre through a contrast with tragedy. The obvious example: Dante's Inferno - hardly a barrel of laughs - was part of a trilogy dubbed The Divine Comedy. So James Comey is not a laughable figure I don't think, it is mistaken to ridicule his public outrage against Trump. Still in light of the recent report on FBI's handling of intelligence about Trump's campaign and Russia, his sacking from his FBI job seems less than a tragedy for his country
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I often do not agree with Mr, Douthat , but this is over the top. What Trump has been doing is no laughing matter. He has smeared the reputation of career state dept officials who testified under oath. Trump has never testified under oath because his layers are convinced that he will perjure himself.
I highly recommend Ross read the article by George Conway etc,all Republicans about Trump's awful behavior.
The behavior of Congressional Republicans is no laughing matter either...God save the Republic.
9
I spent the day with a bunch of republican women recently. The group usually avoids politics, but this day two women were talking politics between themselves. They were laughing. More particularly, they were laughing about impeachment as if the thought of impeaching trump was the silliest idea they'd heard in a while. Other than those two, I don't know anyone who's laughing.
6
Somebody please tell Ross that the Russians used the "simplest of phishing techniques" to hack RNC emails too. It's just that they never dumped them into WIkileaks.
I wonder what is in those emails and what hold they have over the corrupt players in the GOP?
7
It’s all funny as long as the buffoonish candidate is too inept to do any harm, lasting or not. Our reality buffoon has activated millions of likeminded folks who take him seriously. They find his cruelty funny, his laziness refreshing, his destructiveness useful, his lack of understanding of the world around him a lot like theirs. Everything is humorous when it is happening to someone else.
7
I am 74 years old and have lived through a lot of political drama. I have never witnessed what we are living through right now. I fail to see the humor in election interference by a foreign power, that was real. I fail to see the humor in a Presidential contender encouraging that foreign power to interfere. I fail to see the humor in a President who embraces dictators and eschews our allies. I fail to see the humor in a President who threatens to withhold funding for military aid to Ukraine unless there is dirt thrown at a political opponent. I fail to see the humor in a President who demands government servants ignore subpoenas. I fail to see the humor in a President who does not uphold the Constitution.
Mr. Douthat you stated that Trump is essentially harmless. I disagree. The deregulation of environmental rules alone will have far reaching consequences well into the future. The gutting of the ACA will have far reaching consequences as well. Trump is not a benign "buffoon" as you contend. He is a clear and present danger to our democracy backed by an Attorney General who has turned against the very agencies which protect this country from all "all enemies, foreign and domestic".
Did President Obama make mistakes? Yes he did. Was he a threat to our democracy? No he was not.
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@Diana Thank you for articulating so well what I wanted to say.
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@Diana I really enjoyed reading Douthat. He revealed his great talent. But thanks for putting the whole thing back in focus.
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@Diana I'm near your age, not that it matters; I agree 100% with you.
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Catholic intellectuals often have a keen eye for the most nauseating aspects of Protestant rectitude, like that of James Comey. This brings to mind the career of George Santayana at the Harvard of Charles Eliot. The revulsion at the pervasive self-regard fueled Santayana's brilliant critique of American life and letters, summed up in his phrase "the genteel tradition."
As for Douthat's critique of recent critique of presidencies by body count - This is just silly. There are several creatures that have been sired by Trump that may grow into truly grotesque monsters. There is the turn toward authoritarianism. There is the ethno-nationalism. There is the vandalism of our alliances. There is the climate change denial. I've stopped laughing.
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@LewisPG Yes but Catholic intellectuals believe that the Truth is a matter of faith. Without exception, they have to believe that. There is no Catholicism without blind faith and the resort to Authority. As for argumentation, there's casuistry and Jesuitism to keep them company. Evangelicals are a more recent cult, while mainstream Protestants can smell the arsenic in the fire.
1
@Tara Love "the arsenic in the fire" line. Isn't the longing for some kind of authority palpable right now? Nobody is in the mood to contemplate that their favorite criticism of Trumpism is some contingent social construction. We are ready to reassert the rightness of some principles.
Wonderful analogy. Or turn to any or all of the novels of the now-all-but-forgotten Ross Thomas for similar buffoonish characters who don't realize they're buffoons.
At the same time, the song that's stuck in my ear is by Stealers Wheel: Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you.
1
The humor found in "Burn After Reading" is because it wasn't actually true, it exaggerated - or was meant to - reality to make fun of it. That Trump and his henchmen and flunkies re-enacted it's farce doesn't make their actions funny, it's makes them chilling. But what's even more chilling is, that as inept as this Trump Squad was, thanks to enablers and excusers like you and the Republicans Ross, they've so far gotten away with it.
I hope you're proud of yourself Ross, and can take comfort in your unclever attempt at false equivalency, but the ugly truth is there is nothing funny in our democracy being attacked by our enemy and one half of our elected officials welcoming it and defending it.
The only farce here is that those who have engaged in treason still have a place in our government, even while they tear it down. But I don't think that's story that will earn big box office returns.
6
I am willing to grant Ross that, taken as an analytic unit, the depredations of Trump and those both for and against him, are, technically, comic.
But in their far-reaching consequences, I don't know if he can claim they are FUNNY.
And I say that as someone who sees humor in Nazis ("The Producers") and nuclear armageddon (Tom Lehrer's "We Will All Go Together When We Go").
But then again, there is the theory that a laugh is just a socially palatable form of a scream.
1
Nothing in the Steele memos has been disproved.
Nothing much was made if mueller’s documented claim that trump wanted to build in Russia- which wd serve as motivation for his inappropriate solicitousness toward Putin... but I don’t think it’s enough, I don’t tuition explains treason. Tthere has to be more. Russia has something on him. There’s no other explanation than blackmail.
One day them pee tapes is gonna come out. I just hope trump is still alive to see it.
Treason- no laughing matter. 2020- the end of American democracy?
1
One salient instance of Russian meddling in our election that you have ignored, Ross, is their use of social media like Facebook to interfere in the 2016 election and thus help Trump win by persuading enough Democratic voters in PA, MI, and WI to stay home. What the Russians did to give us the banana Republic that the US now has become isn't the tiniest bit funny.
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@DB I would go further. Facebook itself is evil. If they were not, they would admit to what their platform did in 2016. They would be putting a stop to it now. Zuckerberg would be speaking against trump even as he apologizes to Hillary and us. But none of that has happened. They are in on the disaster. They benefit from our disunity and the collapse that is in progress; that's all that matters to them.
very good Ross. But I think the IG and MSM are too willing to write off what the FBI did to incompetence rather than a directed attempt to undermine a presidential candidate. Perhaps Durham's report will correct that as it is a criminal investigation.
Whenever a supposedly objective entity (like the FBI, or NFL refs) make 17 mistakes, all harmful to one side of a contest, I stop thinking it's some comical incompetence but something else. And since the IG only used official communications as I understand it, then the FBI love texts weren't used to determine if there was bias involved.
The facts of the matter are -- the FBI opened a secret investigation into a presidential campaign literally within a few hours of receiving info of a drunken conversation between an Aussie diplomat and G. Pap where Papa makes the stunning revelation the Russkies might have dirt on HRC. Really? That reason doesn't pass the sniff test. I'd be more likely to believe the FBI had the investigation rolling for some time, and that part of the setup was setting up G. Pap and getting cooperation from the Aussies and other allies. Far fetched? Don't think so. I think before this is over there will be more to learn about the FBI, CIA, et al as well as the Obama admin.
1
Except it’s not funny.
And it’s not “a shadow of corruption”.
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This is some great reading. Sometimes, we are so deep “in it” that we fail to get up high enough to see the comedy of our situation. I agree that the scolds of the left are some real downers. Trump would be neutered with an anti-Trump campaign that had a LOT more humor (and not the “elitist” Colbert variety). Instead of Speaker Pelosi “praying” for Trump, she ought to say “I laugh at how inept he and his minions are at running our government”. I think this is one of the reasons Trump is considering not participating in a — to his mind — “rigged” debate during the 2020 election cycle. Even with free air time, any of the Democrats currently in the field would shred him (and do a much better job of it than Hillary did).
And why did Obama do the Afghan surge? Would perennial Republican 'cut and run' baiting of Democrats have anything to do with it? Would the military industrial complex Eisenhower warned us about have anything to do with it? Where is Republican Nixon's efforts to sabotage peace efforts that might have ended the Vietnam War before it really got going? What did you Ross have to say about Democrats Carter and Clinton that kept us out of war? Did that do anything to restrain your urges to belittle them as leaders? You spin out a web with so many disconnected threads that it hangs useless in the Potomac breezes.
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None of this is funny. To suggest this is irresponsible and amateurish. Comparing it to a movie is what a high school essay would try.
Worse:
"President Barack Obama’s first few years in office about 1,500 American soldiers and thousands more Afghans died for a futile and dishonestly justified campaign."
This is disingenuous. I'm imagining Ross's outrage if Obama tried to end the war.
8
Amazing that abusing thousands of innocent children at the southern border does not seem to count as a human tragedy. Trump inherited record low border crossings and then blew it up by threatening to close the border. He manufactured this crisis so he could use these poor people for his political purposes.
I stopped reading at that paragraph because anyone who normalizes this POTUS is not to be taken seriously.
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One of your very best columns, Ross. This progressive ex-Catholic very much appreciates what you bring to the discussion.
2
Man, a lot of people in the comment section are proving Ross' point.
5
Have the Coen Brothers read the Peter Strozyk - Liz Page texts? Is there a movie there?
I'd also note how quickly Comey has been to embrace the incompetence narrative.
Is abject fear a “human tragedy?”
I maintain it is, and through his support of white supremacism, his advocacy of violence and his daily generation of rage and hate, Trump has caused tens of millions of Americans to live in fear and helplessness. This a human tragedy that far surpasses anything any previous president had done.
2
Forgive me, Mr. Douthat, devout Catholic that you are, for not finding Trump's antics amusing. Perhaps the God you purport to worship thinks the deaths of a few children at the border are not as great a tragedy as the wars of past administrations. Perhaps I'm over-thinking those commandments about lying and adultery. But, hey, least the UN and a few other world leaders find the President pretty funny. Be sure to include that in your screenplay.
6
Sorry dude, but your privilege is showing. For many many people who are less comfortable than Douthat (immigrant families separated at the border, struggling people whose SNAP benefits and Medicaid have been cut, our Kurdish allies abandoned to die in Syria) the harm this administration is causing is very real, and no laughing matter. “Haha everything’s ridiculous and the same” is exactly the type of intellectually shallow false equivalence that led to the absurdity of electing Trump president in the first place.
7
While it is true that the Russians used a simple phishing technique, in fact the victim did what we’re supposed to do. He emailed his IT department, said it looked phony, and asked for advice. They told him it was safe, he clicked on it, and now Trump is president.
I know it’s fun to take a cheap shot at these folks, and that the truth isn’t always as funny and cool as a lie, but that sarcastic crack left a sour taste in my mouth.
1
Always finding a way to make Liberals only slightly, mildly, more palatable than thoroughly corrupt Republicans. Brother Douthat ascribes to stupidity what should be blamed on GOP malevolence (usually the correct human choice), but in this case, utterly misplaced.
3
Anthony Atamanuik--of the hilarious-but-now-discontinued-for-no-good-reason-except-that's-how-American-innovation-is-done-cancelled-The President Show--would be splendid as Donald J. Trump, the malignant narcisssist demagogue and self-proclaimed 'stable genius' who led the feckless, yet intentional con of foreign pseudo-espionage.
1
Perfect. To all those who believe Trump is an evil mastermind, remember: “Always assume incompetence before looking for conspiracy.” Trump is just a bumbling two-bit real estate guy from NYC — stop perseverating and just beat him in November!!
1
I am not a fan of Barrack Obama. While he made some progress on health care, he basically failed since we still have
millions without usable health insurance,
200,000 people dying each year who lives could have saved with today's medical care,
530,000 families forced into bankruptcy every year which contributed to the opioid epidemic & the rise in suicides and probably the declining life expectancy,
and we still waste about $1.8 TRILLION a year compared to other wealthy developed countries.
Obama did this consciously when he took off the table any health care system that these other countries showed would have been vastly more efficient than than ACA. He did this in the interest of gaining Republican support. How did that work out?
In addition, his stimulus program was severely too small & the he cut the deficit by 75% when people, businesses, & state & local govs were suffering (and still suffer) from a LACK of money. This gave us a glacial recovery in which most of the benefits went to the Rich.
But to compare his administration to the Republicans who preceded & followed him is false equivalence of the high order.
Bush II lied us into a war which killed almost 300,000 people & whose result was a further destabilization of the MidEast. He then proceeded to wreck the economy by what was almost our 7th depression.
I do not think I need to repeat the historic deficiencies of the Trump administration here,
Obama was a C- President, Bush II & Trump get F-.
I keep finding the NYT more than willing to go along for the ride. Looking back, it's been a thread of weakness running for 2016 to the present.
"Deomocracy dies in darkness" and complacency.
2
I suggest Mr Douthat try taking this to a club or two.
I'm sure the pivot to BO will have them on their feet.
Nothing from nothing?
Is nothing.
1
The difference between Trump and Clinton is, Democrats knew Clinton didn't tell the truth. They just didn't care about an affair with an intern.
But Trump could tell his base they could get a suntan in a snowstorm and they'd believe him till they froze to death.
3
And Ross turns his attention to a Coen brothers movie on this historic day? Typical and telling of who he is and where he stands.
3
If Douthat wrote a piece about Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin, we wouldn't know who was who...
1
I agree with Ross that there is plenty to laugh about, although I am not sure that the facts, once they fully emerge, support his current script outline. Why not cast, Sondland, Giuliani, Giuliani’s Ukrainian friends, Pompeo, and quite a few legislators of both parties? And keep in mind, if Andrew Weisman is correct in a Just Security article — https://www.justsecurity.org/67738/federal-criminal-offenses-and-the-impeachment-of-donald-j-trump/#Intro — there will be plenty of other characters! “Eventually the documents — if not also the witnesses — that the House had foresworn will come out. . . . When that new evidence comes to light, Senators who have resisted impeachment now on the ground of lack of evidence may seek to cling to that legal argument, but will look darn foolish in the annals of history, when the documents prove up what we all already know to be true. The President sought to cheat on the 2020 election by means of having a foreign country announce an investigation of a leading political rival, which he coerced secretly by withholding hundreds of millions of dollars of congressionally appropriated vital military assistance.” Funny, sort of, but to quote the leading character, Trump's texting digit (who will play that?), Sad!
If Trump wins in 2020, the self righteous whiny media should bear a large part of the blame.
Why wouldn't the FBI want to look into a presidential campaign that repeatedly reached out to the Russians and whose candidate has deep financial ties to that country. Perhaps there wasn't a taped pee-pee episode but Trump seems to act as if there were. It's hard not to believe that he is in the thrall of Putin...of course, Ross, I say this with pomposity.
2
As for humor from the Anti-Trump Resistance, I direct your attention to Stephen Colbert. In fact, it is the very inability of Trump to take a joke that has led to such misery for all of us. Everyone knows that Trump wants to destroy President Obama’s legacy because of the jokes the President made about Trump at the 2011 Correspondents Dinner, i.e. “we all know about your credentials and breadth of experience...” haha, it’s funny and tragic every time I hear it.
1
Applying comparison of the Coen’s farce to destruction of the Constitution (and what formerly was considered truth) is a fine intellectual parlor game but shows a dangerous lack of journalistic rigor.
2
Now, now Ross: why the snarky "radiating paranoid intensity as Rachel Maddow"? After all, she's usually at least three steps ahead of you in identifying stories needing attention. Be careful not to radiate paranoid envy!
2
Here is what is dark comedy: " sabotaged Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign" For years, the right wing let lies be told about her. She was, then, defeated by a buffoon, Trump, who thought he was Ronald Reagan. What did Malcolm X say: "The roosters are coming home."
Ha ha ha, how funny is that! Ha ha ha, how funny is that?
1
"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." Jonathan Swift.
Must admit that using genius and Trump in the same sentence is itself laughable. But often the opposition to Republican intransigence looks something like a confederacy of dunces. Impeachment was not a political calculation so much (as every decision has it political component). It was required by the crimes committed (and continuing) by Trump.
2
The most important point is still missed. Trump represents citizens who feel their interests and opinions are not honored by either major party. Also, there is more to come in regard to
Trump's relations with the traditional governmental bureaucracy: we still don't realize what happened in Kiev, February 2014, when a democratically elected President from East Ukraine was overthrown by truce-breaking rightist paramilitaries. How did this happen?
So let me ask, Ross, is it a comedic joke that the bungling police forces were never able to convict Al Capone of anything but tax evasion? Capone, a known thug and a murderer was never convicted because witnesses were too involved with his scheme or too afraid to testify?
The Trump campaign was demonstrated to have made more than 100 contacts with Russian operatives. There was no sign of anything like that number with France, Germany, Spain, Italy, or the UK. The FBI may need to clean up its act, but no part of that re-investigation indicated that investigation into the Trump campaign was not justified.
The pee pee tapes may in fact not exist, but there is something that Putin holds over The Donald. A man who persistently defends Russia and denigrates his own whole intelligence services in denial of Russian Complicity in hacking US elections has something critically wrong upstairs ... or pee pee tapes.
This is not a joke and Trump although "innocent until proven guilty' is not innocent he is just not proven guilty. That is unless you would also like to compare Al Capone as rubbing shoulders with the angels.
Even in the face of damning testimony in the House impeachment investigation -- testimony that is said to be adequate to convict anyone in an ordinary trial in 5 minutes -- we still hear talk of Trump's innocence.
This essay may be cute, but it turns my stomach.
4
Watching the Republican primary, I remember thinking that Donald Trump was the only one having a good time.
After all, he was a comic actor (like his Ukrainian counterpart) in the farcical tradition of Jerry Springer, Howard Stern, and Married With Children--which, not coincidentally, was the first great success of the Fox Network.
There is a certain lightness in the air when we realize that truth doesn't matter, as it doesn't really matter in comedy.
First and foremost, Trump is an entertainer. Depending on what side you're on, he's a comic hero or a farcical villain. The orange hair is a giveaway.
3
Trump in the White House is no laughing matter. The joke is on us.
4
What Trump has wrought on this country is really not the least bit funny. We will be paying for many years to correct the disasters he has created.
3
Ross consistently underplays the danger posed by this president. Does he really think there was no coordination between the Russians and the campaign? The Mueller report detailed more than 100 contacts between the two, and MANY instances of obstruction... does it not occur to Ross that the obstruction prevented us from knowing the full extent of the conspiracy? Until we have complete disclosure of documents and testimony of witnesses, we can have no true idea of what dark forces (Russian and otherwise) are motivating this administration.
Ross has made it clear that he is delighted by the appointment of dozens of anti-abortion judges to the federal courts. As such, it seems he is blind to the authoritarian impulses of the unfit, unstable and deeply compromised occupant of the Oval Office. I, for one, see nothing funny about it.
7
I so agree. Investigations will be uncovering for years, if not decades, the misdeeds of this administration. Given what we know, it's mind-boggling what we don't know. Think of what we could learn from the content of Trump's secret conversations with Putin, alone.
3
In all seriousness, I point to the conclusion of the film. I may not get the quote exactly right, but its something like:
"What do we learn from this?"
"Don't do it again."
1
Mr. Douthat poses an interesting comparison, although a movie is just a movie, of course. But the self-righteous ant-Trump folk whose hair has been on fire since the 2016 elections should stay on course as a useful foil in our national comedy. The person who constantly predicts that the end is coming used to be a stock character for humorists, and the current version of this who repeatedly predicts the end of our political world are serving that important role.
4
I am reminded, yet again, just why Dennis Miller stopped being funny a few years back.
1
Mr. Douthat, is it also recommended that we laugh about all the casualties resulting from the surge in hate crimes since Trump's campaign of hate .. and over his first several years in office? Would that help or hinder the Trump cause? Please advise ..
7
Although Stephen Colbert and others of his ilk provide plenty of humor, watching our country walk away from the rule of law and everything that we have been striving for for over 240 years is not really that amusing. Watching the antics of Senate Republicans this week and their open disregard for the oath they will swear before sitting as jurors for an impeachment trial has brought to my mind (if apparently not Douthat's), the Franklin quote, "A republic - if you can keep it ..."
707
@Rena
Behind the laughter is truly the tears. If we did not laugh we would be a constant state of depression. The evil that this administration is cant even be known as of today.
16
@Rena but seriously who has been alive 240 years to strive for this? There are probably more people who've strived to make it to the toilet during a commercial break and not miss any of the game than people who've set out to preserve the virtues of a country built on slavery.
1
@Rena
Colbert provides humor and sarcasm while laughing at Trump and his sycophants.
Douthat is chuckling at Trump as if he finds it humorous.
We don't.
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@Roy Rogers. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the fact that a “good economy” is a good reason to vie for the incumbent. Especially since most Americans don’t own stocks and are barely able to put food on their tables with he minimal pay they receive. That being said, why so many voters are putting money ahead of morals and honesty tells me our values have certainly been destroyed under this president and all his minions.
14
Laughing through the Trump era? Many are suffering and living in the streets, 1 in 4 kids or more don't have sufficient food, people can't afford their insulin and drive across the borders, 50% of Americans can't afford a $400.00 emergency, parents can pay for school lunches, and senior citizens ration drugs. I don't see any comedy in the mess American is in today.
24
And what were the comparative numbers in November of 2016.
In many respects I probably would have been a Republican were it not for the party's 50+ year history of racism. True, not all Republicans are racist but they sure have a high threshold of tolerance for racism. Still, if I voted Democrat and my candidate lost I could always count on the Republican party to defend free trade, to at least pay lip service to budget discipline, to support the international order, to defend liberty and to seek prosperity. Now Republicans represent none of these values. To be sure, they're still the party of racism -- and also the party of kleptocracy, corruption, and ignorance. Not to mention the party of Russian interests promoted over US interests.
And you know what, Ross? That's just not very funny.
776
@Kev The republicans are also most importantly, the party of anti-abortion. That is the secret sauce holding all those red states together.
42
@Kev Every single Republican has increased the deficit with tax breaks for the wealthy. Every single one. That's not fiscal responsibility.
42
@Kev - Let's see what has happened EVERY time we practiced what you would consider budget discipline and significantly paid down the national debt:
The federal government has balanced the budget, eliminated deficits for more than three years, and paid down the debt more than 10% in just six periods
since 1776, bringing in enough revenue to cover all of its spending during 1817-21, 1823-36, 1852-57, 1867-73, 1880-93, and 1920-30. The debt was paid
down 29%. 100%, 59%, 27%, 57%, and 38% respectively. A depression began in 1819, 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893 and 1929.
Be careful what you wish for.
14
“anti-Trumpists might be a touch more effective if they could recognize how humorlessness and constant self-important dudgeon frequently helps the Trumpian cause, by setting up the dynamic I just sketched in my movie pitch — where the country is asked to choose between two kinds of folly, one squalid and corrupt but the other pompous, insufferable and paranoid in its own self-important way.”
Folly? Is that what the choices represent to you.? A sense of humor and ability to laugh Is a good way to manage stress, but in this rambling self indulgent attempt to school us on the correct response to the national emergency brought on by your Republican party, there is nothing funny.
If you are trying to advance the idea of trivializing the damage wrought by Donald Trump and his supporters on the nation, you bear a share of the blame for it. Pompous, insufferable and paranoid is a preferred response to squalid and corrupt, worsening by the hour.
5
Douthat again reminds us that an essential ingredient of the support for this criminal presidency is that President Obama was, and HRC would have been, far worse. This, coupled with the GOP’s utter disregard of truth and the Constitution, is the essence of this “satire” (nightmare is more like it.)
I too rely heavily on Colbert and Seth Myers (whose intelligent take on this administration is brilliant) to cope. I still mourn the loss of Jon Stewart who left us in our time of need. Alec Baldwin’s portrayal now seems insufficient because, perhaps as a decent human being, he isn’t capturing the current president’s cruelty and immorality.
3
Stunning. The last paragraph comparing the military policies of Obama and Trump made my stomach turn. To believe that Trump hasn't caused soldier's to die, but Obama did? Apparently in his reality, history of what Obama inherited is non existent.
9
@wise brain
Trump is a draft dodger bully who cant even stand on his own two feet. President Obama inherited the GOP mess, Trump created the slaughter of the Kurds, he put children in cages, he cut food stamps. This administration is the beginning of the Nazi hate and yes there are enough Americans who approve of this insanity. there is nothing funny about people being murdered.
The Trump family needs to be packing up and moving on, we have had enough of hate, stupidity and the Russians.
there is nothing in this pathetic saga to blame the democrat's for, this is a GOP drama of hatred ,murder ,bigotry and the greed of money.
"A plague on both your houses" isn't a bad sentiment, but in the current situation the first plague should probably be visited upon the House of Trump, namely Trump-And-Enablers.
2
Now you're making me laugh, Mr. Douthat - '(Trump's) administration is arguably responsible for fewer human tragedies so far than more high minded, less personally degraded presidencies.' Do you mean in quantity? Perhaps. But in amoral and sinister character? Hardly. The abandonment of the Kurds in Syria? Treatment of migrants and their children streaming over the border from Mexico? Disaster relief in Puerto Rico? His threats to cut off aid to assist in fighting California's fires? His turning a blind eye to the murder of Saudi journalist Khashoggi? His apparent refusal to address the Dreamers issue - which is a potential tragedy if there ever was one? Do not smile too broadly, Mr. Douthat. Please.
17
And then there is that brilliant film "Wag the Dog". Think China, first phase (cough) trade deal....
Totally agree. Trump is not an aberration. He is a logical product of a corrupt and degraded system.
Vote for Warren or Sanders to start cleaning up the mess.
7
I think you missed an underlying point. Go ahead and encourage us NY Times readers to vote for Sanders and Warren so they will eventually lose Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania by 70,000 votes in the general election. Hurrah for being Right.
What you describe as Russian disinterest in collusion and Trumpian clumsiness in seeking collusion has been described by others as Russian exploratory probing by Russian professionals and a decision the Trump people were too incompetent to conspire with. For which see the Trump Tower meeting.
2
This movie introduced me to The Fugs and their song "CIA Man" during the end credits. Good tune.
1
Laughing away Trump's shenanigans and constitutional breaches is simply a contempt of the rule of law, disregard for the constitutional sanctity, and disservice to the nation.
2
Humor, like truth itself, has a liberal bias.
2
Russia hacked the DNC emails in a successful effort to influence a 2016 presidential election. The degree of influence can be argued but the fact of the interference cannot. As a teacher of U.S. history, I can tell you that the 2016 foreign election interference is something of seismic significance that will be in the history books for generations. Your take that it is farcical is myopic at best.
1323
@Sue Thank you Sue. Farcical it is and Ross in consistently myopic.
54
@Sue: I could not disagree more. If Stanley Kubrick could make us all laugh at the prospect of nuclear Armageddon in “Dr. Strangelove,” then surely we can laugh at the antics of that fool in the White House.
15
@Sue
"Myopic"? You are being too kind - it's more like blind.
“It would take a heart of stone to contemplate this tale without some laughter” – especially when you are a conservative whose principles helped lay the groundwork for Donald Trump and his merry band of “grasping fools and self-important Beltway nitwits.”
It’s nice to see how conservatives like Douthat view their complicity in the Trump tragedy. They are giggling fools surprised that the fuse they lit on a case of dynamite actually caused a devastating explosion. To them Trump is a strange anomaly rather than a direct product of decades of their philosophy and policies.
Douthat says: “a little more laughter might actually be good for the anti-Trump Resistance.” But I find his laughter and willful denial despicable. What might actually be good for the resistance is a little honesty and contrition from conservatives for their part in this tragedy.
43
I don't necessarily agree, but this is a great piece.
1
I wish that I could just be annoyed with the obfuscation presented in this article, with its efforts to be clever through cultural and literary references. But at its heart, Douthat's piece represents a deliberate move to ignore the ways in which Trump and his cohorts' actions represent a threat to American democracy, to due process, to loyalty, and to human rights. Moreover, by bringing in Russia, Douthat dodges Ukraine and showing us another chapter of the Republican playbook to win, not matter what the costs.
7
I do t agree with all the premises either but agree it’s a great column. Certain things help solidify memories: threats to what is dear to you and humor. We need some humorous jokes-“Ah that little game you played with Sonny(Biden); you cant fool a Corleone(Democratic nominee)
Thank you for this. It’s why we need the arts today more than ever. Think of all the great literature, films, art, comedy, dance on and on that have helped sublimate collective human grief in times throughout history when the worst among us rule. And also why autocrats so often fear these true truth tellers.
1
There won't be an after Trump even after he's gone. Trumpism is here to stay; it's now lodged in our Federal Judiciary and the upper echelons of the Republican Party.
As I've said so many times, Trump is not an aberration, he's the culmination of decades of work by the Republican Party. That there are still Democrats who don't get this (looking at you, Joe Biden) is amazing to me. I can understand how non-Trump Republicans are still in denial, though I do wonder how long that will last.
12
"...a narrative of noble G-men and legal eagles who are supposedly about to reveal Putin’s baroque, dating-to-the-1980s conspiracy to install a puppet in the White House, knock out our power grid and probably poison our precious bodily fluids as well."
This is the absurd narrative that Rachel Maddow spins for her viewers every night. She's not as bad as Fox News, but she ain't far from it.
1
“.. the country is asked to choose between two kinds of folly, one squalid and corrupt but the other pompous, insufferable and paranoid in its own self-important way.”
That’s THE CHOICE?
SERIOUSLY?
It seems like Mr. Douthat is framing a “choice” which he, himself is “above”. If that were the only choice, how tempting it would be to tune out and dissociate oneself from the “absurdities” (and atrocities) of history.
In fact one of trimp’s greatest human atrocities is to inflict lifelong trauma on entire families by separating small children from their mothers at the border. This trauma emanates in a cynically predestined way to become brutal manifestation of the type of “choice” Douthat snickers about.
This jejune lack of seriousness, this contempt for lived principle, this moral exhaustion is apparently characteristic of the 40% of the US electorate supporting trimp to the bitter end.
Hitler never won more than 40% in any semblance of a legitimate election. And that was enough.
6
"...How absurd it sounds to write and talk as though the republic dies daily only to be resurrected overnight and slain by Trump anew..."
A great description of the NYT opinion page for the last three years. Either our slain republic has more lives than Jason in the Friday the 13th movies or someone is exaggerating.
People are thinking about their children.
I knew that Ross couldn't get through an entire column without blaming Obama for something.
But since you accuse everyone in this real life drama of playing the fool, it begs the question for you, Ross:
Which do you prefer, fools with good intentions...or fools with bad intentions?
And yes, you will have to make a choice, sooner or later.
7
A prescient glimpse of the emerging idocracy.
3
Trump is such a grotesque joke of a president and a person that it’s very difficult to laugh or even ridicule, him
5
Mr. Douhat leaves out the essential subplot in which a few very powerful people take advantage of the leagues of morons to seize the reigns permanently by stacking the courts, disenfranchising the populace, eradicating healthcare, dismantling public education and the social safety net, all the while sacrificing the environment for profit in order to maintain this hegemony. Hilarious!
15
" ... once he's gone.." The reason so many of us are unable to laugh is the knowledge that he will never go. His autocratic personality comes from the same cookie cutter that gave the world Stalin, Saddam Hussein, Putin, Erdogan, Duterte, Bolsanaro, etc, ad nauseum. And the GOP is showing every indication of wanting to collaborate in the coming dictatorship. Then, the GOP and you too, Russ, will keep on laughing (for a little while at least, until things get horrific for you also - at which time you will all develop sudden amnesia about your hero worship).
6
Plainly you're not on Food Stamps.
9
The Trump presidency is Fargo on steroids. Can't wait for the Coens' movie: Trump, the consummate paranoiac, hires henchman Giuliani to sniff around the continent for information on his bete noir Biden, while at the same time dangling military aid over a desperate Zelensky who's being threatened by the wolf at the door, Trump's buddy Putin. Of course, in a Coen movie, justice would triumph. Ain't happening with McConnell and his band of sycophant associates.
3
I think the FBI has been playing fast and loose with FISA warrants since 9/11. If you look at the rate at which they have been granted (over 99%) since then, you can see that the secret court was and is an excuse for fishing expeditions. Which is not surprising because the FISA court is protected from virtually any scrutiny by the national security borg. The FISA court is a very black box. Not just the final rulings are secret; very few details about even the process go public.
And everyone who mattered thought this was a great idea. Including the Republican lawmakers who demonized constitutional scholars and regular private citizens who objected. But NOW the Republicans want the FBI on a short leash.
This is yet another way OUR reaction to 9/11 has come back to bite us. Because many people were afraid, laws were passed that undermined basic constitutional tenets. And now the party that primarily designed (and overwhelmingly supported) that flawed legislation is going to try to use its flaws to defend Donald Trump.
And Mr. Douthat finds humor in this situation while taking time to blame President Obama. Of his two mentions of Putin, one is a jab at the quality of FBI agents and the other mocks the idea that the President of Russia is trying to undermine our democracy.
6
If the point here is that a life without a sense of humor is surely a diminished one, three cheers. On the other hand, what could be more farcical than Ross' ritualistic "on the other hand" Obama/Democrat bashing entwined with his effete, rococo analyses posing as "intellectual." Think Gilbert and Sullivan: skim milk masquerades as cream.
9
"Ridicule is the test of truth" -- Shaftesbury, "Characteristics," 1711
Should you ever find yourself looking for a reason to suppress a chuckle, may I suggest considering the kids in cages?
11
10 thumbs down, Ross. I walked out on your rewrite of "Burn after Reading" halfway through the show. You don't bribe foreign leaders to help you with your political campaign. Beginning, middle, end of story. Impeach him.
6
It’s curious how the conservative side of any issue is so very willing to point out how pompous and what ever other descriptive
Adjectives you chose for the FBI and of course us, the side that you and others so close to God choose for us, you know liberals .
I haven’t heard from God and I don’t think you have either.
With Billions of people to watch and record all our mistakes and
Decide the after death punishment,we’ll it’s a big job.I will only add ,Ive never known any perfect people, including me ,and
Though you write well you’re not perfect either.
1
Too early for me ... South American children missing their parents? Too cruel for humor?
4
Brilliant, thank you.
I feel more like Heraclitus than like Democritus these days.
Your next column should be about the parallels to the 2006 Mike Judge film, "Idiocracy." :-)
2
Definitely, yes!
Thank you.
Your argument's ridiculing of the Act of War, Manchurian Candidate (1962 version), mortal threat to the Republic, etc etc etc, brings into the light serious concerns about the validity of Russiagate.
Please forgive me if I exaggerate your surprising words.
Unknown to the mass of Americans, and probably unknown to much of the establishment, there has been a dissenting underground discussion of Russiagate to which your critique of the official tale will be quite welcome.
Although led by established figures in the development of US policy toward Russia, the underground discussion was forced in the early days, 2016, into the dark. Those who were once welcome on the main talk shows now watch CIA and Russia-bashing diplomats persuade the public that the fact, immensity and lethal threat to America has been established beyond a doubt.
Assertion is not evidence. Yet, this entire convoluted and immense tale of a Russian Pearl Harbor is based entirely on the assertions of the US spy industry.
Some underground critics think it's a small incident of Russian provocation, blown up into a mortal danger.
Others consider a it hoax, a lie from beginning to end. This is not unprecedented: Joe McCarthy wove a tale of an immense network of lethal conspiracy out of lies. He lasted four years.
May the present comedy, to steal your word, likewise blow up in its fourth year.
1
Because what’s funnier than fascist takeovers of democracies?
24
Trump is just a glaring example of Wall St. run amok. It started under Reagan, no it started with the Vietnam war, or maybe even earlier with the roaring 20's before the depresstion. But like Hitler's Germany, it gathers all power unto itself; and we know the outcome of absolute power.
When you control the purse and the army you dream of cows (not literal cows today, but profits to be made in countries called markets throughout the world.) So the financial wizards capitulate to the strong (read wealth) and the ruthless in pursuing their power. This is a dark truth and hardly a laughing matter.
But when oh when, do the manipulated masses say enough; enough of war, and enough of inequality and worldwide injustice?
2
This seems less humor and more doublespeak. Certainly not worthy of the Cohen brother's attention.
2
Mr. Douthat has now come full circle. No surprises here.
3
I bet Ross never understood why veterans of the Battle of the Bulge found "Hogan's Heroes" hard to laugh at.
3
Fiddle while Rome burns Ross
5
I've read your columns for a few years now. This is my favorite.
1
While I did get a kick out of Douthat's picks for actors for "Trump. The Movie version", I dunno. This sanctimonious, over -serious liberal is having a hard time laughing at the prospect of losing our democracy to a buffoon dictator. And the impending climate disasters that are, as we speak and chuckle, doing grave damage to our planet.
The thinking behind this piece reminds me of the musical 'Caberet' in which laughter and dance and drinking and debauchery in Nazi Germany is depicted, a backdrop to Jews being shipped to the camps. But Douthat is right, only the hard hearted would deny that we all need comic relief when confronted with horror.
3
Buffoonery is a good description for Trump's administration and dems aren't flawless. What was Biden's son doing on the board of a Ukrainian gas company? We have 340 million souls in this country and Trump and Biden are the leading candidates for POTUS. They are the best we can do. God help us.
2
ROTFS (rolling on the floor sobbing)
3
"It should be remembered that you can threaten the enemy and get away with it. You can insult and annoy him, but the one thing that: is: unforgivable and that is certain to get him to react is to laugh at him. This causes irrational anger."
– Saul Alinsky
3
I see we’re still blowing off such trivias as exactly who wrote and passed the Patriot Act in the first place, who started the FISA courts—and Gitmo, and “extraordinary rendition,” and “enhanced interrogation,” and just who started the Afghanistan War, Mr. Douthat.
Figures. I do wonder where you hid the demented invasion of Iraq, though. And while I get you’re into the whole, “I’m an impartial, objective fair observer, criticizing tribal follies of mere mortals,” thingy, haven’t you been spending a considerable portion of the last ten years pouring the foundation on which evangelicals and many others can stand to justify their cheering for Trump? All those wails about the Decline of the West, the Failure of White Women To Have Enough Babies, the Need to Go Back to Chuch Lest Civilization Fall?
Otherwise, two things: since when did Obama get a pass on everything (or anything, for that matter) from the Left? From Nation, Mother Jones, and so on? When did Noam Chomsky become a booster? Bernie Sanders, or even Hillary Clinton?
And a last thing: with remarkable exceptions (Clint Eastwood, Jeff Foxworthy, Kanye, Ricard Wagner), your beloved contemporary Right can’t find a good director, comedian, or musician with a long, pointy stick.
Why might that be, exactly?
6
Can you even spell global warming, Douthat? Do you realize what all these years, especially the last three, of republican and industry led intransigence is allowing to happen to our earth? And as for laughing, I think dems have a pretty good handle on how to laugh at all this hideousness..It takes some intelligence to make a joke..I don't see any jokes on the repub side, other than McConnell wi th his deaths head laugh when he says the impeachment will be a joke.
4
Helsinki. Donald Trump is a Russian asset. Not funny. Not funny at all.
11
You're right Ross...nothing tragic. Democrats are far too grumpy so I'm laughing out loud:
* Campaign colludes with the Russia to get Trump elected
* Obstructs the investigation into collusion
* Bans Muslims...no, make that people from Muslim countries
* Separates families crossing the border and cages children
* Doesn't bother tracking children so many cannot be reunited with families
* Alienates allies
* Weakens NATO, WTO, etc...anything multilateral
* Praises our adversaries and drops out of nuclear missile treaties
* Starts trade wars that hurts US
* Turns our military into mercenaries
* Betrays Kurds in northern Syria
* Lies...did I say he lies constantly and still expects the benefit of the doubt.
* Mocks Gold Star parents, women, the Pope, a handicapped reporter... anyone who challenges him including a 16 year old climate activist with Asperger syndrome, plus too many others to list
* Trashes diplomacy (see: North Korea, Iran, China... not to mention Canada, Mexico, France, etc.)
* Makes American great again for corporate polluters
* Effects policies that punish states that didn't vote for him
* Extorts a weak country for election help and obstructs investigation (again)
* You get the idea... nothing tragic Ross.
(laughing out loud)
24
@Rob
P.S. After working on my "grumpy" management I've decided to chill out and watch one of your movies with friends.
1
Ha ha ha! Hilarious! Russian committed espionage! They stole DNC electronic records! They disseminated pro-Trump propaganda! Trump and his campaign asked for Russian election help!
Then, in what can only been seen as a laugh riot, Trump “won” the electoral college on the heels of all this Russian meddling! Since then — and this is the funniest thing imaginable — Trump has been unabashedly peddling a pro-Putin agenda! He’s had numerous secret meetings and conversations with Putin and his foreign minister!
And the ultimate in funny! Now Trump openly asks for foreign meddling by others — and this is also a laugh a minute — is doing it with zero pushback from his party!
I’m just out of breath from the hilarity.
17
Only because the Democrats limited the investigation to Ukraine. Donald Trump commits impeachable offenses daily, but he is doing God's work for the unspeakably vicious GOP.
4
good strategy to make the whole thing into a joke. too bad your column is the real joke. and not just this one, most of them. you've given new life to secret biases.
5
If you fully understand a Coen Brothers' film on first watching, it's not a very good Coen Brothers' film. The film probably isn't made by anyone named Coen at all. Like wine, their works typically get better with age.
That said, I don't find anything funny about our current situation at all. Not even darkly. The fact of the matter is we're on a climatic crash course and the current president (while crude, regressive, and spiteful) is also accelerating our impending train wreck with ecology and physics. That's not something to laugh about.
I personally want humanity to survive more than a child's lifetime. Trump isn't helping.
3
Farce? Me and million other decent, patriotic Americans disagree.
6
@Amy
I think it's a farce and a hoax, and I'm twice as decent and patriotic as you are.
Not even close.
3
Mixed, misleading comparisons and misreading of the Horowitz report don't make for laughter, but for tragedy.
For example, Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld getting us into Iraq and Afghanistan have little in common with Obama trying to pursue a war already in progress with supposedly experienced Pentagon folks guiding him. False equivalence.
Fecklessness by some FBI agents in conducting an investigation has no connection with the legitimate investigation itself. The question has been whether Mueller's investigation (into Russian interference in our election and possible Trump campaign support or contact about that) was initiated on a false premiss and thereby illegitimate. Horowitz concluding without any hesitation that the origin of the investigation was by the book, legitimate, necessary. Mueller then pursued the investigation, and in spite of Trump's constant obstruction, Mueller was able to indict many, convict a bunch, and provide material for continuing investigations. We are all aware now of Russian manipulation of social media to get the result from our elections and to get Americans to turn on each other.
The only things laughable are the Republicans who still do not want take responsibility for undermining our democracy, for electing Trump, and for putting our nation at risk and our being ridiculed around the world.
No more attempts at being cute. Fess up, apologize, and impeach Trump. Try to make amends for your setting up this disaster.
7
This is an admittedly interesting take on the Trump Era, but I think some of the parallels are wrong. You're looking at the veep-like farce that exists in the mundane daily churn of political life, but neglecting the macro-level farce that this era has laid bare. We have a very high minded idea of our democracy and exceptional nature, but all the things that supposedly make us great exist only in our collective imagination. Reality is much grimmer.
We have a political party that doesn't accept empirical fact. A president has shown that he can run afoul of the Constitution by paying off porn stars and not reporting it in campaign finance disclosures, obstruct investigations, accept endless emoluments, deny Congress their right to Executive oversight, and seek foreign assistance to aide a re-election effort. Those are just some examples. Outside of the presidency we have an entire party committed to solidifying minority rule by limiting access to voting and gerrymandering districts.
A more apt parallel to this kind of late-late empire moment is the 'Death of Stalin' where bumbling idiots who are subject to no laws make up the rules as they go along.
3
Of course the writer’s “fewer human tragedies” leaves out the migrant children in detention, separated from their parents, many died or abused; the victims of the greatly increased shootings and hate crimes; the Kurds killed after we abandoned them; and the farmers and other businesses suffering from his disastrous trade wars.
Keep laughing.
11
The only way I get through this awful time is watching Stephen Colbert daily. He is my north star. As a fellow brainiac, Lord of the Rings fanatic, his comedy, his take on things matches up to mine exactly. I go to the gym daily to live long enough to see him celebrate the end of Trump.
2
Yes, Ross, let's giggle with abandon as the world's climate is destroyed and our Democratic institutions and laws are destroyed by a Republican Party and grifting president who is in bed with our number one enemy. I fully get why a lifelong Republican like yourself desperately needs to find comic relief as the ship captained by your party's leader takes us all down with him.
6
While "Burn After Reading" is one of my favorite films of recent years------Two points:
If one actually cares about truth, justice, and the rule of law-----Not much about the illegal, immoral, bumbling, stupid, inarticulate, escapades of Trump world is really very funny.
Once again, Douthat finds a way to critique Obama in the midst of his anti-Trumpist column. Can't he give it a rest for once and stop with the constant false equivalency whataboutism?
7
If anyone is credulous, it's Douthat. Now that we know that some at the FBI were sloppy in their pursuit of a man whose Russian ties they had been watching since 2013, he's all in for Rumpian conspiracies. Never mind that Trump lied about his business interests in Russia while trying to put up another phallic symbol of a building in Moscow or that his Russian and Ukranian pals were and are nothing but mobsters. Never mind that there are some honest folks in Washington who actually believe in this country and who were willing to call out Giuliani, Pompeo, Trump and the rest of his pathetic crew of grifters, white supremecists, and evangelical fools. Never mind that the entire Republican establishment does nothing more than genuflect to Trump. That's way sadder than any movie. Burn after Reading was a darkly funny movie because no one believed anyone could be as dumb as Bratt Pitt or as craven as Frances McDormand. Now we have an entire political party showing us how this was really a documentary.
4
I wonder if the Ukrainians laughed when they found out that their military aid had been held up?
7
Or, the goalposts have been moved and the bar lowered so far in the past 3 years that we now pin our hopes on the hapless and once reviled FBI and CIA to protect our Constitution from the current president(*)'s corruption. If things keep going as they have, we'll be looking to re-enlist the Keystone Kops.
1
My favorite true life "Burn After Reading" moment was when the Mueller Investigation arrested Richard Pinedo, a former sales associate at L.A. Fitness, for being Putin's Man in Rural Ventura County:
https://www.unz.com/isteve/mueller-hooks-a-big-fish-richard-pinedo/
Um, ‘scuse me all to-brast, but Richard Pinedo got busted and sentenced because he was a) opening a bunch of bank accounts and selling them to crooks, including Russian crooks, and b) creating and selling fake identities, again to crooks and to Russian crooks.
Last I checked, that’s, you know, illegal. And proescutors aren’t allowed to skip lightly past evidence of felonies.
@Robert
Sure, the Mueller investigation might not have nailed anybody named Trump, but at least they reeled in one Big Fish: Richard Pinedo, a former L.A. Fitness staffer and minor league computer fraud entrepreneur in a farm town perhaps most famous for David Spade's movie "Joe Dirt" having been filmed there.
Clearly, the Kremlin's tentacles go deep in America!
Politicians caught in wrongdoing always suggest that the findings are laughable. Check your history books.
1
Right, comparing Comey to Donald Jr.? Apples and elephants.
2
Goodbye, Ross. I'm not reading you again.
By writing such a dismissive and cynical take on serious current events, you've lost both my trust and my interest.
11
Sorry, Ross. Your OpEd is clever but misses an essential, critical perspective on the damage in human lives and suffering Trump has caused domestically. Yes, its true that, compared to Bush and Obama, fewer American lives have been lost in foreign, meaningless and costly armed conflict. However, why is it that you ignore the Domestic costs of Trump in lives do to human suffering of the less affluent in shameful health and housing ruin, in plundered wealth by emoluments, in the creation of a cult that destroyed the Republican Party. These Trumpism effects are not a laughing matter. The fact that you ignore them, speaks volumes about conservatives that have failed to step up and reclaim decency in politics, protect all our citizens not just the affluent with bogus tax reform, and safe our Democracy from a dangerous Cult.
7
@Eyes Open
A column isn't 200 pages long. You've got enough space to start to do ONE serious topic justice.
Demanding he treat this topic and that and that in one column is silly. You couldn't do it.
Why not list your topics out and request that Douthat devote a column to each one of them?
No, no, no.
There is nothing funny about trump.
Not even black humor.
One of the problems is that SNL and the talk hosts laugh about him.
He's not funny.
Not at all.
5
I love the Coen Brothers - but the film that to me most resembles this (unfunny) farce of a Presidency is the brilliant "Being There." Trump could be the evil twin of Peter Seller's naive and utterly helpless character, whose total simplicity endears him to equally naive and helpless voters. Hopefully Trump can't walk on water.
2
Meh, I'll laugh again when we get rid of the worst human being to ever hold high-elected office in this country. And I say that with the full knowledge of some of the horrible types that have held office previously. Trump is a dictator wannabe, and does not believe in democracy, or anything to be honest, other than enriching himself and his cronies (including family). The worst part is that I honestly believe if his choice was to go down in disgrace and be imprisoned for life, or send Ivanka to prison, he'd send Ivanka in a heartbeat. Not that she likely doesn't deserve it, but his is totally without morals.
7
If only it was true, that what we are living through is a movie, we could all breath a sigh of relief. But we’re not characters in a movie & criminal trump is a cheat, a liar, a misogynist, a racist, a person of no moral character, and no one seems to be able to turn the switch to off. Turn the TV off and start reading America’s constitution.
1
“In this part of the movie, the law-enforcement agents watching the Russian hacking unfold become convinced ... that they’re investigating a vast, world-shaking conspiracy, complete with Russian intelligence assets in the Trump campaign.”
The idiocy of your contempt for the FBI pursuing this matter aggressively and seriously is that if such an approach had been taken with the Saudi flight school students who didn’t want to learn how to land a plane, so much of our recent history would be different. You demean vigilance in the protection of our democracy even after it is indisputable that the Russians went to great lengths to influence our election, and Trump & Co. welcomed them with open arms.
5
Comedy is tragedy plus time. Someday future generations will think Trump was hilarious.
1
@Ran Only if the future generations survive climate change
I think the farce will be complete when Trump's finances are finally revealed and we learn he's worth far less than he claimed and all of this was to conceal the fat that his hands are indeed quite small after all.
1
"where the country is asked to choose between two kinds of folly, one squalid and corrupt but the other pompous, insufferable and paranoid in its own self-important way."
Gee, Ross, where's the choice? I find pompous, insufferable and paranoid very accurate adjectives for describing Trump and his whole entourage.
2
In this take on the investigation into the activities of the Trump campaign vis a vis the Russians, it is only the wisdom of the Russians which prevents full scale collusion. That is, the bumbling Trump squad made every attempt to collude but the Russians knew better than to get caught up in that imbroglio (which they did anyway). Without an investigation, how would that be known? Were our intelligence services supposed to assume the idiocy of Trump and his minions and the aloof cleverness of the Russians? Really? Because if one were to be able to ask Trump how he got so played by the Russians, he would say, “Didn’t happen. There definitely was collusion and it was perfect!”
1
Many years ago, after handing several blue books, filled with what can best be described with "writing," to a professor after an exam, he said "Next time be succinct." So, after surviving Dubyah's presidency, I thought we'd experienced the worst the republican party had to offer. I was wrong.
2
I agree. We need more humor. I'm trying to find some good 'kids in cages' jokes. Does anyone know any?
7
Hmm, sounds like someone is trying pacify themselves as they make the dangerous journey from a never Trumper to a forever Trumper. Either your Party is finished or our country is finished. Either way, let's hope we can all find humor when it comes to pass.
3
Yes, I made notes for such a fantasy-film on October 3rd when the "Whistle-Blower" tried to unsuccessful approach the House Intelligence Committee before they were ready for him; meanwhile Giuliani was running wild in the background. And let's not forget the linchpin to the counter-intelligence operation George Papadopoulos bragging in a hotel bar to Australia's high commissioner to the UK, Alexander Downer, about Hilary emails soon to be released [May 2016]. I abandoned gloom and started laughing. Rudy should play himself. I guarantee he will steal every scene.
2
It will be so historically interesting to look back at all the various ways that Conservatives chose to gauge and measure their alliance with this first Russian/American administration.
You can dance your dance all night long... but eventually you got to pay the band.
I do agree that humor is very important in one’s life and in politics. I am glad the author explained that the Russians exposed the DNC’s corruption in favoring Hillary. Then they bought ads on Facebook. Do that many liberals get their news on Facebook? Were so many confused when they went to vote That they wanted to vote for Hillary but voted for Trump instead? This seems absurd on its face. If you want humor, the funniest thing was the Democrat donating Trump hating professor from Stanford a couple of weeks ago who wanted us to believe that the president is a renowned scholar of English history in the 17th and 18th centuries. She told us that the president knew that the word us actually meant me.Now that is really really funny!
Okay Ross, but Trump still has to be impeached regardless of what we all know the morally corrupt Senate will do.
One thing stands out in all this mayhem and I do not believe the People are attaching enough to the issue. Trump blithers all the time about “do nothing Democrats” but it is his Republican Senate that is ignoring over 500 bills....THEY are the “do nothings” and THEY and their crime boss are ruining this nation.
2
I'm sorry Ross, but every time I read your tortuous efforts to find some extenuation for this wretched administration I get pretty sick to my stomach.
Your a Catholic and I'm not. So let me speak to you about a Catholic young man, a brilliant West Point graduate, a stellar officer who came home from 28 months of combat duty in Afghanistan and Iraq, wreathed and lavished in fitness reports that made men with many stars on their shoulders beg him to make the Army a career.
Since despite his immersion in terror and gore he was, after all--as his Mother said--"a Poet and not a Soldier''--he turned down the three- and four-stars and returned home--to a desperate crash into personal darkness and temptations to violence that have essentially ruined his life. HIs Catholic Mother was compelled to endure the murder of one of her psychologist friends by another desperate ex-soldier who turned on the help offered him at the Yountville CA VA Center where her own son was assigned for awhile.
So, Mr. Republican--Mr. Catholic--turn on Mr. Trump's predecessors as you will, but if so turn on the Republican fools who pulled the trigger that help ruin my Catholic nephew's life. After all, Mr. Catholic, you have forfeited any right to extenuate or minimize the sins of Republican fools and criminals.
4
@David A. Lee I beg readers of my comment to realize that I know the difference between the possessive pronoun "your" and the contraction "You're" which my second sentence confused. I wish to add that as a Protestant Christian I wish Mr. Douthat no malice, but I emphatically reject the option of "laughing" through an impeachment that is the product not only of Mr. Trump's wretched criminality but of the very history of self-glorification and violent zealotry in our country's leadership in both foreign and domestic policy that is owned in spades by this and by previous Republican presidents. Christians in this country have a terrible burden of admitting our complicity in our country's own violent blindness and the Republican Party as the self-appointed executor of its belief in Christianity and patriotism is an especially guilty party in this respect. Others, including too many Democrats, do, of course, share the blame. But it is preposterous effrontery to "laugh" about what is happening to America today. We ourselves are victims of ourselves and my young nephew was hit hard in this respect, as others have been. Here is the truth, and it's not a laughing matter.
Fewer tragedies? How about the loss of life from mass shootings and domestic terrorism that has happened under Trump’s watch? Nothing funny about that.
2
Trump's campaign manager is currently in federal prison, and was known to be feeding information to Russian oligarchs close to Vladimir Putin. I think, Ross, that points to a bit more of a deeper tie between Moscow and Trumpland than you—or any Republican—has been able to admit. There was a report issued earlier this year (you might have heard of it) that documented numerous attempts to get help from Moscow. Your attempts at creating a false equivalency with Anthony Wiener's low-rent scandal or President Obama's mishandling of a war he inherited (while not mentioning Trump's outright betrayal of our allies and giveaways to our enemies) simply don't hold water.
This is far, far from over.
3
It's hard to tell sometimes what a farce is. But as far as comedy, try laughing at our 1 trillion in new debt that financed a tax cut for a few and where 1/3 of the cut went to foreigners. And the fact that the debt is socialized to be paid by people in this country. Yes, isn't that funny. Or the farmers going bankrupt in the Midwest. They are laughing too. Or the taxes in form of tariffs that Americans are paying. Or the fact that the cut in corporate taxes is just making a wonderful impact on stock buybacks that inflate the stock market for the CEO's just itching to cash in their stock options. Yes, Conservatives are just so happy with their man in the White House because they are just like him, immoral and unethical frauds. They are the people who enjoy the party they are throwing until it's time to pay the bill. Then they look around for someone else to pay for their party and blame those people for the problems they created. They have the audacity to think they are conservative, and principled. Some of them are writers who somehow get paid to write nonsense that serves as another means of denial and distraction. Another real holiday best for them. Well, America is weaker now, and is no longer respected by its friends nor feared by its enemies. That is not something laugh about. The joys of a Trump administration ring hollow because they are shared by only a few. Republicans, there are traitors among us and to find them all you have to do is look in the mirror.
1
Nihilism - the last gasp of the heretofore “conservative intellectual corps” to rationalize their vapid movement now belied by Trumpism.
1
Ross’ despair over Trump and the evolution of the GOP into a parade of lemmings following Fox & Friends, Ross’ despair has led him to hollow laughter in an effort to avoid madness.
2
"...absurdist scenes like the famous Trump Tower meeting, where Don Jr. shows up expecting a big intel deal and instead gets a lecture on Russian adoptions while Jared Kushner tunes out and checks his phone."
What makes this scene "absurd"?
A bit of context is called for here.
The real world cutoff in Russian adoptions was a response to the congressional economic sanctions imposed on Russia as a response to the Magnitsky Affair.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Magnitsky
Kushner and the other Trump supporters did not have a clue about the real larger context in which the Russians were thinking and working.
2
My only criticism of this is with the binary option between far-left, and “establishment center-left”—referring to Biden, and/or Buttigieg, both doomed to follow HRC to ignominious defeat on the pitchforks of populist rage—when there is a third, and far more potent, antidote to the Trump virus that establishment media have done their level best to obscure: The anti-establishment center-left candidacy of Andrew Yang.
Yang is not vulnerable to the charge of condescending, socialist sanctimony that recently brought down the Corbynistas in England—since UBI is a capitalist inspiration, in origin, as opposed to a socialist give-away. It is CPR, a means of resuscitating a failing circulatory system.
He also combines good-humored charm—in contrast to Biden’s impotent pugilism—with sober, data-driven arguments that have a proven track record for peeling away support from Trump’s base.
Yang will beat Trump by addressing the establishment rot—the underlying, economic grievance of Trump voters—that has brought us to this impasse. The question (for the establishment, and for us) is, how much do you really want to beat Trump?
Not Left, Not Right, but Forward!
It's sad to read that Mr. Bruni has bought the propaganda that is being peddled 24/7 to save trump from himself. With a weaponized Justice Department, and with interference by Barr, the trump administration made a point to investigate everyone and everything that could be deemed negative to his re-election campaign.
From trump's idiotic voting investigation that set out to prove that the 3 million votes he lost by were fraudulent, to Barr's deception on the Mueller report, to the Ukraine extortion, to the investigation into the FBI to prove that the entire trump-Russian connection was fake, trump and company have gaslighted the world into believing that trump's cruelty and graft are better than any attempt to preserve the rule of law and defend the Constitution.
There is no joy in Snowville today, Mr. Bruni has struck out.
This column demonstrates that any hope that we had for moral redemption for Douthat's putative rejection of Trumpism was far too premature and aspirational.
Once again, Douthat slips back into both-sides-did-it and see-it-wasn't-so-bad.
First of all, the Mueller Investigation wasn't a "fizzle." It reulted in the convictioon of people for real crimes against our country. And while it didn't find direct evidence of transactional coordination between the trump campaign and Russia, it did conclude that Trump gladly accepted the help of Russia's actions. Douthat finds that acceptable? Shame on him!
Besides, Mueller clearly stated that trump obstructed justice, but that he wouldn't prosecute a sitting president. That's an impeachable offense, not a "fizzle."
Douthat also creates a false moral equivalency between Trump's (and his Republican enablers') personal actions versus the procedural failures of the FISA system. Except for one rogue player, there is no Deep State. Yet, Douthat finds that morally equivalent to Trump's disgusting behaviors, as well as the Republicans' acceptance of it.
Enough already! Which side has consistently acted with malicious intent? For all of Comey's flaws, there's no malicious intent there. Pres Obama didn't make decisions about Afghanistan for his own personal gain!
Mr. Douthat: Your smarmy attitude as an etitled, holier-than-thou pundit is part of what's destroying our country. Stop it!
1
This nihilistic rant only underscores the ineptitude of our supposed meritocracy, of whom Trump is the great exemplar, and no anomaly.
2
Of course Mr. Douthat hasn't acknowledged the fact that Trump and Republican members of Congress gratefully accepted money from our adversary Russia--some of it funneled through the NRA--to the tune of $millions (Trump accepted $30 million from Russia/NRA.
There's nothing farcical about Trump's presidency, and nothing farcical about the Republican members of Congress abandoning ethics, honor and integrity by enabling this misfit to destroy legislation that benefits most Americans.
3
An excellent column. Though I pride myself on finding humor in any situation, I find that project to be beyond the pale when, at this particular moment in climate change history, we have placed in the most powerful position on earth someone who denies it is even happening. The Gods may be laughing at us, but I don't see how we can laugh at ourselves.
1
First me: I'm a conservative who could not bring himself to vote for either presidential candidate in the last election. In the next election, because of his efforts in the right directions (for a conservative) and the strong economy I plan to vote for the incumbent--while still harboring the sentiments about the man that led me not to vote for him before.
Now, Mr. Douthat's column: I think it's on the money. We have had a comedy with black overtones.
I suggest you view The High Plains Drifter, a Clint Eastwood film. I believe it really explains the political phenomenon we are witnessing.
I pray we can laugh when he is out of office. But his term is not over and he has done irreparable damage to our balance of power between the branches of government.
What will the outcome be? I doubt we will be laughing.
2
@Jacob B Graziano You've touched on what I find so disheartening about the Trump Presidency. That such a cartoonish, incompetent figure will likely have such a lasting and profound effect on the balance of power between the branches of government and the presidency itself. When Trump survives impeachment, and if he is re-elected, which seems likely if not inevitable, he may have successfully demonstrated to future presidents and political parties that a U.S. President is no more constrained by domestic or international law, comity, political conventions, history, or even morality, than are the types of dictators who openly and shamelessly rule with an iron fist.
2
Hmm. Many unfine people on both sides?
Perhaps. But we know -- not through buffoonish but through competent and unanimous national intelligence -- that Russia worked the internet very hard to make Trump president. Not simply to sow national discord, not simply to render dubious the ascent of either candidate. Primarily, to make Trump president.
Why?
We need to know that. We need to look at events, personalities, opportunities, and try to understand.
Maybe the answer will turn out to be funny.
That would be nice.
4
I've often mused on the seemingly vast differences in sense of humor between the two major parties, with the Republicans more or less completely lacking in any kind of self-deprecating laughter-ability.
Suppose I need to be happy that many of our decent and fair-minded Republicans are finding escape in black satire, and even join us on occasion as we double over at the "no clothes" bits of our current "emperor".
Yet, I find no solace. My fear for next year is that we gain the votes some decent and fair-minded Republicans who simply can't stomach Trump anymore, but lose (or fail to reach) everyone who is a willing victim of disinformation. We will also fail to get the votes of many centrists and people to the right who think the Democrats have veered left for talking about Medicare for All. Because America.
I fear that our Boris will be re-elected next year and don the mandate mantle even more, to the permanent detriment of our geopolitical and economic interests.
If that happens, no amount of laughter can help us.
6
Seeing everything as a comedy skit is one way to think it isn't happening IRL. But it is, and it is serious and should be taken seriously.
2
I have a hard time laughing when it's not just Trump. My party has decided to go all in with whatever Mr. Trump does is fine by them and if it works out for Russia they're OK with that too. I was raised differently. Mr. Trump should have been too.
3
In a week when our Constitutional order is being tested Ross chooses to write something that says this is all just a big joke and that we should sit back and laugh. Great going Ross, you really have a sense of history.
The only positive element of this piece is that this is another example of obfuscation that the Right has so well employed. The majority leader of the Senate went on national airwaves and said that he was going to let the White House determine how the impeachment was going to work. No pretense of justice, no acknowledgement that anything untoward occurred, no interest in finding the truth, McConnell says that he is going to let the accused run the trial and that the accused's acquittal is predetermined to be in his favor. If there isn't a more clear and glaring example of the wholly corrupt antics of the party that he supports, I don't know. But Ross wants to laugh so we have to allow him to twist the facts so they line up the way he want them to. Yeah, Don Jr expected dirt that he joyously accepted but instead got a lesson in adoption? If that's the way Ross imagines it, it must be true!
And when you start calculating the damage in human lives caused by this president please don't leave out the Kurds, the children taken from their parents and caged, the opioid deaths, the school shootings, the future devastation of climate change, and the rise in hate crimes. Keep on laughing Ross!
15
@Lucas Lynch
Well said.
Ross,
Thank you for a good laugh, and especially the Dr Strangelove reference. I think we have to laugh, but then somehow find a way to trust the institutions of government. Probably easier in Canada.
Ok, it still seems to me that government of the people, by the people, for the people, is perishing from the earth. But I do hope Ross is onto something here. And “If we do meet again, why, we shall smile./ If not, ‘tis true this parting was well made.”
Ross, the truly comic, blundering, and mostly destructive figures of our time are the elected Republicans who viciously lie and disgrace themselves to support trumpism over the conservative ideas they pretend to still represent. Read William Webster’s piece in your paper today. Read the op-ed penned by 4 fellow Republicans.
Want to compare real life figures to farcical Coen brothers characters? How about Nunes, Jordan, and Collins foaming at the mouth during the impeachment hearings while they attacked courageous lifelong public servants who were only doing their jobs?
If I had been watching a movie rather than real life, I surely would have laughed at the absurdity of it all. Since it was real I simply grew more angry by the day.
Everyone please vote next year to save our country.
5
The Republican strategy crafted by Lee Atwater and Karl Rove has reached its climax in Trump.
7
@Bill 765: Good! Let's have a cigarette and go our separate ways! And lose my number!
1
"his administration is arguably responsible for fewer human tragedies so far than more high-minded, less personally degraded presidencies."
Kids in cages? Puerto Rico disaster relief? Abandoning the Kurds? Hounding of refugees and sqalid camps in Mexico of people denied entry? Charlottsville and the emboldening of the far right?
I'm not sure where I come out on comparing the large scale disasters of the Bush years with the small time casual cruelty of the modern Republican party. But I think this one's arguable.
2
It's a shame that President Trump's entourage nor his core electorate can relate to your comedy references... They're not funny and they definitely aren't fans of the Coen bros.
1
If it were only Trump and not the entire GOP and 40% of the electorate, this whole episode would be a real knee-slapper.
6
Douthat thinks we should laugh about the bumbling Trump farce, but it becomes that only when you distort the story as much as he does. Stone was a probable conduit between the campaign and Wikileaks. The Trump campaign was tipped off that Russia DID have emails. Then Trump gives the green light in a public speech - just a joke, ha ha. Then there are Trump's ties to Russian money and his plain desire for future Russian business.
And that Trump Tower meeting? A retired CIA officer described it thusly: The Russians say, "We have dirt on Hillary." Trump Jr. says great! Russian agent meets with entire senior campaign leadership who are obviously eager for the dirt, but instead this agent says "about those sanctions (though)..." There is not a clearer signal among people intent on skullduggery, and we saw it play out again in the Oval Office over Ukraine. Then Trump says "Russia, if you are listening..."
And then he proceeds in his first months as the winner to try to overturn and obstruct sanctions against Russia.
I don't need any more proof. This isn't a court of law.
4
I stopped laughing a long time ago. There is nothing funny about what is happening to us. Eternal shame on the GOP.
10
Comedy can be very close to tragedy. Look at the 'Merchant of Venice' by of course Shakespeare which was at first billed as comedy. And I am not laughing now as Mr. Douthat tries to disparage the Steele report which has much truth in it.
3
So, Mr. Douthat, you claim that [Trump's] "administration is arguably responsible for fewer human tragedies so far than more high-minded, less personally degraded presidencies."
I would submit that the final count of the tragedies attributable to the Trump administration to date is far from complete. By his inaction, and indeed his championing of inaction, in the face of the perils of climate change (that Chinese hoax) will surely result in substantial tragedy, suffering and human degradation. Perhaps more than we can even imagine.
Shall we just laugh?
5
I’m reminded of an old quote about advertising; “I know that half of my advertising does not work, but I don’t know which half.”
Only the fullness of time will sort crime drama from farce in the Trump era. But even now we know for sure there is an ample supply of insult and injury to go around.
Donald Trump did not create a dysfunctional Washington. But he did exploit its weakened state like the Black Plague. We can’t go back to a pre-Trump Washington...it no longer exists. The question is...where do we go from here?
2
"Trump has indeed hurt vulnerable people, but between the leaven of incompetence in his cruelty, his rejection of some of the disastrous ambitions of his predecessors and a certain amount of fool’s luck, his administration is arguably responsible for fewer human tragedies so far than more high-minded, less personally degraded presidencies." Really? Kind of ignoring the Mexican border thing or the farm thing or the veteran thing or the continuing mass shooting thing or the EPA thing or the Department of Education thing or any number of other things aren't you, Ross?
4
Douthat does have a way of biting at one’s ankles. The following line of his really stuck in my craw, “[H]is administration is arguably responsible for fewer human tragedies so far than high-minded, less personally degraded presidencies,” Off the top of my head, I’ve compiled below a short list of aggrieved persons, groups, organizations, laws and democratic principles that have suffered mightily through the actions or lack of action by Trump.
Children separated from their parents and held in cages at our southern border;
School kids traumatized by endless and rising school shootings;
Minority groups gunned down by white supremacists;
Elections that remain subject to foreign interference;
Environmental protection under increasing threat from lack of EPA enforcement;
Complete abdication of all federal efforts to address the global climate threat;
Increasing Mid East instability;
Rising threats and killings of journalists (Jamal Khasoggi);
Syrian Kurds;
Yemenis;
Hong Kong democracy protestors; and
NATO.
The only remark made by Douthat in this piece, which may continue to explain his myopic analysis is this one. “[h]ow young and naive I was back then.”
4
Many crime shows involving the mob include many elements in the column. The bad guys exhibit sociopathic features, they often commit stupid mistakes and the investigators trip over themselves. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t good guys and bad guys.
2
There is nothing funny about Trump destroying decency and respect that are the tenets of our society by insisting on “whatever gets me to the end.” Trump ridicules because he doesn’t know any other way of communicating and in some sense, he truly means the vitriol that he spews because that is, so he thinks, what his enemies deserve. Everyone else is enemy and he the victim. And facing this, should we just laugh about it?
3
“Don Jr. shows up expecting a big intel deal and instead gets a lecture on Russian adoptions.”
Russia’s prohibition of US adoptions was retaliation for US sanctions against Russia via the Magnitsky Act. A perfect example of how Russia has been manipulating (or at least attempting to manipulate) this naive and ignorant administration.
Russia has already had massive, potentially world-altering success with these tactics (Syria, Iran nuclear deal, NATO, etc) so I fail to see the humor in this piece.
1
Just because the Mueller report did not lead to Trump's impeachment right away does not mean it fizzled. It brought to light a lot of unsavory stuff and led to the conviction of a number of people for a whole range of criminal offenses -- so it can certainly be called a success.
Also, if there are "rumors" -- another way to say "intelligence" -- of a pee tape being used to blackmail a Presidential candidate, obviously FBI agents have to check up on it, even if it turns out to be false or unsubstantiated (we don't know if there is one). To paint them as too credulous is misguided.
2
Well, the truth is that we as a species are a strange combination of the noble and the ignoble, the stupid and the brilliant and the competent and the incompetent. So we point fingers but in the end are the swamp and the abyss but also the good and the kind. Go figure!
Yes, the liberals are not perfect. The lesson is that we should only support perfect people doing perfect things in perpetuity.
The only people who are totally perfect are Conservatives.
We get it, Ross. Only vote for Divine Perfection, the GOP.
3
What Donald Trump is doing to America is no laughing matter. While praising the intelligence of the American electorate, he secretly knows that they can be led around like bulls with nose rings - only instead of bullrings; he uses their beliefs and prejudices to lead them wherever he wants.
If DJT doesn't destroy our fragile democracy, he has published the blueprint and playbook for some other demagogue to do it later. If a democracy like America's is going to exist, there will have to be a paradigm shift in human thought throughout the world.
In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer based on a "survival" algorithm, which will provide irrefutable proof as to how we trick the mind with our ridiculous beliefs about what is important and what is supposed to survive - producing minds programmed de facto for dirty tricks and destruction. These minds see the survival of a particular belief as more important than the survival of us all. When we understand this, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
3
I'm with you all the way. Though lacking the Coen Brothers' brilliance, the movie Idiocracy is on point, too.
Life does not only imitate art, but art shapes lie.
Listening to NPR's piece on Ukraine and the voters there voting in the hero of a satiric TV show who's fictional character rages against the corruption of the system, I realized this same thing happened here. The difference is Mr. Trump's drain-the-swamp refrain is an empty fantasy of a conspiracy theory and lives with birithism and dark fantasies which range from the innocuous Area 51 to the Alex Jones there-was-no-killing-at-Sandy Hook.
The problem with the real world is that reality has a way of controlling events and outcomes. Trump can claim credit for the economic boom and for the daily sun rise, but if the airplane is built with a fatal flaw, it crashes and no amount of stage craft can treat cancer or provide healthcare or climate remediation.
Or, as Bertrand Russell observed: The trouble with life is the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubts.
6
What this country desperately needs is a leader who has the capacity for joy. Of all the daily embarrassments and atrocities perpetrated by this president, the inability of the man to show joy or compassion is probably his greatest failure as a human being. His rallies are always mean spirited, filled with crude, vulgar jokes that are delivered at the expense of others. The willingness of his followers to cheer him on is scary, and resembles a playground bully being egged on by a cackling crowd of onlookers whose only care is for the entertainment value the scene provides. There is no love in this man. The cavernous black hole in his chest where his heart ought to be is bottomless, and therefore he is incapable of giving to and caring for other people. Unlike the Grinch, Trump has proven over and over that he cannot be taught, will not be generous and will continue to use others in the service of his own selfishness. Happy Holidays everyone. Pray for peace in earth and a return of joy to our nation.
4
So some of the people in any organization are imperfect, just as is true in any human population. But describing the imperfections of those working to hold Trump and his enablers to the proper use of the office of President of the United States does not alter the essential fact that Trump is the most incompetent, amoral, ignorant, capricious, and dangerous man ever to hold that office. Nothing alters that.
1
Trumpers are attached at the hip to the NRA/ defense industry, and the latter are attached, romantically, to any military adventure that any administration can cook up. So I think the Trumpies don't attack Afghanistan because it was "futile," as this article suggests; but because Afghanistan "has no oil" and "seize their oil" is now Donald's MO. The fact that "we haven't won yet" merely discredits the urge to go to war anywhere and Use Our Products in war.
Also, I'd treat rather less cavalierly the FBI investigation into Russia-Trump relations; police always investigate evidence of flagrantly illegal and sometimes, treasonous, behavior.
1
I've seen it a couple times and while it has its moments, it's not a very good movie.
Brad Pitt playing a completely clueless goof is priceless though.
I had almost the same epiphany over this film in the last few years - also really disliked it at the time, now find it scarily prescient. We've made ourselves ridiculous.
The point of this essay seems to be that anti-Trumpers would gain more traction if they treated the moment like a farce rather than as a tragedy. But doing so would allow Trump to define the terms of the conversation and allow the ultimate damage the critics seek to avoid - the end of seriousness - to become manifest. This is why you don't debate a sneering teenager: a sneer has no interest in truth.
So - you argue that we should be grateful for Trump's "fool's luck" and leave him to roll those dice again.
There is plenty of human tragedy coming out of Trump's actions: kids in cages having been lost to their parents, Ukrainian soldiers killed by Russians, EPA protections slashed, climate change unaddressed (yes these are human tragedies - just not yet).
Fewer dead soldiers in Afghanistan - but these numbers are an extrapolation of Obama's second term. Like the economic recession, he inherited a trend that he reversed - and that is what made Trump lucky.
The only way to laugh at Trump is to impersonate him or quote his ridiculous tweets and even those are getting tired . The man is so grotesque and one dimensional that after awhile seeing him through the magnifying glass of comedy or parody are simply not funny.
1
I like the idea of the Coen brothers weighing in on our current national malady but I think a better model would be the classic Fargo. Consider: Trump realizes that he is deeply in debt with no banks rushing to bail him out. He also is about to be convicted in the Senate. So he has Rudy hire two hapless thugs to kidnap a Trump family member and hold him/her for a king's ransom to be paid by the U.S. government. Take your choice of kidnap victim (or victims). The plan unravels when the kidnappers demand a bigger cut and Rudy confesses the while plot on FOX News. Final scene: Trump checks into a Moscow hotel under a fake name where he is arrested by Russian police while screaming "fake news" and "it's a witch hunt!".
3
This writing attempts to keep everyone in a miasma of complacency in a dangerous time using false and disdainful equivalencies. Trump already thinks he's in a movie where there are no real consequences . He doesn't need this writer re-enforcing that. Being able to find false equivalencies probably gives the writer the impression of being thoughtful. However, it speaks to being disengaged from the real damage being done and from what needs to happen here. It would be good to see the writer actually take organizational, on the ground action instead of colluding with the current regime to sustain false narratives.
5
I disagree with your assumption that this Administration has hurt fewer people than other more "high minded" ones. Emphatically so. If you are looking only at numbers on a sheet you miss the entire point. Trump and his henchmen have a total disregard for America, its people, its laws, norms, the constitution, the environment, human decency, truth, and human life save their own. it is a kind of internal squalor rarely writ so large. This is hurting our country on a far more fundamental level. Trump is forcing each person to choose between human decency and this internal squalor. Choose wisely.
4
This column was inevitable as pundits and other Beltway commentators who have declared that Trump is unfit for office are now slowly setting it up so they don't look so bad when Trump is reelected. Expect more to follow.
1
It is probably true: If we don't laugh, we'll cry. From which vantage point are we viewing all of this?
After "American Hustle" I think David O. Russell might do a better job than the Coen brothers but I nearly fell off the couch laughing at "Roger Stone and Anthony Weiner as themselves."
Once it all over, either 2020 or 2024, both the tragedy and comedy of Trump will be explored by Hollywood. In truth it seems to me that the job of telling the stories of political misdeeds has become Hollywood's job long ago, just as long as it's too late to do anything about it.
Douthat seems to be arguing that, for instance, the killing of thousands of soldiers in battle is morally worse than the humiliation and torture of dozens of prisoners at Abu Ghraib (since killing is a worse offense than humiliation and torture, and numbers matter). Yet a real spike in outrage was over Abu Ghraib, where I believe only one prisoner died, and rightly so. Abu Ghraib helped to define the immoral and even disgusting nature of the United States to the entire world, and likely diminished any notions that the U.S. engages in just wars, for those who believe in such a possibility. There is perhaps nothing more dangerous than this, for U.S. military personnel, and I find it surprisingly unconservative of Douthat to espouse such utilitarian views.
I don't know if I need to point out that I am directly comparing Trump's presidency to the Abu Ghraib abuses. They are of exactly the same nature, and the dangers are identical. I see the fallout from Trump's presidency all around me, every day. And the consequences we are reaping are only just beginning.
4
Yes, Ross, and wasn’t it hilarious how those bungling Watergate burglars forgot to take the tape off of the door latch to the DNC offices in 1972 - only to be discovered by a building guard? Just a scream! The line between tragedy and comedy is often pretty thin and does nothing to diminish that which is truly tragic. With regard to a suggestion that Trump has done less harm than immediate predecessors, please do not forget the imminent harm to people (in the thousands) due to Trump’s reckless disregard of the health consequences of air pollution ranging from the immediate, local direct effects (increased ER visits, premature death, etc.) to the more indirect, and catastrophic, effects of human-caused climate change from greenhouse gases. You conveniently ignore these facts.
3
Two rejoinders:
First, until we see the POTUS' tax returns I am not certain we can reject the premise that Mr. Trump's holdings don't constitute "Russian intelligence assets". Mr. Trump's financial dealings are likely more consequential than "pee tapes" given his supporters' willingness to forgive his payments to Stormy Daniels.
And second, Alec Baldwin's SNL skits are hardly "humorless" nor are many of the memes and cartoons bouncing around the internet... There are always some self-righteous folks who fail to appreciate the humor of situations--- and they are on the right side of aisle as well as the left.
244
Douthat's narrow perspective leaves out the masses who have been calling for FDR or Bernie to return us to a meaningful government with real integrity. Obama, Clinton, and those calling for moderation have moderated us into a corrupt, conservative situation.
2
Ross,
Please explain the comedy that can be mined from films showing small children in cages, asylum seekers sent back to the mercy of murderous cartels in their country of origin, dead freedom fighters for whom the foreign aid arrived too late (and only arrived at all because of that pesky whistle blower that Trump is determined to expose). A whole subplot could be the terror of minorities who are victims of hate crimes. The last scene can be a laugh line while waters rise in cities around the country.
That is my plot line for the Trump administration movie. A second term sequel can include the destruction of humanity and cultures around the world when Trump and Putin turn their military power against a world dying in cataclysmic climate change.
Welcome to the movies.
11
Perhaps Douthat has a comparable hilarious film in mind about how the GOP laughingly chided their voters with cover-ups, failed security clearances, repeated omissions on disclosure forms, hidden notes of leader to leader conversations, refusal to honor subpoenas...
What a gas.
3
I wish I could believe this column is a joke; but, alas, no.
No one claims that the republic dies daily, only to be reborn the next morning. (Apparently Ross thinks that the movie we are living through is "Groundhog Day".) We claim that our constitutional system is being killed by the cult of personality that has replaced the Republican Party. It is a slow death by a thousand cuts. The corruption will not disappear once Trump is out of office. Our democratic institutions have been seriously damaged. It will take many years of concerted effort to revivify them, assuming that is even possible. If things keep going this way, the wounds may prove to be mortal.
Here's another movie idea: Ross living in Bronze Age Troy, telling Cassandra that, despite her dire warnings, the city is still there after ten years of the Greeks' siege. Obviously, her panic is baseless and overwrought. And why can't she see the humor in that gigantic wooden horse?
6
I wish this column was funnier than it is meant to be. The rot this president has introduced is like the rot introduced by all the most despicable characters in history. The consequences will be felt long after he is gone.
4
Laugh all you want, Mr. Douthat.
The rest of us "stone-hearted" folks will be working hard to clean up this mess.
2
There are times I have just break out laughing.
Still are we all laughing (or crying or raging) about the same things?
Ross, what are you talking about? You sound like a writer critiquing the latest reality television series. You said the Mueller report "fizzled" as if it didn't provide the level of entertainment you were expecting. As many of the other comments have pointed out, the Mueller report uncovered over 100 contacts between the Russians and Trump's campaign, and while those contacts may not have risen to the level of criminal conspiracy, they should certainly worry anyone concerned about the integrity of our democracy. And you call James Comey comical. What is comical about a president asking his FBI director for his loyalty? Would we have known that if Comey did not come forward. You conservatives who know Trump is a disaster need to stop gloating when you see an opening to take a partisan swipe. You're treating our law enforcement like the keystone cops because errors were uncovered in hindsight after reviewing over a million documents with a microscope. I wonder how many of your articles could withstand that level of scrutiny.
9
And now imagine Franklin Delano Roosevelt returning to sit in the White House once again. Imagine his speech to Congress challenging the rule of American oligarchs, his lack of deference to Putin, his fighting in defense of our poor and abandoned.
I have many times said that the Trump administration has made me laugh more than I have ever laughed, certainly he has single handedly made SNL funny again.
But the dark and cruel truth is, we are at war with Russia, and their officer, Trump, sits in our White House, tossing tax eliminations to Republicans like a burglar tossing meat to a guard dog. Russia is doing what it can to destroy our democracy and turn the Republican Party into...a sock puppet.
We are becoming bankrupt, as our national debt is out of sight. We could lose this war, and that is not only not funny, it is a distinct possibility. We are becoming Russia.
Hugh
4
Ross clearly worked very hard on this contrary piece. I'm a regular reader and fan of his, but he ventures beyond cynicism and skates into indifference when he urges us to smile more, talk less.
1
Douthat attempts to minimize and trivialize the damage and dangers of Trump and his administration. It's important to laugh at them, yes. It's essential to recognize how Trump and most of the Congressional GOP are successfully working to undermine democracy, free and fair elections, and our national security.
We can laugh, groan, swear, and rant. It's essential we rise up and resist. March or rally today to impeach and remove. Nobody is above the law.
3
Ross: The sad truth is that anything remotely funny always comes back to the fact that the entire fabric of our society is in peril. Therefore, to me at least, it returns to the “ nothing is funny about our present situation” . Yes, there’s lots to be made fun of, but the fact that we are making fun of reality bites.
3
The fact that Trump could be elected with the flimsiest pretexts of competence shows that the American electorate could be fooled long enough to be a danger to the republic.
2
As a woman, this column reeks of "Honey, the misogyny, the hacking, the kids in cages, the absurd assertion that the popular vote was wrong, the defrauding of charities, the keeping of double books to lower taxes but raise value for lenders, the defiance of subpoenas, the paying off adult movie stars with campaign funds, the hiding of taxes, the attacking of teenagers online, the alienation of long-standing allies, the extortion of a vulnerable country, the "military parade" and for heavens' sake the inaugural crowd size...just smile a bit more, its all so funny."
13
Wrong movies, Ross. More like the Manchurian Candidate, about the careful indoctrination of a celebrity, if spectacularly unsuccessful business man by Putin, along with A Face in the Crowd, about how a media figure bullies conservative partisans in to unquestioning obedience. Yes, there are some comic influences, if you like dark, fatalistic irony.
287
@DRD,
Good comment. I would add, however, that all three movies could be analogues. There was a multitude of incompetents at work, even while serious efforts were being made to get Trump into power.
If we really want "dark, fatalistic irony" or some "dark humor," however, how about this: the absolute worst result of all of this sturm und drang has nothing to do with impeachment - it is the empowerment, elevation, and indulgence, of the Shameless Lie. Of thousands of them.
Trump, Republicans, and GOP voters, seem to have lost all dedication to or fondness with the truth (although Trump never had any). Lying is accepted and endorsed. Speaking nonsense is credited as "being willing to tell it like it is," or saying things that our better natures had previously caused us to repress. This is a terrible disability that will long outlast Trump and his henchmen. We crossed a terrible threshold into a new level of dishonor and dishonesty, when we "elected" Trump.
6
well,RossDouthat clearly has a point about comey. he has one about rachel maddow, too. she is getting hard to watch.
having said that, The republic really is in danger. it is absurd that it dies daily on MSNBC, but that does not mean that there is no threat.
1
Ross Douthat compares the criminality of Trump and the impeachment effort as a movie script.
There is nothing funny about a president destroying American democracy. I won't laugh more.
Our democracy is at stake. Not a comedy. Not a movie. Deadly serious.
10
With all respect, Trump is not destroying our democracy. Yes, he’s utterly amoral, comically ignorant, and utterly unqualified to be President. If — and it is a big if — the Democrats have a strong candidate, Trump can be defeated. But saying our democracy is in danger? No way. The left hurts itself by casting itself as the savior of this democracy. Come on!
Perspective like Mr. Douthat's defining Trump is contributing to the end of America.
5
For my part, the most trenchant cinematic examination of "Trumpiness" is actually "Loro," Paolo Sorrentino's scathing and hilarious assessment of the life and career of ex-Italian PM Silvio Berlusconi.
1
Finally, a sobering and nuanced reckoning of this whole universally complicit mess. And, as Douthat makes clear, none of it has even a whiff of the dignity of satire; this is straight (and embarrassingly low) comedy.
2
"Burn After Reading" is a hilarious movie: Brad Pitt popping out of the closet, Malkovitch totally losing it and going ape, the Feds clueless about what was actually happening.
But that movie shares a common theme with other Coen Bros. movies, especially the brilliant "Fargo", that crooks are frequently stupid, dishonest, and greedy.
Compare that comedy with Donald Trump Jr. saying that Russians are the biggest Trump investors, Trump Sr. saying during the campaign that he doesn't know Putin but feels he is a much better leader than Obama, that the Russian invasion of Crimea is of no interest to him because it happened during "the Obama Regime", or that 'the transcript' proves his innocence when it actually does the opposite.
There are a hundred more examples that Trump has been compromised by Putin from the Miss Universe Pageant, to Trump Towers Moscow, to saying Putin should be allowed back into the G7 with Crimea forgotten, and of course Trump's refusal to find fault with anything said or done by Putin, the only person in the world, other than Ivanka, to receive such deference.
But the Republicans bending themselves into pretzel shapes in a vain and dishonest effort to defend Trump's corrupt maladministration is just pathetic, and not in the least bit funny.
Now, Trump's being voted out of office in 2020...that would be genuinely funny, and a great relief to the civilized world.
7
It's possible to laugh if you are not fighting for your life. Very privileged view.
9
Bring back Al Franken.
12
I don't remember there being jailed campaign chairmen of sitting presidents in "Burn After Reading." Crazy to think Paul Manafort will be in jail for 7 years. Sounds like they were justified in that FISA wiretap.
7
agree. Reagan used humor to deflect alot of criticisms. we need a candidate who seems like an adult with balance.
1
Mr Douthat, liberals do laugh, frequently and heartily, both with the Trump tragicomedy and with their own buffoonish mistakes. What's the result? Conservative Trump voters are "offended" that we do not respect their choice, like they respected ours...
...sorry, I cracked up and had to stop for a while!
9
It has had a distinctly comic quality all along but Americans tend to be a somber plodding people not much attuned to old-fashioned farce. We take everything too seriously, ourselves and our precious opinions particularly.
2
I do not doubt that people might want to pay more attention to the dark comedy of it all. That said, there is more to it and the roots of the problem are far deeper and darker than acknowledged by Mr. Douthat: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/false-romance-russia/603433/ (by Anne Applebaum).
4
Agree. Only the comedic epilogue is missing, where Trump's finances are opened to daylight and we find he doesn't have any money.
5
It's not funny, Ross.
28
The pre-Trump establishment should be regarded as a lesser evil. They are not heroes, as this article points out and the immense amount of human suffering caused by their foreign policy shows. But they are also a lesser evil than Trumpism. Although they arguably caused more damage than Trump, I chalk this down to facing harder circumstances. If Trump had been president on 9/11 instead of Bush, the War on Terror would probably have been even worse than it actually was.
Burn After Reading was a good movie.
96
@HO The damage caused by Trump's ostrich act to legitimate attempts to save our species from Climate Terror will exterminate millions ... No other president has or will ever come close.
3
@HO
If Trump had been president on 9/11? What if Trump had been president during the Cuban missile crisis? Let me guess: we wouldn't be reading this, would we?
5
I am not sure what the point of this column is, but Trump and Trumpism are not funny. Innocent people are being hurt and are literally dying because of Trump, and the future of our fundamental system of governance appears a lot let stable than many had assumed. Trump has unleashed a torrent of vitriol, anger, and violence that we have not seen since the height of the Vietnam and Civil rights era protests. Trump's corruption, self-dealing, crassness, gratuitous cruelty, and contempt for the Rule of Law are epic, and will only get worse if the Senate does not remove him form office. You want to laugh Ross? Then you will look like a fool, because hundreds of millions of people in the U.S. and around the world are not laughing at all.
24
Douthat acknowledges being a member of the "Never-Trumper center-right" and tries to win liberals over with his assessment of Trump as being fundamentally "unfit for his job."
Kudos to him for continuing to be a Never-Trumper. And also for believing that Trump is unfit.
But he attempts to balance his distaste for Trump with a solid whack-on-the-rump-of-liberals. In a sort of off-hand manner he blames past blunders on the "the great and good" who wrought it upon us.
This is just a code word for the ills that Obama heaped on us. As evidence he notes that Obama escalated the war in Afghanistan that resulted in many more deaths of American soldiers fighting an unwinnable war.
He also passingly mentions GWB's foray into Iraq, once again in an attempt to appear as a neutral commentator rather than a rabid conservative.
In all of this he does not point a finger at one group - conservative pundits, a tribe to which he proudly belongs - that has always been predicting that a HRC victory would lead to the sky falling.
And to me that is tragic.
15
Perfectly stated. Douhat fools no one, but himself.
The FBI and Mueller investigations into Trump and Trump's campaign ties of collusion with Putin's Russia were not overreach. They didn't reach far enough! Most of Putin's hooks into Trump are yet to be revealed.
The biggest farce of all: we have yet to see Trump's tax returns.
11
Mr. Douthat states: "The country is asked to chose between two kinds of folly, one squalid and corrupt, but the other pompous, insufferable, and paranoid in its own self-important way."
Paranoia is a false fear, Mr. Douthat, grounded in delusional belief patterns. But what we are experiencing from this White House is corrupt and boorish, infantile, contemptuous, derisive, and disparaging, stoked daily through lies, spins, and exaggerations beyond anything other than what Europe experienced during the 1930's and 40's.
This is a time to be feared. This Administration has a solid, steady 40-plus percent approval rating amongst 'Likely Voters'.
So, be fearful. These are the incurious types, headline readers at best running roughshop over the Republican Congress in support of Donald Trump, clinging to what's easy to embrace, kicking aside any notion of critical thinking, instead embracing incentives grounded in spite.
It's hard to be understanding and caring when you're encouraged to accept falsehoods, especially when your lied to through an unvetted delivery system like Twitter. Identical to what we see daily coming from President Trump and his sycophantal Republican Congress.
But it will soon be their families, friends, and party forever doomed to try and explain away their actions because they will forever be in the crosshairs of history during every Civics 101 Class in grade schools, high schools, colleges, and universities-----and, yes, forever.
7
I'm with you on this one, Ross. Dark comedy has its uses, and no institution should be spared. These are times that try men and women's souls. and a laugh can cleanse the soul and get us moving again.
Hmmmm. I don’t find Mr. Trump funny. His pandering to his so-called base has encouraged some of their basest instincts—most extreme are mass shootings at synagogues and mosques. I’ve watched some of his rallies where he barks that Democrats hate America, and heard jeering affirmation from his audience. Trump, more than any American leader in my lifetime has demonized the majority of the population, and has polluted our public discourse with his unending efforts to maintain the adoration, even veneration of his base.
5
Trump era and Coen brother's Burn After Reading?
America period politically and economically is well summed up by the Coen brother's film and it's the problem of political and economic life in America being a gray area where you're not sure the reason you can't get a clear picture of it is because you're stupid or if it's designed to baffle people (secrecy, jargon, channel after channel to point of maze) or if a sad consequence of a complex system operating optimally, being greater than the sum of its parts, is that no one person can understand it...
It's baffling because you get any number of portrayals of the system such as in the Coen film but no clear explanation of it for purposes of comparison, and while Americans often call each other stupid they also believe in an education system where you can understand things and of course politics and economics, so the question is why exactly is it difficult to get a clear picture and is there a specific reason why it all has to be so baffling, maze like, secretive, jargon ridden, and whether even if it could be made as clear as possible division of labor and increasing complexity precludes any one person from understanding the whole.
What I most wonder at this point is how many people, especially in high place, are if not as clueless as myself pretty clueless, and this feeling goes down the line, and how much energy, time, resources, thought is spent in pretending you know what's going on, anything to believe in control.
I grew up in Poland during the time of the Soviet Union. We used to be called the funniest barrack in the block. Dark humor was the way of coping with our reality. Having said this, our reality was reinforced by quite a few tank divisions on our eastern border, and our own army that, at the end of the day, was willing to act against it's own people to spare the Soviets the trouble of sending these tanks in.
You still have a choice. Do laugh some, but do also try to avoid the predicament when secret laughter is your only option.
"It" can all happen here. That Trump is a buffoon is your only stroke of luck in this situation. Otherwise the Republic could have been gone for good. Heed the warning. Tomorrow it may be too late.
5
I wish I could remember where I read or saw this, but I vaguely remember a scene in which the hero of the piece starts laughing at a bully. The crowd surrounding them submits to mob psychology and follows the hero in laughing at the bully. The bully slinks away, never to be heard from again.
Perhaps people who are inclined to openly boo Trump at events would have more impact if they laughed at him instead?
Hmmm... I am a bit concerned about this op-ed. I wonder if underneath it is simply saying that whether one has a Nietsch-Voldermort view of power (There is no right or wrong, only power and he who is strong enough to take it) or an ideology that kind of sets the tone for right and wrong (à la The Enlightenment-Left-wing take on reality) makes no difference and that in the end, we will all suffer fools. Perhaps under this line of thinking is a "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity" (The Ecclesiast) view of life, a view that has yet to enter the political fray in any meaningful way. Perhaps what is said is that with any motive, through any ideology, we will do harm. And shouldn't this be a lens through which our view of politics should be shaped?
Just thinking...
58
Nietzsche's concept of power was more nuanced than "There is no right or wrong, only power and he who is strong enough to take it." One thoughtful website says this: "while the will to power in itself is neither good nor bad, Nietzsche very clearly prefers some ways in which it expresses itself to others. He doesn’t advocate the pursuit of power. Rather, he praises the sublimation of the will to power into creative activity. Roughly speaking, he praises those expressions of it he views as creative, beautiful, and life-affirming, and he criticizes expressions of the will to power that he sees as ugly or born of weakness."
4
My anxiety, especially regarding the enormous damage Trump has done and will continue to do to the environment, makes it impossible for me to laugh right now. Perhaps when he and his sheep are gone I'll have the stomach for a movie devoted to his countless misdeeds.
4
Comedy is the only thing that gets me through these days and there’s so much of it! We’re getting a firehouse of ridiculousness in political mess every single day. Take the juvenile posters the Republican Congress put up on their side during the impeachment hearings; no sobriety there. The comedy writers are feasting and we are eating up their brilliant funny spin: SNL, the Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the Daily Show with Trevor Noah, among many others.
The funny thing is I thought conservatives didn’t particularly like political satire. Ridiculousness makes them squirm. But maybe these days it’s just so over the top that even they have to laugh.
79
@Sherry
The republicans are dead serious.
The pressure relief valve that is late night comedy takes a lot of the power out of our ability to affect any change.
But, yes, these would be tyrants can't stand being laughed at. We need to preserve our ability to do just that.
9
@Sherry The only reason Ross is laughing is that he thinks it's the Democrats who are absurd. There's really nothing to laugh at here. The Republicans are the buffoons but they're still conning the people
3
@Zeke27 "The pressure relief valve that is late night comedy takes a lot of the power out of our ability to affect any change." wow, I think you are right- we should let them know- maybe they are hurting us. (but they too like their ratings. it's really sad. )
I am a big Coen Brothers fan but I found that one unwatchable.
I wish I could turn away from the trump circus as well. It is like the sight of a dog getting run over by a bus over and over again - yet you cannot look away somehow.
The overall incompetence of our political system leads me to the following thought experiment:
If one were able to go back in time to 1776, knowing what we now know about the current state of the American Experiment, would one support the revolutionary movement or remain a loyalist?
I can’t help but see my current self residing in Canada.
1
What’s sad is this comedy is our reality. While the Russian hackers continue to influence our elections the elected officials debate who’s at fault.
Not one political leader emerges with a plan to protect US elections, while our president cries no collusion. Seems he’s missing the point. The fiddling continues as our political system burns!
Can the Coen brothers save us from four more years of Trump? Nothing will deflate Trump more effectively than laughter. And nothing seems to excite Trump's base more than watching Trump ridicule Democrats at his rallies. Trump can't be ridiculed on Fox and won't be ridiculed by the mainstream media. So movies and Democratic campaign rallies offer the best venue for attacking Trump with the ridicule he so richly deserves.
2
Although I often disagree with Mr. Douthat, this piece, at least for me personally, is what has been keeping me sane in this awful, but essentially, incompetent Presidency---which as the year and maybe more roll on will become a daily SNL sketch. Trump's daily calendar alone, with more blanks than meetings, testifies to a President who emotionally, intellectually, and physically is incapable of connecting the governing dots. Now having said, I would disagree with the claim there have been fewer human tragedies under this President: throwing children in cages, ignoring the certain climate debacle we are headed for, deregulating industries that are openly poisoning us, pardoning war criminals, taking food away from poor children, supporting the free flow of guns throughout this country---I could go on, but, in Trump's own small but incompetent way, is doing a great deal of damage to our republic.
283
@Amanda Jones Only yesterday the FDA issued new rules governing the inspection of slaughtered pork and beef which reduces the number of inspectors from the government (from 8 to two), sets no speed at the rate which carcasses pass by the inspector and allows certain “trained” people who represent the company to do the inspections. Think your future meat will have as low a figure (none) for sickness borne by meat? Think again. Maybe it’s time for the USA to eat more vegetarian style. I understand this also reduces green house gases produced by animals.
18
@B. Rothman Not only will there be more deaths and illnesses from E. coli in our meat, but workplace injuries will skyrocket.
9
@RJ Steele: Of course, but investors will be happy, so why should any of that matter to the Trump administration?
5
That there may be sufficient blame to go around on both sides of the aisle does not obviate the need to rein in the reign of Trump. Two wrongs, as the adage goes, do not make a right.
If there is, indeed, humor in all of this, it does not amount to anything remotely akin to comic relief, however. The punchline of the Trump administration is too serious, too dangerous and too destructive of what are supposed to be fundamental American principles of government to allow his own misdeeds to go unchecked. Dealing with the FBI and others, if needed, does not eliminate the need to first deal with Trump.
Abraham Lincoln, in his Gettysburg Address, famously claimed that "The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here."
It is, indeed, increasingly difficult to keep track of all of the ridiculous and offensive things Trump has said, but as a nation, we can ill afford to forget, let alone fail to deal with, what he and his administration of Katzenjammer Kids have done.
If Trump won't preserve, protect and defend the nation, it's up to Congress to do it, and that's no laughing matter.
2
Well said ,the great observation of Isiah Berlin in quoting kant "Do not try to make strait crooked timber of humanity "or Moynihan's "maximum feasible misunderstanding "on the observation on power of culture over goverment action.The correspondent make a category error by comparing the action of past presidents to theirs debatable errors of judgement ,the consequences of action cant not be guaranteed
.Trump is being impeached for "conduct unbecoming ".last,conduct matter more than substance.
Interesting - but what about now? When buffoonery evolves to the implications of the Ukraine situation? That's no longer simply a farce - it's a threat to national security. He cannot be allowed to get away with it.
229
@John Kruspe I don't see anything funny about the destruction of American democracy, taking food stamps from people, putting kids in cages, trying to entire do away with Obamacare in the courts, trying to throw out of the country patients like Isabel Bueso who has helped many Americans through her quest for a cure, letting Big Pharma charge so much for drugs people go across borders to stay alive and 500,000 people homeless and living the streets.
Where is the humor in the Trump era?
22
A little above the farce that it creates, which does indeed make for some comedy, perhaps measures of wealth and the approval by the wealthy are not the best way to chose any kind of representatives of the people. In fact it kind of negates the “of” part, doesn’t it?
The only laughter is coming from the Kremlin, Riyadh, Pyongyang, and Damascus. Trump and the GOP and it’s propagandists are steering our ship of state using Russian radar. Certainly, many like Ross Douthat and David Brooks and Bret Stephens believe a masked stranger will ride to the rescue, or that John Galt will surface and declare empire and so they believe themselves innocent of the current perfidy and destruction of trust and belief in democracy. They are all IVY boys and that is the problem. The elite learn early on that they are entitled, privileged, and safe from the exigencies of daily life, like Esau, they have sold their station in life for a moment’s satisfaction. How clever they are to skirt the emergency with narratives that amount to mental gymnastics and provide comfort to those who prefer to be comforted rather than act. There is a clear and present danger to America. It is Donald Trump. Just look at the Intelligence and Judiciary committee hearings and try to recognize that this is not a partisan fight. There is a fight between what our Constitution is and means and intends and those who are undermining it, who have no regard to the divisions of power, who twist the Bill of Rights to give aid to malevolent predators.
These are talented men. They know how to analyze the evidence and come to a conclusion. Conclude or take your humor with Putin.
47
Yep. The ideal candidate to unseat Trump will run as a grown-up, judicious moderate who can combine a broad, works-for-almost-everybody platform with a strong "this nonsense has got to stop" appeal to civic traditions and the strict rule of law.
And who is that candidate? Ummm....
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It may not happen during Trump's term of office but it will happen. The country will find out why Trump's actions not just his speech have done more to help Putin than any prior President.
He favors Russia over the Ukraine, over NATO, over our allies in Western Europe. He spills classified information to Russian diplomats. And the list goes on.
Mueller did not exonerate Trump from cooperation with Russia. He said if he could he would have said it. He said there was not enough evidence for a criminal indictment. He did not say there was no evidence.
In the great recession Trump's son admitted that the funds for their resort expansions came from Russians. Trump laundered Russian money when he sold them condos way above the asking price.
And why is Trump fighting tooth and nail to keep his tax documents secret?
The truth will come out.
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@Edward B. Blau However, the point made by Mr. Douthat is that the extent of the harm caused by Trump is much less than that produced by more esteemed presidents. No Iraq war, no recession, no waste of troops in far off lands, no millions of dollars of cash to Iran (which of course is used to support terrorism), and no global agreements which eliminate American jobs.
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@Edward B. Blau
If trump is not the Manchurian candidate he is doing a wonderful impersonation and Putin is extremely happy.
While Ross smuggly writes no harm done and the Democrats are danerous in not protecting their server.
Our President is an incompetent, dangerous bully without any moral compass and our Republican party has chosen to protect him at all costs because power is everything. The Republicans have done well, as a miniority party. They control most of the three branches of government, through gerrymandering, voter suppression and help from Russia with the Electoral College.
I also hope that the "the truth will come out" but how much damage will be done to our Democracy in the interim.
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@Dr B Does not the serious harm done to the environment and thus to all citizens count? Or the tens of thousands without food stamps? Or the lack of reproductive health care to thousands of women by defunding Planned Parenthood count as harm? Obama did not cause the recession he saved us from it despite Republican objections and both the recssion and Iraq were Republican disasters.
His trade wars have not caused an increase in jobs in the rust belt and have driven farmers into ruin.
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