December 8, 2019
Politics as high school.
ADDED: The most interesting thing here is that the show uses tropes from movies in which the viewer’s sympathy would be entirely with the character who is bullied, yet we are expected to side with the bullies, because the character getting the bullying is Trump. The audience takes the cue and enjoys the cruelty of bullies.
AND: I wonder how many people are like me and sympathize with Trump because he is bullied. I never liked Trump and I didn't vote for him, but the continual attacks on him make me sympathetic. If this were a movie, he would be the hero, and the attackers are the smug "cool" kids who will do anything and everything to humiliate him.
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137 comments:
It's a New York audience. They're usually the bully.
i made 12 seconds into it; that's about 12 seconds longer than i thought i would
At some point one judges a man by whether he's made the right sort of enemies. Not that Trump's enemies are among the "deplorable". Rather his enemies are among the despicable. The voters sent Trump to clean the swamp, and it's not surprising that there's more than one alligator munching, or attempting to munch, on Trump's posterior. There there are the Burmese pythons now abundant in the Florida swamps. OTOH Jerry Nadler looks more like a manatee, and those are fairly harmless.
Trump knows a thing or two about the dynamics of Professional Wrestling. The Good Guy has to allow the Bad Guys to beat on him mercilessly so that the crowd will enjoy watching him get his revenge.
The audience takes the cue and enjoys the cruelty of bullies.
Nearly everybody would be a bully if they thought they could get away with it. It's what turns an "individual" into "part of the mob".
Most of the Democrats I encounter fancy themselves as righteous bullies. That's the appeal of becoming a Democrat, innit?
What did Latvia do to deserve such ridicule?
Scott Adams points out the people complaining are usually underlings talking about their boss.
That was how it looked to me.
I'm beginning to think that NATO (and our European focus) is becoming a bit aged. The Europeans don't want to pay their share, the USSR is gone. Let the Belgians, Dutch, frogs, krauts, dagoes, limeys, and eyeties figure out their security needs to their best ability, and understanding. And fund their militaries themselves. Going back to a British Empire philosophy: Not Our Indaba. Now, China is our Indaba.
Trudeau in black face would have been funny.
But SNL hasn’t been funny since Kate McKinnon cried when Hillary Lost.
What tends to happen to the "cool kids" after graduation?
They have to face the real world, like the drastically different economic numbers for the US and Canada that came out Friday.
I immediately liked Trump when the media started immediately to hate him.
Canada losing jobs. France in turmoil again.
England is run by the Muslims.
Trump, Putin, Xi.
Those are the world leaders.
It's okay to be a bully if you are a Democrat. If you aren't one, then you are a bigot.
Trump, Putin, Xi.
Those are the world leaders.
Bring Russia into NATO.
The real battle is to contain China.
The skit is relevant because it reflects the reality that these international soirees are little more than a middle school girls' lunch table. What a waste of time and money. WHat is funny is the meme of Trump telling Merkle "the answer is no, German Hillary. You can leave now. And take your Canadian girlfriend with you!"
Alec Baldwin was supposed to move to Canada.
Be funny to call him out on this.
The disdain for Boris Johnson as a drooling idiot as compared to genius cool Justin Trudeau and Macron, let alone the Trump treatment, is laughable in itself.
SNL.
Still Not Laughing.
Back in the day, SNL often had skits that started out funny, but deteriorated into tedium as they lasted forever. That whole bit was like the tedious part of the old show.
"Politics as high school"
That's it in a nutshell.
"I wonder how many people are like me and sympathize with Trump because he is bullied."
Trump has a very strong base, and I expect that turnout to be high. And I think that the non crazy middle has a high proportion that feels exactly like you do. They may not vote for Trump, but they may have a hard time voting for the bullies. People aren't as stupid as the bullies think.
Like most here, there are a lot of things I don't like about Trump. Both policy and personal, but the incessant bullying make me a strong supporter. Not entirely logical, but there you go.
Johnson is the most erudite, witty and intellectually intimidating world leader of his generation, so that caricature is a whiff. He’s also a notorious ladies man. Hard guy to mock. Impossible guy to bully. Trump can’t be bullied either. I think Althouse gets stuck on this notion of people creating sympathy for Trump by this collective bullying of him. That presumes that people think of him as a human being, and of his supporters as human beings. I’m sure there are others like her, but more numerous and common are the people who have dehumanized Trump and his supporters. You don’t need to worry about creating sympathy for someone or a group of people who’ve been so completely dehumanized and are broadly considered a force of retrograde oppression and evil.
To feel sympathy for Trump or his supporters is to have some distance between one’s feelings or thoughts and one’s self. It involves this second loop, a self-critical or self-reflective or at least introspective view where you are distanced from what you’re thinking or feeling in the moment. That’s pretty unusual.
Daskol
You are right about Boris Johnson,but nobody actually knows the facts about him, so the mockery finds traction.
I’d be surprised if more than 10% of people operated in this mode most of the time. There are many more such people in this commentariat than one finds in the wild.
i made 12 seconds into it
I got to the end of the false statement in the intro: 6 seconds.
That was kinda funny and made fun of everyone, not just trump. I liked it.
Not quite as funny as the Democratic debate cold opening, and it kinds of falls flat at the end.
Skipped through it looking for something funny.
That was killer homage to Chris Farley by the one guy.
I never liked Trump and I didn't vote for him
Women can't spot the nice guys.
Evidently all they know about Boris is that he's an ungainly guy with an unfortunate haircut.
>>Women can't spot the nice guys.
TBH, Meade scares me a little.
I never liked Trump and I didn't vote for him
Doesn't say much for you that when the very Republic was on the brink, you voted against its last best hope. Try to do better in 2020, ok?
The left is not against bullying, it wants to license bullying. Remember Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk the ACLU wanted to put in jail? Remember the scorn that was piled on her by people with much more wealth and education? It was the like watching the rich preppies bullying the slow kid from a poor family.
These sketches seem to go on forever. Attention spans are a lot shorter than they were in the '70s. And Alec Baldwin is hard to look at and unfunny and not a good impressionist. But I didn't think it was that anti-Trump until the end: the natural dislike of the mean kids stays with you for a while. Of course, if you already hate the guy, you will be hating him all the way through.
The real news here is that James Corden may be the next fat comedian to die tragically young. He even looks like Chris Farley.
The media & Democrats have managed to turn Trump into Mr. Deeds. Good job, guys.
Yeah, Althouse, but do you like him now?
Everyone I know that dealt with Trump pre-POTUS said he was a putz, a blowhard, a liar, and completely unreliable. I spent time late last week at two different events with two veteran finance people who are true neverTrumpers based on their experiences with him in the 1980s and 1990s--he completely burned bridges with a lot of people.
Both conceded his policy record is pretty good, but essentially they believe that a leopard can't change his spots, so they never will support him--they might stay home, but we all live in Illinois, so it doesn't matter anyway. One said he would support Bloomberg, the other, who lived in Minneapolis for 10 years, said he would support Klobuchar. (He must have liked the sports page.)
That's where we stand: one Trump, one Bloomberg, one Klobuchar.
And the media is the mean girl clique.
Given over 3 years of acrimony and hate directed at Trump, his family, those who voted for him and/or support him now, I think the people who perpetrate it are scum... the lowest of the low. I have nothing but contempt for them.
The Badgers did damage to Ohio State last night- they cost OSU the #1 seed, and they will now have to beat Clemson to reach the title game.
daskol said: "You don’t need to worry about creating sympathy for someone or a group of people who’ve been so completely dehumanized and are broadly considered a force of retrograde oppression and evil."
Someone whack that guy with bicycle lock STAT!
You know what would be funny? Have Trudeau come out dressed in blackface and in an Aladdin costume and have everybody pretend that there's nothing out of place and that he's a cool guy. That was the tacit premise of the skit,but they should have made it more overt. Maybe Trudeau could have spontaneously burst out singing "Mamie" and the other world leaders could have remained oblivious. That would be funny.
Evidently all they know about Boris is that he's an ungainly guy with an unfortunate haircut.
They know he's in the Conservative party and therefore is not one of the Cool Kids. If he was a Labour PM of course he would be portrayed as quirky but brilliant.
I find it a little funny because the whole "accidental" mic'd up convo was probably planned by BoJo and his handlers. They're trying to distance themselves from Trump before the election because apparently big meanie Trump is going to take away their free healthcare or something.
William,
I was thinking the exact same thing while I was watching the skit. It was a missed opportunity for really grand humor.
My first comment after seeing the photos of the 'World Leaders' supposedly making fun of Trump was that it reminded me of mean girls in high school. They are small people.
Because some of us know that if they get rid of Trump, the bullies are coming for us next?
I grew up in Minneapolis. For years and years I saw Jim Klobuchar's picture over his column. When I see Amy Klobuchar, I see her father. She looks like Jim Klobuchar in drag.
Jim Klobuchar used to organize marathon bike rides around Minnesota. My brother used to go on these rides until Klobuchar's rants against rural, white Minnesotans (people like our family) made him uncomfortable.
"The audience takes the cue and enjoys the cruelty of bullies."
They are progs, after all. Cruelty is their MO. And of course they don't believe what they profess to believe. Even their opposition to bullying is merely situational.
"I wonder how many people are like me and sympathize with Trump because he is bullied."
Half a dozen?
That wasn't Chris Farley?
Silliness based on a thin premise. I like it, it’s funny. I’ve long liked Corden, and I’ve been watching Jimmy Fallon lately, and he’s actually very funny and entertaining.
BUT, the skit is obviously not based on anything like reality. Macron and Trudeau, after some initial admiration for their relative youth and good looks, have never been seen as anything but jokes, laughable representatives of powerless nations. The comedic take on Johnson is mostly his resemblance to Trump.
Like most here, there are a lot of things I don't like about Trump.
I'm a glass-half-full guy: there are lot of things I like about Trump. Heck, there are a lot of things I LOVE about Trump.
That's just the kind of hairpin I am.
Like all religious fanatics, liberals hate intensely.
And liberals LOVE to be bullies.
If it's High School, they missed a possible joke about Macron being married to his teacher.
I'm tired of the whole bullying bullshit and I don't care if Trump is depicted as being bullied.
I know the professor is a staunch supporter of free speech, so I'm not aiming my remarks at her.
The real problem for conservatives and independents is that they won't pay to support artists to produce effective media.
I never had any problem getting paid to shill for left wing causes. Everybody on the left wanted my talents as a writer, musician, video maker, multimedia artist, etc. And they had organizations that paid.
This is just about non-existent on the right. Hell, I'll be glad to produce right wing propaganda if you pay me.
"..Pick on..."
What an interesting choice of words to characterize the Dems and media action against Trump. It connotes no act of injustice, and no severity of the dems and media actions.
They are going to impeach him! Something hat only has been done to three presidents in our history and you call it "picking on"
Once a 60s liberal always a 60s liberal.
Is that James Corden with a blond wig as Boris Johnson?
It looks so much like Chris Farley it took my breath away.
Oh I see Bill Republic of Texas noticed the same thing. I wonder if Adam Sandler or David Spade was watching last night.
Trump is basically a blue collar person, blue collar people fight back when attacked. They fight back just like the liberals fight, the liberals are not use to Republican politicians fighting back.
"The real news here is that James Corden may be the next fat comedian to die tragically young."
The Confederacy of Dunces movie will never get made.
Blogger tcrosse said...
"If it's High School, they missed a possible joke about Macron being married to his teacher."
Yes!
Meah...
"Nearly everybody would be a bully if they thought they could get away with it. It's what turns an "individual" into "part of the mob"."
Yeah, it's very tempting to pile on.
he does look like Farley, boris reaction, was stupid, because he's in a similar boat to trump, actually worse, it seems like he paid his paramour, miss arcuri, with tax payer dollars, had a dalliance with another coworker at the telegraph, etc etc,
but Corbyn is an actual Trotskyite friend of terrorists from the ira to hamas,
This showed up on my FB feed this morning from one of my casual friends. The comments were nothing but leftwing hate.
They want hate? I've got plenty of it.
Fuck these people.
narciso, I don't think Boris is any real trouble over the Arcuri thing, even if he was also impregnating a different woman while shtupping Arcuri. I believe he met her in professional context and she was qualified for the job she got, he just can't or won't keep his pecker in his pants. the other woman he was seeing at this time, and with whom he now has a child, was married. like Trump, Boris has a background entertaining people and long ago crafted a comic and buffoonish persona--literary and television, in Boris' case--that he's used to his great advantage in politics. he's smarter than his haters, and funnier.
At some point, the left will make certain kinds of HATE a requirement. Or - you might get dis- appeared ala ChiCom.
the unknowingly funny aspect of the SNL skit is that Boris' buffoonish persona is a calculated one that he's been practicing since his school days, according to his friends, to deflect from his prodigious and intimidating intellect and ambition.
like Trump also, he's a genuine weirdo.
They were combing their hair at a table with food. I know it's the cool-guy-vanity trope, but please, not around food. Yuck.
Johnson lives with his much younger and unmarried partner at 10 Downing, and has a publicly tumultuous relationship with her including nosy neighbors recording their rows and calling the police on them--that happened before he was elected. Brits seem to shrug that stuff off.
The tribe still longs for the "good old days" under their Messiahs - Lenin and Stalin!!!
he's quite a raffish character is that the term, right out of Trollope, now Zoolander is a piece of work, and macron, is the French Sherman McCoy with as much self awareness,
Macron's wife is older than Johnson, and Johnson's girlfriend is younger than Macron. Europeans.
now python, is memory served never said a cross word about Harold Wilson, and they treated thatcher as a buffoon, almost as much as reginald mauldling, and lets not even reference spitting image,
started out well, then nose-dived into crapiness after about 3 minutes. Attention Sketch Writers: Set-up, Middle, End. Three phases. Not Set-up, then Repeat same joke for 5 minutes.
Democratic Presidential candidates, Saturday Night's focusing solely on denigrating Donald Trump, as Hillary Clinton found out, and as Nancy Pelosi will find out as her articles of impeachment fail in the Senate, will only strengthen the president and harden the resolve of his supporters.
Both Democratic Presidential candidates and Saturday Nights focusing solely on denigrating Donald Trump, as Hillary Clinton found out, and as Nancy Pelosi will find out as her articles of impeachment fail in the Senate, will only strengthen the president and harden the resolve of his supporters.
The lack of talent in the SNL show is scary. They make Alec Baldwin look like a comedy genius. And in real life, Trump is the "Cool Kid" and others are stone cold losers. Think of how many targets SNL had to bypass to make fun of trump: Merckle: frumpy German weirdo, Trudeau: a black face idiot and permanent adolescent, Boris Johnson: a constant figure of UK fun, and Macron: He's French, he's pompous, and he's married to his mother.
But all we're supposed to do is laugh at trump. Haha. trump. haha.
First, please note that I did NOT support the candidacy of Donald Trump until he was
democratically (ie Without "Super Delegates") and honestly (ie Without the fraud inflicted on Democrats by H. R. Clinton and her co-actors) nominated by my Party.
The current, presidential, candidates of the Democrat-Socialist-Party are more like the more unpleasant pre-school infants as they: Lie without any evidence that they expect to be "found out" and punished (By voters) for those words; Bully others (eg Biden VS. a retired, Iowa farmer; And, steal (Not lunches but huge sums for their family wealth as by the Biden gang).
they cost OSU the #1 seed, and they will now have to beat Clemson to reach the title game.
So OSU is now one and done instead of two and done.
All the "Comic" satires of Trump miss their mark because Trump is so funny himself, and mocks himself with Self-deprecating humor. All the liberal comics can do is either distort Trump and set up a strawman to make fun of, or take his oddness and exaggerate it even further. But extreme exaggeration isn't funny - its just dumb.
SNL had the same problem with Reagan. They constantly painted him as "out of touch" or "Stupid" but everyone knew reagan was NOT stupid, and Reagan made jokes about his being unconcerned with the details. Like: "This is a serious situation, and I've told my staff to tell me instantly of any updates, and wake me up if necessary. And that includes Cabinet meetings"
The Chess Club gathers to mock the high school quarterback.
now corden, because he has a jovial personality, might pull off a credible boris, but he's too low key for the real boris, alec baldwin, is only acting when he plays a nice guy like Beetlejuice or jack ryan, he played a smarmy weasel for two instances in mission impossible, and his comeuppance was worth the wait,
I never liked Trump, and I DID vote for him, becuase whether I like him or not is irrelevant. I'm not voting for a friend, associate, lover, or parent. I'm voting for what helps the country. Trump has excelled at that, so I'll vote for him again. I guess I like him now, mostly becuase he disproved many of my wrong assumptions about him, but even if I hated him as a person, I'd still vote for him, his policy, his effects on the country and to fight his enemies who I believe are mostly the enimies of the country as well. "Enemies of the people", if you will. You can be an enemy even if you do not think you are or are not trying to be. A virus is not trying to kill its host, and it's not even good for it to do so, but it has to do what a virus does.
I had my reservations as well, if you track back to the primaries, I was for cruz, in part because of the foolishness over the birth certificate, some remarks about the Iraq war, and some slavish toadying to Obama in the first year,
https://twitter.com/veryjackie/status/1203751567431585793
when you've lost jacobin,
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2019/12/08/elizabeth-warren-jacobin-socialist-left-072693
they have more sense than snl,
Our choices are full-on AOC-Che Socialism.
Or Hillary. Corrupt rice bowl family monarch.
and HIllary is also a socialist - who skims a bit more off the top.
She-> could make Hunter Biden blush.
I initially thought that was Chris Farley playing Boris Johnson in the photo. He would have done a good job at it - much better than what they did with it. This skit was weak - stopped watching after a couple of minutes.
conor cruise O'Brien turned out to be right:
https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/12/us-envoy-slams-berlin-over-conference-hosting-hamas/
"I never liked Trump and I didn't vote for him, but the continual attacks on him make me sympathetic."
I understand that, but does that mean that if Joe Biden really messes up in debates with Trump and people get on his case that you'll vote for him?
With me, it was more that nobody else running was better. They were either wrong (as I saw it), or they ducked the issues that I cared about, or they just weren't any more appealing than Trump.
I still keep in touch with 2015 me, who thought the idea of Trump running for president was ridiculous and insane, so I can't be too hard on people who don't like Trump. And while I didn't vote for Obama, the ODS of some people was so over the top, that I do have a little sympathy for him. If I saw him in some other context, I'd hate him, too, but wading through all the mud and garbage made me dislike him less.
contempt for Obama was deserved, not strickly on personal grounds but policy, and he was practically untouchable for most of those eight years, for a number of reasons, he was mostly a cipher, all though his public presence helped drive the country to the manic state we see today,
Now imagine the freeze frame shot zoomed in on Donald's face, after he is the victim of bullying, and the Morriseyesque song of his own words regarding Ukraine start playing...
I want nothing,
I want nothing.
I want no quid pro quo!
Tell Zelinksy to do the right thing.
These are the final words of the President of the US.
I want nothing,
I want nothing,
How can you impeach an innocent victim like that? That would contravene all the rules regarding High School Dramadies.
but he's not actually going to do anything going forward,
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/lindsey-graham-adam-schiff-is-doing-a-lot-of-damage-to-the-country-and-he-needs-to-stop
Boris was quoted the other day to the effect that he reads Greek lyric poetry to relax (here, on Twitter).
why ted do you go to f chuck:
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/chuck-todd-and-ted-cruz-clash-over-ukraine-trump-created-a-false-narrative-about-you-to-benefit-himself/
Watched it; it was no stupider than I expected given the generally low level of intellect and understanding to be found in an SNL audience. It actually started promising with the Festrunk brothers (that's how old I am) and ended funny, but it was pretty groan-inducing for the most part.
As for substance, yeah, NATO is a zombie, increasingly irrelevant.
And come on commenters, M-E-R-K-E-L is an easy one.
Narr
I swear, sometimes I think a lot of intelligent Americans lose 35 IQ points when they come across a foreign name or phrase
The Dems still haven't found the right lie or the right liar. No slogan and no standard bearer. Hillary is still a possible candidate. If not her, a Communist millionaire. Someone who pretended to be an Indian. Someone rejected by the entire black community. A women who ate salad off a comb. Hunter Biden's father. (Slogan "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.")
This is obvious, but Biden would be the gift that keeps on giving for SNL, if they went after him as they did Gerald Ford. Chevy Chase kick-started his career with that impersonation.
My favorite story from elementary school is when the coolest kid in the school, Joe S......, was pelting me with snowballs, and I was firing back, cornered in the playground, with a fence behind me, and whole bunch of kids joined him pelting me with snowballs, and I kept firing back at all of them, and then Joe S says “He’s having more fun than we are!" and he joined me fighting back, and when other kids tried to join us, we pelted them and drove them off.
hhardin said...
I never liked Trump and I didn't vote for him
Women can't spot the nice guys
Yes, and the left simply does not understand that Trump is a brick we threw through their window.
Lots of us are surprised he has done so well. It is sort of an unexpected bonus.
That's a great story, Skylark.
I am Laslo.
Don't flatter yourself, Mike. Trump was an own goal
did they go after him in the Obama era, not on your life,
No Smocking Gun!!
per Potus
This is a remarkable opportunity to be eyewitnesses to the evolution of playground politics. Something to tell our Posterity.
Good points about bullying, Althouse!
I never liked Trump, either, but voted for him in 2016 as the least of 4 evils. Since late 2015 he has probably done something to offend me at least once a week, but EVERY TIME the media and Democrats and never-Trump GOPs and foreigners and "creative" types and faux-intellectuals academics go so crazy that in the end I decide that for all his faults, he is still better than the alternative(s). And based on how they talk and act, in my estimation Trump's margin of superiority has grown since 2016.
Joe Biden "was not told" that there was a conflict of interest... He was Vice Fucking President of the United States of America. He is supposed to know things, but he doesn’t. He claimed before that “There is no conflict of interest!” but the arrangement was the very definition of conflict of interest. The man is too stupid to be president. I guess he just wants the job as a figurehead, and other people we won’t know anything about are going to be running the country if he wins.
I remember when sociopolitical advocates and activists demanded affirmative statements that Trump would not have irreconcilable conflicts of interest. I remember when sociopolitical advocates and activists asserted that there would be violence when Obama was elected. I remember when sociopolitical advocates and activists asserted that our society was steeped in diversity. I remember when sociopolitical advocates and activists demanded a separation of logical domains, then with progress established Chamber and State. Oh, and the Constitution does not affirmatively recognize Baby-Americans, Adolescent-Americans, Teenage-Americans, Adult-Americans, Senior-Americans, and other stages in human evolution (i.e. life). Welcome to the Twilight Fringe.
Via Insty:
ONE AMERICA NEWS (OAN) GOES WHERE MSM WON’T: Former Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko tells OAN all about former U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovich’s “untouchables” list. If OAN can go to Ukraine and interview principals in the impeachment scandal, why can’t ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, the Washington Post, New York Times, etc. etc.?
@Rory sez:
"The Confederacy of Dunces movie will never get made."
Greatest, funniest novel ever written. Y'all should buy it thru Althouse Amazon portal.
what did biden do, mismanage the stimulus, the relationships with Afghanistan and Iraq, ( I have given a motive for that) our Ukraine policy, that's just off the top of my head,
Speaking of movies not being made (BAG's Confederacy of Dunces observation--never took to it myself), I just watched the Midway sorry MIDWAY trailer and . . . NOWAY.
I'm the worst WWII nitpicker around (even on the Pacific carrier war, which is not one of my strong suits, but that's know-it-alls for ya) and I'm sure the whole epic would only anger and depress me, like Pearl Harbor did.
Narr
Is it just me or do the actors look like CGI too?
How likely ?
that Senate vote to be more than 50 (so not exonerated) but less than 66/67 so not convicted on various articles as warning / blackmail to Trump from Establishment
The real Boris Johnson can deliver a performance far superior to this.
ed skrein, one of the pilots, was the villain in the first Deadpool, and an unconvincing replacement for statham in the transporter, harrelson and quaid you can judge,
Narr: "I'm the worst WWII nitpicker around (even on the Pacific carrier war, which is not one of my strong suits, but that's know-it-alls for ya) and I'm sure the whole epic would only anger and depress me, like Pearl Harbor did."
Nope.
Naval flyer here and "Midway" lives up to its promise. I particularly enjoyed the inclusion of details that made it possible that wouldn't normally be included, such as Nautilus' role in getting US strike packages to the target.
Most importantly, the attack sequences and follow on regress stories were very realistic.
The Heston Midway movie is very much like "Pearl Harbor", which was a joke.
This "Midway" was outstanding.
(eaglebeak)
I DID like Trump, and I DID vote for him, and I recognized that he was funny as all get-out. And just at zero hour, after bitching at me about Trump, most of my friends voted for him too.
meme
This season the SNL writers seem more willing to mock their own. Maybe even they got tired of the same joke week after week..."TRUMP SUX...HAHAHA"
I could almost tolerate a Sanders presidency if it meant getting Baldwin off the show and having Larry David on instead.
I wonder how many people are like me and sympathize with Trump because he is bullied. I never liked Trump and I didn't vote for him, but the continual attacks on him make me sympathetic.
Awww. How sweet.
Please excuse me while I vomit.
You know who else was "bullied" (i.e. made fun of), by this standard? Hitler. Definitely the most ridiculed politician of the 1930s and 40s. How illuminating it would have been to have gotten your take on the same dynamic back then.
If this were a movie, he would be the hero, and the attackers are the smug "cool" kids who will do anything and everything to humiliate him.
Heroes neither delight in cruelty nor rely on it as the sole tool in their toolkit. Ditto self-martyrdom. There is something severely lacking in your aptitude for literary concepts and their relation to basic human psychology. Trump's never-ending black hole of a Twitter feed shows anyone with a pulse how sensitive he is to other people's feelings. He doesn't even perceive that other people exist.
"Enemies of the people", if you will. You can be an enemy even if you do not think you are or are not trying to be. A virus is not trying to kill its host, and it's not even good for it to do so, but it has to do what a virus does.
How primitive the Reich was in referring to Jews etc. as subhuman vermin when BagOH2O is "advanced" enough to update this nauseating garbage sentiment and refer to humans as "viruses" instead. Der Sturmer must be proud of BagO's polished take on this old prototype when it comes to nonsensical political demonization. Well done, Sir!
The movie characters I see Trump as most resembling are 2 Rodney Dangerfield characters: Al Czervik in Caddyshack and Thornton Meloni in Back to School.
In both movies, he is extremely rich with bad taste, who loves making fun of the squares, such as Judge Smalls in Caddyshack.
There are elements of that, but i think its more like gatsby then either of those characters.
Thanks for the insights. Don't doubt that I'll see MIDWAY oneway someday. I don't. Maybe I'll be pleasantly surprised.
Narr
It happens
You don't like Trump?
Tell me you're kidding. Seriously - tell me you're just joking.
Is Trump part of the establishment? Obviously not.
Is he a RINO? No, he's an enemy of RINOs.
Is he a deep state guy? Uh, no....
Is he a cultural marxist? No.
Is he getting things done that nobody could have IMAGINED just 4 years ago? YES.
Is he off the cuff, shoot from the hip? YES.
Leftists like to say "Oh, Donald Trump is so GAUCHE! He's insulting the sanctity and dignity of the office!"
That's because leftists want daddy to be in charge, to take care of everything, to decide everything because it's so haaaaard to be an adult, to make all the bad things go away - as long as we obey Daddy.
Are you a leftist, Ann Althouse?
STOP WHINING ABOUT TRUMP. HE COMES THRU LIKE N O B O D Y HAS IN THE LAST 40 YEARS!
Every time he tweets, you shouldn't CRINGE, you should ROAR IN APPROVAL!
I voted for W the second time around for the same reasons... yes; I did not vote for him the first time.
Let's evaluate the cool kids.
Trudeau: heads minority government struggling to keep one province from seceding,
Macron: nation shutdown due to strikes, protests, and riots.
Johnson: heading a parliament that won't allow him to pass a Brexit deal
I think the democratic party morphed into the Simpson's Frank Grimes or "Grimey as he liked to be called by friends" with Trump being Homer. Frank can't understand why everyone forgives Homer or gives him a pass. Frank finally electrocutes himself at the end thinking he can act just like Homer Simpson and get away with it (Just like the democrats and impeachment)
There was a time, not so long ago, when skit writers for SNL would have recognized the troops of 80s movies and played with them in order to convey via narrative shorthand where the audience should place themselves emotionally in regards to the characters, and then they would subvert that position to create the natural discomfort that leads to laughter.
Those writers very well could've come up with this exact same set up in this exact same set of characters played by these exact same actors – but they would have recognized, upfront, that the emotional position the audience would naturally gravitate toward would be to recognize Trump as the protagonist of the skit and to naturally position themselves to appreciate him. They would be lampooning NATO and having a full out belly laugh at how ridiculous the organization has become.
Those writers would have found it utterly impossible to have their Trudeau-proxy make a "hand/face" reference without immediately having Trump shoot back with a "blackface" retort. It would've gotten immense laughs. Those writers would have recognized that the Valley Girl opener communicated the context of the reference but it just wouldn't do to have actually super thick Valley Girl accents for an audience whose parents might not have been born yet in the 80s.
I desperately want to imagine that those writers had something to do with the creation of this skit and that it was intentionally subversive, truly being rebel media by portraying Trump in a protagonist/positive light; that is all that's left if you want to be a radical, subversive, edgy comic. You have to be conservative.
Unfortunately, the actual skit doesn't play out in dialogue with any degree of self reflection or self-awareness about the relative positions of protagonist and antagonists. It goes on about twice as long as it should have and ultimately just doesn't work.
It had every opportunity to be successful but failed.
Please excuse me while I vomit.
I like it when Ritmo vomits. We should make him do it more.
The I don't like Trump and didn't vote for him claim prompts one to wonder which politician they do like and voted for
Don't cut Biden short, he got some Ukrainian prosecutor fired. That's the kind of success he's had. Maybe the only thing that he has accomplished.
I am like you in that I have come to support Trump, in part, due to the relentless, ill founded and unprincipled, attacks on him.
Watching him do the job of POTUS, learning more about his style, and seeing evidence that he truly cares about America and Americans, has made me a convert: I actually like the man.
I will cast a vote for Trump in 2020, meaningless as it may be in my home state of MA.
I didn't make it all the way through (like others here, I got bored with the repetition), but from what I did watch, I found myself irritated by the incongruity. The cool kids started out as normal guy bullies, telling Romania to get up and leave, and then morphed into lame Mean Girls with the not-real compliments to Trump. Scott Adams's take, referenced above, that they were NOT bullies but rather subordinates b*tching about a boss, seems slightly more coherent, but then *Trump's* reactions don't make sense.
I get that comedy is hard. But come on, SNL - you've had forever, at least in the aggregate, to perfect your craft.
Sympathy for Trump? Why? He takes the insults, returns them and laughs, and continues. Any annoyance he might show is either put-on or temporary. If he thinks of those jackasses at all, he's laughing his ass off, knowing how insane he's driven them! Were I in his position (including all of his money), I would be!
I mean, think of all the insults. Good grief! "Tiny hands", "orange hair", "thin-skinned"? And the "protest" in Chicago that group-mooned his building, thinking they're getting to him--they're so far over the top--who could ever take them seriously again?
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