February 11, 2020

Does HuffPo really think Donald Trump doesn't understand that Larry David is not a Trump supporter?

So Trump tweets this a clip from Episode 1 of the new season of "Curb Your Enthusiasm," showing Larry David putting on a "Make America Great" hat to appease a motorcycle guy who's angry at him:



Larry, the character in the show, got the MAGA hat for the purpose of repelling other people, so he can be left alone. The twist in this little vignette is that the hat that makes the kind of people in his social group loathe him also — with another kind of people — works to undo loathing.

Trump knows TV. Trump knows humor. There's zero chance that Trump is mistaking Larry David for a Trump supporter. He may not have time to be watching "Curb" episodes, but he surely grasps that there's some back story to Larry's having the hat and can see that Larry is afraid of the "tough guy" and using the hat to mollify him.

But here's HuffPo: "Trump Just Tweeted A Clip From A TV Show That Was Totally Making Fun Of Him/The clip came from Larry David’s MAGA-centric episode of 'Curb Your Enthusiasm.'" I guess that will get many clicks from people who are hungry for news that Trump is an idiot.

The HuffPo article does nothing but explain the episode, to get the readers up to speed, so they can understand that Larry was "totally making fun of" Trump. Duh. There's no consideration of why Trump would tweet that clip if he knew that, which is what I assume.

How does it benefit Trump to propagate that clip even if Larry was making fun of him? Forgive me for spelling out something so obvious, but I can see there are some obtuse people who think Trump is a dummy who made a mistake.

The clip shows Larry as an oblivious, terrible driver who seriously endangers a motorcyclist and then is terrified at the coming confrontation. Larry is not the "tough guy" and he deserves the tough guy's anger. The tough guy is very expressive (with bad language and a threat of violence). Larry puts on the hat as a fake representation of camaraderie and saves himself.

When Trump offers this clip with "TOUGH GUYS FOR TRUMP," he's implying that you should want to be the tough guy. He's a good guy. He's a motorcycle guy, and he follows the rules of the road, but he gets rightfully angry when affluent, oblivious, insulated jerks violate the rules. You don't want to be like Larry, do you? He's not tough. He's not a good driver. He's a faker. And he's desperate to escape accountability.

Quite aside from how to read the clip, it's to Trump's advantage just to get people seeing that pop culture is using the Trump brand in an unusual and fun way. More Trump. More MAGA hats. Pure familiarity. And if it gets the Trump haters like HuffPo indulging in their own Trump-is-an-idiot fantasies, and they really do seem crazy, as Trump loves to say they are.

35 comments:

henry said...

Trump living rent free in HuffPo heads.

tim in vermont said...

“Trump can’t read the room!” twitter said, but I am pretty sure that Trump can read the room, it’s just a different room, a bigger room, a room that exists outside of their bubble.

Larry David is an artist, not a propagandist. That’s why liberals hated Seinfeld.

Iowan2 said...

The confidence to laugh at yourself is lost on leftist

rehajm said...

When I watched that episode I didn’t understand the hook. Larry cut off the other guy so I thought it was that virtue signaling liberals are entitled assholes...

doctrev said...

I'd say that, like most gags on CYE, the clip is making fun of Trump supporters while admiring qualities of them. Much like the clip of David obviously fetishizing a Palestinian anti-Semite. What the two moments have in common is Larry David throwing away his core identity in order to avoid being beaten/ score some hot chicken sex. The difference is, HuffPo has to pretend to be retarded and not understand this basic dynamic of the show.

There is a lesson in this as well.

exhelodrvr1 said...

Pres Trump also often uses self-deprecating humor. In this case, acting as if he doesn't realize what is happening will just spin up the left, which will inevitably end up going too far and shooting itself in the foot. Again.

Eleanor said...

The left pushing the idea Trump is an idiot is baked into the cake of Trump's political success. They continue to underestimate him, and it contributes to their downfall repeatedly.

Matt Sablan said...

Reagan. Bush... different Bush. Trump. Mai3w you wonder how it must feel to lose to idiotoc incompetents all the time. Or maybe that's just the convenient narrative to avoid self reflection.

Chris said...

Siri, what is a meme? - huffpo writer. Seriously, the base assumption for these pundits, is Trump is stupid. Trump is dumb, so naturally they cannot even imagine him doing this ironically.

Chanie said...

I guarantee I'll hear about this from the humorless Lefty at work as another example of how dumb Trump is. Oh Lefty, you're so smart.

Michael said...

It is a fantastic episode in which the MAGA hat is deployed to repel people Larry doesn’t want to eat with or sit near. It is LA and therefore every single person who sees him in the hat finds an excuse to get away from him. He uses the hat to his advantage with the biker. Trump gets it totally and is trolling the liberals, LD included, by using the humor to his advantage. One of the best ever episodes in which his manager Jeff is repeatedly mistaken for Weinstein.

whitney said...

I can't believe they're still saying Trump's an idiot. He has foiled them at every turn. If he's an idiot what are they!

And I'm not sure if it was here or somewhere else but somebody pointed out that Biden is actually what the media has accused Trump of being all these years

Biden is a thinned skinned old man of middling intelligence who bullies people that disagree with him, possibly has dementia and is highly inappropriate around young women and children

Earnest Prole said...

Wait, Bernie Sanders is wearing a MAGA hat?

James K said...

That episode could have been written to have the MAGA hat backfire on Larry, when it turns out the guy he didn't want to have breakfast with is secretly a MAGA guy himself, and wants to spend even more time with Larry. That would have potentially been even funnier, but would have played up the idea that there are a lot of closet Trump supporters, which might have gotten David blacklisted.

Birkel said...

The Leftist Collectivists do not think Trump is stupid. They think Trump and all of Trump's supporters - from the most hardcore to the softest - are stupid.

They seek power BAMN.

michaele said...

It was a pretty funny episode...both during the hat repelling people scenes and the hat saving Larry's butt parts.

ConradBibby said...

I think what Trump is observing here is the successful branding of MAGA as an emblem of toughness. It's not about the characters' actions or reactions, it's just an observation that "MAGA" was deployed as the symbol of toughness.

Temujin said...

You could have stopped your headline at "Does HuffPo really think?"

Equipment Maintenance said...

I ride a Harley and I think the clip is very realistic. It's how I'd react, anyway.

Hunter said...

Huffpo doesn't even get that the source of humor in Curb, like in Seinfeld, is that the protagonists are terrible people who have unreasonably high opinions of themselves.

Jeff said...

I ride a Harley and I think the clip is very realistic. It's how I'd react, anyway.
I rode a Honda, because while I might have been able to afford a Harley, I couldn't afford the pickup truck accessory you need to get it from place to place.

Otto said...

Poor Ann, her insiders must be churning. She is taking out her frustration that Trump is winning big time and exposing her cherished 60s liberalism as a sham on the more banal members of her ilk.
What galls her is that an unsophisticated cad (in her mind) was the one to do it. Arrogance is an occupational hazard for professors.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

I don't get the joke. Even if the motorcyclist backs Trump, would he back him to point of not minding being almost killed by someone wearing a MAGA cap?

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

And why did Larry assume that the MAGA cap would get him off the hook with the motorcyclist?

James K said...

Even if the motorcyclist backs Trump, would he back him to point of not minding being almost killed by someone wearing a MAGA cap?

Presumably the idea is that Trump supporters are such a rare species in California that the excitement of encountering a fellow MAGA guy swamps (trumps?) the anger at being cut off.

Howard said...

Yeah I think Trump plays Larry David in real life whereas Larry David only has the balls to play him on a TV show.

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

The absurdities and hypocrisies of liberal pretensions is a common theme on CYE. David may be a hardcore liberal, but he's a self-aware hardcore liberal. So, a unicorn.

Gunner said...

HuffPo's angry cat women and gay men employees believe that they know everything about human interaction.

eric said...

Several of the leftist tweets responding to Trump were of the type, "You idiot! He's making your cult!"


Suppose Trump sharing this clip of Larry David gets Larry David in trouble with liberals? I can imagine it. "Larry!? Don't you know the old adage? When we're talking about Trump, good or bad, he's winning! Even bad news is good news!"

The show is about using the MAGA cult to repel some and attract others.

But the real life response seems to prove the exact opposite. The opposition to Trump is the cult.

Sam L. said...

The PuffHo strikes again...on its own nose. ?A am greatly amused.

Rosalyn C. said...

Do the people who think Trump is stupid also believe that in real life Larry David is a loser and his success is all an accident?

Gk1 said...

Larry David is a national treasure. Another great episode was post 9-11 when he and his fellow liberals get a tip LA is going to get hit next. Too funny. He is never afraid to take shots at his own side.

Bunkypotatohead said...

One screen, two TV shows.

ExplainMeMore said...

If a comedy sketch has multiple layers of meaning it's the first layer that most people react to.

JaimeRoberto said...

The confidence to laugh at yourself is lost on leftist

No all. I assume Larry David is a leftist, but his whole show is about making fun of himself.