May02

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Dem 47

   

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This Week in Schadenfreude: This Administration Is a Laugh a Minute

Last week, as readers will recall, this item was given over to an unfriendly-to-Donald-Trump magazine cover, courtesy of The Economist.

We try to mix things up, so that we don't do the same basic item too many times, or target the same person too many times. However, as we looked around for a schadenfreude item, we kept running into story after story about how people are laughing at Donald Trump. No kidding; it's ALL OVER the place. Consider:

• Trump held yet another of those Cabinet meetings where everyone goes around the table and tells him how wonderful he is. This procession was highlighted by AG Pam Bondi making the bizarro claim that Trump has already saved the lives of 238 million Americans, or about 75% of the entire country (she got to this number by multiplying the amount of ounces of fentanyl that has been seized by the number of people who can be killed by a single ounce of fentanyl). Anderson Cooper's staff put together a supercut of the most absurd and fawning claims, and then joked about how very much the Trump administration is like the cult-of-personality-based Kim administration in North Korea.
  
  
• Trump did an interview with ABC this week in which Terry Moran asked about the obviously photoshopped image of Kilmar Abrego Garcia's hands, and Trump insisted it was not photoshopped, despite the fact that it was so clumsy that someone standing on the moon would still be able to tell. Moran, deciding there was nothing more to be gained from the conversation, tried to move on, but Trump refused, and continued to belabor the point. Multiple outlets mocked him for that; for example, Daily Show anchor Desi Lydic said: "What is so crazy is Terry Moran kept trying to change topics, but Trump wouldn't let him. I have never seen an interview where a reporter catches a politician in a gotcha and the politician is the one who says, 'Stop trying to move on! I am not done embarrassing myself!'"
  
  
• Trump also did a town hall this week with Bill O'Reilly, who is (apparently) still alive. The host was live, the audience—made up of Democrats, Republicans, and independents—was live, but Trump called in, and was put on speakerphone. One of the questions he was asked was about the biggest mistake he made in his first 100 days, and he answered that it's the hardest question that he could be asked, because he hasn't made any mistakes. The entire audience burst into laughter at that claim.
  
  
• Trump gave the commencement address at the University of Alabama (which should be ashamed of having him, given his ongoing war against higher education). In service of his message, which was "keep moving forward," he mocked William Levitt (of Levittown fame), a real estate developer who divorced his wife so that he could marry a trophy wife. It is not clear if Trump noticed the sniggering from audience members, who might have been thinking about a different real estate developer who divorced his wife so that he could marry a trophy wife.

We can only stumble over so many different "people are laughing at Trump" stories before we have to bow to reality and accept that is where the news is taking us. So, as the main focus this week, we choose the mockery visited upon Trump by The New York Post, which is normally a part of Team Trump. As many readers will know by now, various members of the administration have made some very tone-deaf comments this week about the impact of the trade war. And one of the tone deafest (tonest deaf?) was from the President himself:

You know, somebody said, "Oh, the shelves are going to be empty." Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally

Trump is always very generous in inviting others to go without, particularly as someone who has himself NEVER gone without. More important, however, is that people are not worried if there will be enough dolls for Christmas. They are worried if there will be enough food, clothes, transportation, and other necessities of life.

Anyhow, this "let them eat cake"-type moment even stuck in the craw of the Post, and so the paper published a blistering editorial arguing that Trump is hurting "the little folks," including his own voters, and that he's handing the midterm elections to the Democrats. The Post punctuated its point with this cover:

This is really the Post's forté; after all, this is the paper that brought you the headline "Headless Body in Topless Bar."

Next week, we very much hope that the schadenfreude item will not be about a Trump-critical periodical cover. But you never know. (Z)