Dem
47
GOP
53
It is not a secret that humor, particularly of the mocking type, can do enormous damage to a politician, even when slings and arrows are otherwise failing to pierce the armor. We imagine that nearly every reader of this site, for example, is familiar with the damage that Saturday Night Live did to Gerald Ford, by portraying him as a dumb, clumsy fool, or to Sarah Palin, by presenting her as a dunderhead who "can see Russia from my house." And it's not like SNL invented that bit. In the 1870s—100 years before "Live from New York!"—the seemingly invulnerable New York politician William Magear Tweed was brought down by derisive cartoons from the pen of Thomas Nast. And even before Tweed, the political road was littered with the bodies of politicians who were made into the butt of the joke, among them Matthew Lyon, Roger Griswold, Martin Van Buren and John C. Frémont.
Gavin Newsom has been taking a cue from these folks (or maybe from SNL) and, as we've already noted a couple of times, has commenced a program of mockery aimed at one Donald John Trump. Everyone reading this surely knows about the ALL CAPS tweets, invariably ending with "THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!" The Governor's latest initiative, meanwhile, is his so-called PATRIOT SHOP. It's a two-fer. Actually, now that we think about it, it's a three-fer. First, it's a fundraiser for the redistricting campaign. Second, it allows Newsom to mock, in general, Trump's hamfisted efforts to cash in on the presidency. Third, it allows Newsom to mock specific aspects of Trumpism, like the Trump-branded Bibles, or the red hats, or the tendency of the President's followers to indulge in idol worship. A shirt with this image, for example, is available for thirty-two bucks:
For those who don't get the references, that's Newsom bowing his head in prayer, while Kid Rock, the deceased Hulk Hogan and Tucker Carlson all lay hands on and do the same. This alludes to many photos from the Trump Oval Office, like these, where Trump has bowed his head and closed his eyes and pretended he cares about Jesus, while various faith leaders have bought that lie, hook, line and sinker, and put hands on him while they actually pray.
We do foresee a couple of issues here, though. The first is that Newsom is not a naturally witty guy, and the people who are helping him are pretty good, but they aren't great. The second is that his particular shtick(s) might get old.
So, Democrats should be seriously thinking about how they, as a party, can keep things fresh and relevant. If we were running the show for them, we would strongly consider allocating say, $1 million a year to a smallish (5-6 person) rapid-response humor team. These folks would work on general bits that could be deployed at any time (such as satirical websites or products), but would also be on call to come up with tweets and one-liners in response to breaking news.
The Republicans have certain built-in advantages (like a hammerlock on effective cable "news"), but the Democrats have a few advantages, too. And one of those is that outside of the occasional Shane Gillis, or the guy who makes racist jokes about Puerto Rico, or Greg Gutfeld (who isn't actually funny), most of the comedy writers in the country are liberals. You think Bruce Vilanch, who is as gay as the day is long, and as liberal as Bernie Sanders, and who has written gags for something like 30 Academy Awards shows, would be interested? He might do it for free; an annual salary of, say, $100,000, would just be a bonus. Or how about Al Franken? He has 5 Emmys for his comedy work, and he wrote hundreds of zingers for Weekend Update, on a tight deadline, over the years. Or maybe Cherry Chevapravatdumrong, who is 47 and wrote some of Family Guy's best episodes. She would obviously bring a different sensibility to balance out some of the older gentlemen. And we can think of numerous other folks who would be suited to such a gig.
We don't doubt that the DNC already has a guy, or a gal, who is their "funny tweets" person. But we don't know of anything that is more formally organized or substantive than that, and that draws on people who are decades-long, successful veterans of the American comedy scene. If such an entity did exist, we think we would have heard about it, because it would make a great feature story for the politics sites. Anyhow, an investment of a million or two along these lines could pay much more handsome dividends than, say, another million or two spent on TV advertising. (Z)