Trump thinks he’s a riot. Well, he is a riot, but not the way he thinks he is. He’s a dangerous rampaging riot. Yesterday he riffed demonstrating his preening narcissism (a term coined by NY Times OpEd writer Jennifer Senior) commenting on his hair. These comments were left out of the official transcript of his campaign event coronavirus briefing but thanks to TMZ they have been memorialized.
Local Fox News in Detroit where Gov. Whitmer is, I think, very popular covered this.
If you missed the briefing you also missed the TV commercial star/owner of My Pillow thanking God for making sure Trump was elected. It there is an all powerful God he certainly isn't an all loving God because the election of Trump would have been the cruelest joke of modern history. If you are a believer this joke would clearly be the Devil’s work.
MIKE LINDELL: (Laughs.) God gave us grace on November 8th, 2016, to change the course we were on. God had been taken out of our schools and lives. A nation had turned its back on God. And I encourage you: Use this time at home to get — home to get back in the Word, read our Bibles, and spend time with our families.
Our President gave us so much hope where, just a few short months ago, we had the best economy, the lowest unemployment, and wages going up. It was amazing. With our great President, Vice President, and this administration and all the great people in this country praying daily, we will get through this and get back to a place that’s stronger and safer than ever.
THE PRESIDENT: That’s very nice. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mike. Appreciate it.
Please come on up. I did not know he was going to do that, but he’s a friend of mine, and I do appreciate it. Thank you, Mike, very much.
Sometimes Trump’s “jokes” are so off that I don’t get why they are supposed to be funny. Suck was the case when I saw this tweet reference in the New York Times article “Trump’s Virus Defense Is Often an Attack, and the Target Is Often a Woman: Now part of the long list of women the president has insulted: a governor, a reporter, the head of General Motors and, of course, the House speaker.”
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At least he mentioned Ms. Barra (CEO of G.M.) by name. When it came to Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan’s Democratic governor, who delivered her party’s official response to his State of the Union address earlier this year and has been pushing for a national emergency declaration in her state, Mr. Trump did not acknowledge her by name.
“We’ve had a big problem with the young, a woman governor,” he said in an interview last week with Sean Hannity, the Fox News host. “You know who I’m talking about, from Michigan.” The president dismissed Ms. Whitmer, who has been pressing the federal government to provide more medical equipment to her state, noting that she was a new governor and it had “not been pleasant.”
In a tweet, he later referred to her as “Gretchen ‘Half’ Whitmer,” saying “she doesn’t have a clue.”
Ms. Whitmer, whom White House officials have privately criticized for showing her inexperience on the group conference calls with the president, has been relatively measured in her public criticisms of Mr. Trump.
It took me a long second to realize he was saying she's a halfwit. Hmmm. A halfwit he says. I’ll have to look that up: “a foolish or stupid person: worst of all were the halfwits in the background, guffawing at every pathetic gag.”
Now I am going to cheat. I wrote about Trump and what passes for his sense of humor before. Here’s that story:
Trump is known as the biggest liar ever. He’s not exactly known for his jokes, but he’s made quite a few. At least he and his brain-addled supporters think he and his jokes are funny.
Hell, Trump and his minions think he’s he-man-arious:
Remember this “joke” with the smirking female officer behind him to the left?
"When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you just seen them thrown in, rough. I said, ‘Please don’t be too nice,’" he said.
"When you guys put somebody in the car and you’re protecting their head you know, the way you put their hand over [their head]," Trump continued, mimicking the motion. "Like, 'Don’t hit their head and they’ve just killed somebody, don’t hit their head.' I said, 'You can take the hand away, OK?'
For example he “joked” that Congress John Dingell might be in hell during a rally in Dingell's home state of Michigan:
“When a rallygoer suggested shooting immigrants in May, Trump made a joke”
“How do you stop these people? You can’t, there’s —” Trump said, cutting himself off as a rally attendee yelled back, “Shoot them.”
Trump paused and smirked, before responding, “That’s only in the Panhandle can you get away with that statement.” The crowd cheered for nearly 10 seconds before Trump continued.
He made another one yesterday and it may be his best:
I think it is highly unlikely Trump really believes that last part of this. I think he knows the opposite is true, that the people who like him like him because he is mean. I believe that he thinks his being mean is the trademark that made him famous on the apprentice and meanness is a major part of his rally schtick:
From The Washington Post:
Donald Trump said Sunday that the protester who interrupted his rally at a convention center here on Saturday morning was “so obnoxious and so loud” that “maybe he should have been roughed up.”
Mercutio Southall Jr. — a well-known local activist who has been repeatedly arrested while fighting what he says is unfair treatment of blacks — interrupted Trump’s rally and could be heard shouting, “Black lives matter!” A fight broke out, prompting Trump to briefly halt his remarks and demand the removal of Southall.
“Get him the hell out of here, will you, please?” Trump said on Saturday morning. “Get him out of here. Throw him out!”
Whether it’s locking desperate immigrants in cages or telling rally goers to rough up a protester Trump knows his MAGA supporter love his cruel streak.
There are all kind of jokes. They strike people as funny for different reasons. Some of the most humanizing are the self-effacing type. If you’re famous making fun of yourself, your mistakes and foibles can make you more relatable.
Trump makes fun of other people and he thinks it is amusing when he encourages violence. Rather than being self-effacing these “jokes” are self-aggrandizing.
So did Politifact:
Here are a couple:
"See, he’s smiling. See, he’s having a good time. Oh, I love the old days, you know? You know what I hate? There's a guy, totally disruptive, throwing punches. We're not allowed to punch back anymore. I love the old days, you know what they used to do to guys like that when they were in a place like this? They'd be carried out in a stretcher, folks. Oh, it's true. … The guards are very gentle with him. He’s walking out with big high-fives, smiling, laughing. I’d like to punch him in the face, I’ll tell you,"
March 2016. At a rally in Kansas City, talking about someone who had rushed the stage, Trump said, "I don't know if I would have done well, but I would have been out there fighting, folks. I don't know if I'd have done well, but I would've been — boom, boom, boom. I'll beat the crap out of you."
We’re going to help you out, have a good time
Here’s one you may have forgotten:
It reminded me that he wore the same jacket when he went to the CDC to put on his little big dog and little pony show with the doctors, and inspired this tweet.
Trump's Disease and trumpian humor
None of Trump’s jokes fall neatly and completely into the categories listed by Onion founding editor Scott Dikke: Irony, character, reference, shock, parody, hyperboles, wordplay, apology, madcap, meta-humor, or misplaced focus. An article in HUFFPOST lists nine types: physical, self-deprecating, surreal, improvisational, wit-wordplay, topical, observational, and dark. Trump’s humor has elements of many of these but because he has a twisted mind he adds his own twist to them.
Just as Trump has so many characteristics of several psychiatric disorders he deserves his own diagnosis named for him. This would be a precedent. At least 13 diseases are named after the scientists who discovered them, not the patient who was first diagnosed which would stigmatize them. But what the hell. Trump deserves to be stigmatized in the annals of medicine.
Lyme disease is named after a town in Connecticut. Poor Lyme, forever tarnished for being the epicenter of a disease that made thousands of people miserable. Ebola was named after a river near the place where it was discovered so not to stigmatic the village (personal communication from one of the doctors who named it, Dr. Karl Johnson).
I suggest that Trump is such an anomaly as a person and a leader that he ought to have his own disease and his own brand-name humor so if or when someone else comes along we have the accurate name to apply to them.
One of the characteristics Trump’s disease is employing and orgasmically enjoying trumpian humor.
Here’s the poll:
I think Trump’s jokes are anything but amusing. To the contrary I think by and large they are both narcissistic and hostile. Some disagree and think they show insight. See my comment for a contrary opinion published in Politico Magazine: Trump Pokes Fun at Himself. Why Do Only Some People See It?