The Joke That Spiraled Down America Into Drinking the Kool-Aid With Trump
And if Trump wins a second term the p̶r̶a̶n̶k̶ joke never ends
It was in 2011, at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner, both President Obama and Donald Trump were in attendance. A dinner where the sitting US President and the press become the roast and the roasted. But in 2011, a joke that evening could have triggered Trump to run as president.
On that night, Trump’s own sense of public humiliation became so overwhelming that he decided, perhaps at first unconsciously, that he would, somehow, get his own back — perhaps even pursue the Presidency after all, no matter how nihilistically or absurdly, and redeem himself. — Adam Gopnik of The New Yorker, wrote in 2015
Trump the man and the president, a figure in American history who will someday be the subject for historians to analyze, and if he loses the election, be the subject of late-night talk-show jokes.
The joke that could be the reason why Trump ran for president?
“Donald Trump has been saying he will run for president as a Republican, which is surprising, since I just assumed he was running as a ̶p̶r̶a̶n̶k̶ joke.” — Seth Meyers
Seth Meyers didn’t write the joke, but comedian, Jon Rineman did — and he regrets it.
When Seth Meyers, then the anchor of “Weekend Update” on “Saturday Night Live, said the joke, Donald Trump was already bruised by Obama’s jokes about him.
We will never know how that night affected Trump. The public humiliation must have hurt his ego that in his mind, he was being attacked by the Washington elite, the intellectuals, and the liberals.
That night could have solidified an idea in Trump’s mind, it triggered something in him, that led to his decision to run for the presidency, not in 2012 but 2016.
We know what happened in 2016, he lost to Hillary Clinton the popular vote but wins the White House.
Jon Rineman regrets writing it.
.“Any trouble you can avoid, you should avoid.”, Jon Rineman says. His life since then has been troublesome. He has been in therapy, he said in part of what he thinks of how his joke, could have been one of the reasons why Trump became the president.
The past few years have been unhappy for Jon, he suffered a mild stroke, left the “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon”, and got divorced. He’s teaching at Emerson now, and developed a board game, Anti-Social Skills, with six other comics and writers.
And since his inauguration, Trump has acted like a child in constant tantrums, only worse. And instead of America turning away from him, he has attracted more followers to his ideology of Trumpism.
Trump has emboldened people who in the past, are put to shame like white supremacists. One can say, Trump has a cult following, not only with the Republicans but from dangerous groups of people who think they are victims of societal change.
His slogan of Make America Great Again is far from inspiring but has become a slogan of white supremacists and people who feel victimized by the liberals who they perceived have taken America from them.
During the pandemic, Trump veered away from science and became a voice for pseudoscience. Even when he tested positive for coronavirus, instead he used it as an opportunity to rally his troops, to not follow simple medical advice, that could save lives including their own, and that is to wear a mask.
With over 200,000, the coronavirus has already surpassed the number of U.S. soldiers killed in combat during the nine-year-long Vietnam War
And yet, Trump continues to downplay the pandemic and his relentless pandering to his base. only complicates how his government is handling the biggest medical crisis to hit America.
Trump for his part, can’t separate himself from the presidency. Almost every day he uses Twitter to amplify a message not of hope, but as a way to trumpet his ideas to his base of followers.
It resonates, it empowers them not only to be brazen about their beliefs. They have seen their messiah in Trump, his words are their words, only spoken in public.
Even his lies are taken as truth by Trumpists, anyone who admires Trump with passion is driven with a death wish. Sabina Spielrein, a Russian-born psychoanalyst, once figured, that men are also driven by a death wish.
They will do anything and everything to keep someone like Trump in power. and if that isn't enough, they will continue to drink the kool-aid with Trump
Even if Trump loses, the joke will never end, but if he loses the election, at least America will regain back part of what it lost in the last 4 years of the Trump presidency, its soul.