After Destroying All Hope, Trump and Clinton Destroy Comedy As Well
Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images Trump Clinton
By: Ben Shapiro
October 21, 2016
Not content to destroy our elections, the political process, decency, and all hope for the country, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump decided to take humor itself – our only respite from this horror show of an election cycle – out to a corn field, beat it nearly to death with a shovel, then dump it, still barely breathing, in an open grave before covering it with mineral-rich dirt.
In other words, both were awful.
The Al Smith Dinner is always a bit awkward. That’s because the two candidates generally don’t like each other by this point in the election cycle; it’s also because most Americans don’t take particularly kindly to rich people in white ties and tux arguing with each other over champagne. To be fair, the dinner is designed to raise money for charity, so at least there’s that. But it’s also designed to be a short break from the partisanship, a chance to blow off some good-natured steam.
Unfortunately, neither Clinton nor Trump has a good nature. In place of good nature, Hillary has her software, and in place of good nature, Trump has his raging id.
Trump led off with a series of self-deprecating jokes. He then launched into a series of brutal attacks on Hillary Clinton that didn’t even masquerade as humor. They were savage – and largely true – but drew boos from the audience and looks of horror from the onlookers. Cardinal Dolan, who was given the unenviable task of sitting between the two worst people in America, must have been muttering to himself, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachtani?” Trump ran from the room as soon as the dinner was over.
Then, granted the goodwill of an audience begging to love her, Hillary promptly blew it. She began with a few jokes of her own that were nice and soft. Then she unleashed the hounds of hell, going after Trump and Rudy Giuliani in brutal terms. Should could barely grin as she bit off the jokes like raw piece of beef, gnawing them and spitting them at her enemies.
It’s incredible that an election in which the two candidates are separated by so little on policy and persona – Trump’s an ad hoc politician and a career leftist, and they’re both egomaniacal sociopathic liars – the two candidates hate each other so much. But perhaps that’s because the humor that used to underscore our elections sprang from the notion that we had something in common. Now we have nothing in common; our politicians are just atomistic representations of different tribal affiliations. Humor is about commonality. That’s why we watch comedies in theaters together, and a rotten crowd can spoil a great comedy. But when we hate each other, it’s pretty difficult to laugh together.
The Al Smith Dinner was the 2016 election in a nutshell: two charlatans slapping each other over power, without reference to principles or shared values.
Poster Comment:
The Queen is dead. Long live the King.