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Sunday 24 May 2020

Might laughter still be the best medicine?

There's laughter there and it can work
Find ways of laughing at Trump, I say quietly, knowing I live 3546 miles away from Trump's Palace of All the Vanities.

Oh no, he's too awful, say some of those who live nearer.

But isn't that dangerous? Isn't it giving in? Acknowledging that he has the power to strangle laughter at birth, a great weapon for a narcissist who hates being laughed at?

Ask Stephen Colbert who hosts A Late Show, a US chat show. Or Alec Baldwin. Or The Guardian's cartoonist, Steve Bell, who portrays this portly displaced businessman by substituting a toilet for his head. I laugh at all three. Not happily, you understand. Wryly, perhaps. Maliciously. Recognising the strange truths.

And because of a secondhand book I devoured soon after WW2. Cartoons by those who pursued caricature in occupied Europe. Notably in countries like Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria. At a time when monsters even more awful than Quiffman were in charge. Ah, the bitter imagination. The ghastly fun.

I am old enough to have known the McCarthy Era in the US (late 40s into the 50s). And to have read newspapers throughout. This jowly, distinctly unfunny guy, with virtually no qualifications other than a talent for slander, ruined thousands of lives. Perhaps some poked fun but I can't recall; mostly, fear reigned. Eventually a judge, Joseph N. Welch, stood up and called him a reckless liar and that started McCarthy’s downslide. Welch became a national hero. Better still, he played a persuasive role in a great movie, Anatomy of a Murder. Now that was kind of funny.

We need a new Welch. Not perhaps a judge. Someone who recognises the dark comedy in Trump and Plague-masks. Great, says Stephen Colbert, we’d see less of his face.

13 comments:

  1. How far does he have to step over the mark before he has to go? He seems to be able to get away with anything.

    Just watched a video of Obama. A journalist had asked him a multi faceted question about Obama's defence policy. It must have taken the journalist about a whole minute to ask the question. Obama responded completely and comprehensively dismantling everything this guy had suggested with precise detail of how he and his government had handled all the foreign policy issues over a long period obviously with a comprehensive grasp of the global situation and marked with those odd pauses he was wont to make where he thinks very carefully before detailing the next section. In amongst he reasoned convincingly against the gung-ho method of knee-jerk military action. And all that with a faultless eloquence, almost like poetry. What a contrast. Obama's reply lasted an entrancing eight minutes.

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  2. My son W who follows Trump (not a fan - the opposite) suggests you should watch:

    The Eleventh Hour - Brian Williams - MSNBC. Back numbers are on You Tube.

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  3. Sir Hugh: Proof that deep down Trump hates Obama and has sought to reverse most of the legislation Obama initiated. But still hasn't been able to do anything about Obamacare.

    I watch clips from MSNBC regularly on YouTube but am becoming somewhat worried about their distortions. "Meltdown" says one of the headlines and all we see is Trump stumbling over words (and logic) that we've seen many times over the last three years. At first I was entertained, less so now

    I've just watched a video of Jon Sopel, the BBC's Washington correspondent, who would have been delivering an address in person at Hay, had Hay been held. Instead it became Hay Online and I'm glad I didn't miss him. Sopel suggests that too many US journalists have stepped aside from their role of reporting politics and have made it their job to go to war with Trump.

    But is this a good thing? Trump's approval ratings have remained highish and steady ever since his election, the economy was doing well prior to the Plague, and unemployment was at a record low. More than that Trump has done many of the things he said he would during his campaign: cut taxes, build the wall, face up to Chinese trade exploitation, etc. These are not things that liberals like you and I approve of, but the people who voted for him did approve of these things and this tends to get forgotten.

    Sopel says had it not been for the Plague he thinks Trump would almost certainly have been re-elected. This isn't because Sopel likes Trump, that's irrelevant. He observes that despite his inarticulacy and impulsiveness Trump is far cleverer than most people imagine; cites that instinctive move of Trump's yesterday to insist that the churches be reopened. Again, you and I don't approve, but many will.

    Understand this, I loathe Trump and believe the implications of his presidency will seriously harm the USA. But it doesn't help anyone to ignore the fact that the USA is a democracy and that people vote for what they want. Not what others think they should want. The Plague may change this since it's an event which Trump has regularly misjudged. His cruelty may come home to roost.

    I still say more people should consider laughing at him but not because he's a joke. Up to now the Democrats seem to have had as much trouble dealing with Trump as Trump himself has had with The Plague.

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  4. It is a nightmare here in the US. The dismantling of norms, laws, and ideals persists with unabated speed. Now we can't even rely on a November election to correct this horrific mistake. I'm not sure how it all happened so quickly but it feels like despite the outcomes of the Civil War and WW II, we are being led by Confederate Nazis. If the worst thing happens this November, we're thinking about leaving the US.

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  5. I meant to add that yes, we must laugh at him. Point our fingers and laugh hysterically. We must laugh and shout and call him names. He must never forget that he's a morbidly obese, shockingly ignorant buffoon with a toilet for a head.

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  6. Since you Sold me in a previous Comment that he HATES to be Laughed at, I Laugh at him more now... perhaps if we all Laughed at him with Unity of Purpose, his Heart couldn't take it and he'd drop dead, doing us all a Public Service. Hows that for Gallow's Humor that is totally inappropriate, but the mere Thought of it makes me Laugh even harder Imagining the Spectacle!

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  7. All, part one:. There is a problem with laughing at Trump. If he were a young child with learning difficulties you could go to jail for treating him that way. Deciding at what age it becomes legitimate to laugh at an adult with such symptoms is problematic. Possibly never.

    robin andrea:. It happened because in 2016 more people voted for a bunch of right-wing policies than for policies you and I might approve of. (Actually fewer people voted for these things but you will know the complexities of your electoral college better than I do.) In a democracy the majority gets their wishes granted.

    Yes, I know what we wanted was "good" stuff. But that didn't cut it with a whole load of others

    Alas, it gets worse. You could say the election was a collective aberration in decision-making by the US electorate. Not so. Trump's approval rating (other than during the Plague) has remained steady. More people like what he's doing than don't. That is very hard for us liberals to take. In a worldwide rating the USA would presently be designated rightwing; as would the UK.

    You know your history. In the thirties think Spain, think Germany, think Italy: rightwingism led to the F word, and for real. No, not that F word

    Two things before you up sticks and depart. First, where would you go? Many countries with benign histories are now struggling with rightwing factions. Second: post-Plague, some countries may be broke and the lights may go out early evening. The smaller the country (with the exception of Switzerland) the more likely this is to happen. I should add Swizerland is expensive and isn't keen on immigrants unless they're rolling in it.

    Colette: Yeah, but is it down the plug-hole or not?

    Bohemian: We mustn't confuse laughter with hysteria.

    All, part two: Laughter may work if sufficient people get under Trump's skin. But its primary function is to keep us sane. Almost everything Trump says - and more particularly the way he says it - is ridiculous. It doesn't fit known grammar rules, known
    vocabularies, and known systems of logic. Identify these glitches with what you were taught in primary school, apply your own subsequent education, and be grateful you yourself are not like that. Hey, you didn't think I had a magic wand, did you? I'm just an under-educated Brit watching from the sidelines.

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  8. Imagine how different our world would be if the Germans had pointed the finger and laughed at Hitler!

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  9. Avus: Not so sure about this. Hitler rescued Germans from unendurable unemployment, hyper-inflation and low national esteem. What he didn't mention was the price. There's a book I've read about how thousands of Germans continued to fight up to the end of the war and even beyond. We, on the other hand, were lucky to be on the winning side and are still capable of deluding ourselves that we (the Brits) won the war.

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  10. I remember the McCarthy era very well because, newly married and on the way to Vermont, my husband and I spent a night in a police cell (unlocked) on the Canadian/US border. When the Americans got on the train and examined my husband's passport, they said he couldn't enter the U.S. and must get off the train but I could continue since I had an American passport (His was Canadian). I refused to travel on without him so, because it was the middle of the night, they let us sleep in the local jail. My husband's 'crime' in McCarthy eyes, was that he had once, in his distant past, served as a union organizer in a Ccanadian fishing village.

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    1. Natalie: Did your husband end up at one of those notorious hearings? Pleading the Fifth Amendment? Only if he decided to try his (your) luck in Vermont again, I suppose.

      The McCarthy Era seemed interminable at the time. Then, as now, it seemed that the USA was on another planet.

      What was the food like?

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  11. Food? What food?

    No, Reg didn't end up at a hearing. We were going off to live in Paraguay anyway. Some of this is in my unfinished, ongoing, online autobiography. I've recently been adding illustrated fragments on my blog but started it here:
    http://www.nataliedarbeloff.com/autobio1.html

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