Why Donald Trump Doesn't Tell It Like It Is

A Brief History Of Wit

Ever Google a list of the wittiest characters in television history? My apologies if you have. It's a depressing pool to wade into. Not because there's anything wrong with TV, but there is something wrong with what the majority of blog and magazine writers consider wit.

On one list I found Fred Sanford, George Jefferson, Archie Bunker, Chandler Bing, and Dr. House, of all people. And I won't deny that any of those characters were given funny lines over the years, but what the hell do we mean by "witty"? I was always under the impression a witty comment differed from a generic funny comment in that it had a mark of intelligence with it. It was clever. A smart joke. These characters rarely engage in smart jokes. They mostly trade in insults.

It's become standard on TV in a sitcom with a group of characters to have various types. One type is the dummy. Nearly every sitcom has the dumb character. And in contrast to the dummy is the snidely superior character who is the foil for the dummy on a regular basis. Chandler insults Joey. House insults everyone. Fred Sanford insults his son. George Jefferson insults his neighbor. Insults are not necessarily witty. They can be, but Fred Sanford's catchphrase was literally "Ya big dummy!" That ain't exactly Chaucer.

The snarky characters are often some of the favorites on TV. But why? They play directly to us. David Wong wrote not so long ago about how media makes you a worse person, and specifically cited the way Chandler and Joey interact. Chandler says things that never would make sense in normal discourse. He doles out wicked burns, but for the sake of whom? Us, as an audience. So we laugh and go, "Ooh, zinger!" because he just treated his best friend like a piece of shit.

In real life, you wouldn't be friends with Archie Bunker, yet he's one of the most beloved characters in TV history. The guy was a piece of shit. You'd tell Chandler to fuck his mom if he talked to you the way he talks to Joey, who's supposedly his best friend in the world. But on TV we laugh, because man, wouldn't it be great just to lay into someone like that? Wouldn't it be great to tell all the idiots they really are idiots, right to their idiot faces? That's Trump appeal.

This Trump appeal is doubly enticing to racists. Trump isn't afraid to say all Mexicans are criminals and that he wants to kick every Muslim out of America. He's a few minorities short of promising a lily white America, and man does that seem to appeal to racists. There's a reason he's been publicly backed by more than one white supremacy group. According to one site, 58 percent of the top 50 white nationalist accounts follow Trump on Twitter, and a substantial number of people who use the hashtag #whitegenocide have "Trump" in their bios. He's the voice they've always wanted.

Racists are bold in small groups in small places. Get a bar full of Klan members in Backwater, Kentucky, and they'll all proudly call Obama "Hussein" and talk about American values, no doubt. But they're not going to stand on a street corner in L.A. and do it. They can't make a public scene of themselves. And the closet racists of the world, the people who "aren't racist but" definitely love a guy like Trump who expresses the things they're scared to say.

The thing about even the racist Trump is he's still not telling it like it is. And he's not saying what everyone wishes they could say. The closet racist is a closet racist for a reason. They know what they believe is ignorant bullshit and they don't want to risk becoming a pariah for exposing their bullshit. But if there's someone out there who has millions of dollars and gets on TV all the time and could be president, and he hates the same people they hate, well isn't that swell? It is for them.

That's Entertainment

Donald Trump is the WWE of political candidates. He satiates a bloodlust through structured insanity. But it's all smoke and mirrors. There's no substance behind it -- what the hell is Trump's platform, anyway? He's going to make Mexico pay for its own wall? He's so far produced no honest answer for how that will work. He may as well tell you he's going to make all Muslims punch themselves in the face.

Unfortunately for the few of us who actually take politics seriously sometimes and worry about who runs the country, there is nothing behind Trump's facade. When you pull back the curtain, all you're going to find is the same toupee; there is no wizard, just a dullard. But it will never matter. It will never matter, because, for as much as I can call Trump an idiot, he's not. Not that kind of idiot. In the right context, a context best described as diabolical, the man's a certified genius. He's the P.T. Barnum of American politics, and he's bringing the suckers born every minute for the last 75 years under his big top to see the show.

From the outside, from the point of view of a non-Trump supporter, this is all obvious and stuff to make us mutter "Hear, hear" while we frown into our mugs of chai tea and wonder why Trump has such a high approval rating. But, on the inside, for the people who are afraid of Mexicans raping their purses and stealing their jobs, and who think maybe all the Muslims are plotting to blow us up one day, and who want to do something about ISIS but have no idea how or when or even where ISIS actually is, these people see an answer in Trump. The things he says are simple. And politics isn't simple, and that confuses a lot of people. I don't mean that to sound insulting -- it's just an observation, but I think it's an honest one.

The political process can be a very confusing one. How many times have you heard of someone proposing some law and then there's some kind of addendum and it has to pass through the Senate or some shit, and someone tosses out the word "filibuster," and you have no idea what the hell anyone is talking about anymore.

Trump says he will make the Middle East give us oil. We like oil. He'll make the Mexicans go away. We don't like illegals. He'll stop the terrorists. We hate terrorists!

Real politicians say we need to enact a plan to better protect our borders while making sure people who we want in America are allowed in and those we plan to toss out are the right people, and maybe there can be amnesty for people who have been in America for years and have been actively contributing to the workforce and right here, right at this point in the sentence, Donald Trump has already rolled his eyes four times, made the jerk-off motion, and maybe even made a fart noise. Because that all sounds like political double-talk.

The reason Ted Cruz is willing to float the idea of a Duck Dynasshole as a U.N. ambassador is because he has weakly given up on his own value and approach to becoming president and is trying to emulate Trump. It's the same reason Jeb Bush showed everyone his gun. What the fuck was the point of that? It's like tweeting a photo of yourself doing a kegstand with no commentary above a pit of crocodiles. It's just to be awesome, bro! To make the masses go, "Woooo!" just like Ric Flair.

Choose Your Own Adventure

The savvy among us don't fall for this. We choose a candidate based on any number of things. Some people just pick a candidate based on party without caring what they stand for personally. That's a way to go, if that's your bag. Some people are hooked on an issue, like employment or minimum wage, and they'll support any candidate who gives that issue the most attention. And yet others follow whoever they think has the most balanced platform that supports their leanings. Whatever works, right?

Now, consider that voter turnout hasn't gone above 60 percent since 1968. Half the country votes. What the hell is the other half doing? Not giving a shit, in a nutshell. Half the country can't be arsed to vote. So of the half that does vote, how many are voting wisely? Sure, it's your right to vote for whoever the hell you want, but that doesn't mean you're not going to vote for a completely fucktarded reason. Like your candidate wants to build a wall around Mexico.

Some people just like a show. That's all it takes. I once gave money to a hobo because he told me an awesome story about how the Russian mob had forced him out of a lab where he was working on experimental weapons for cats. It was amazing. Trump is giving a lot of people that show.

BUT!

You knew there was a "but" coming. All my articles are about butts and coming. The "but" in this one spreads apart thusly: Trump can't be president. No one votes for a Trump. Not really. You don't bring Chandler Bing home with you. You turn him off after 30 minutes, then go play Far Cry for a while because you can't stomach someone calling you a loser all day every day.

Some people absolutely would vote for Trump, don't get me wrong. Those white supremacists would 100 percent vote for him. But in general, the majority of Trump's current supporters support him because he's a pleasant fiction to their worldview. He's John McClane taking out the Hans Grubers of the world. Yippee ki-yay, motherfuckers! When shit gets real, they'll go back to the real world and make real choices.

Some folks love the idea of a president who calls everyone dummies and pussies, but they also understand that if, in real life, the president did that to a certified Bond villain like Vladimir Putin, they'd wake up tomorrow in the middle of a mushroom cloud.

Maybe you think it's great to make Mexico build a wall on paper, but in the real world you understand that getting rid of all the migrant labor in America in one fell swoop would probably cripple our agriculture industry, cost well over $100 billion to enact, destroy NAFTA, and really buttfuck your next vacation to Acapulco.

Enough people understand they can't vote for Trump that they won't. And of course that's even presuming he gets the nomination. Just because he's polling well doesn't mean much until someone officially says he's the GOP candidate, and all the same reasoning applies to him not getting that as it does to him not winning an election. It's all just too much silliness. It's a Choose Your Own Adventure book that ended too fast because you made the goofy choice. And that means most of us will go back to the last page and make a better choice.

For more of our coverage on all things Trump, check out why Donald Trump panders from book to book in 6 Ugly Things You Learn About Donald Trump Reading His Books, and learn how Donald Trump can actually enact his "wall plan" without congressional approval in 5 Very Possible Nightmare Scenarios From A Trump Presidency.

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