Trump Has ‘All the Traits’ of Comedians, Says Sarah Silverman
While comedian Sarah Silverman isn’t on Team MAGA, she confesses that she sees something familiar when she watches the president in action. “I hate to say it,” she told the U.K.’s iPaper, “but Donald Trump has all the traits of a comedian.”
Sure, Trump has hosted Saturday Night Live and cameoed in movies like Home Alone 2. But how is the guy like a comedian? “He’s all charisma,” according to Silverman. “He’ll say anything it takes to please any crowd that is front of him. But he means none of it. Those are the traits of a comedian who does well on the road.”
Trump can’t get enough juice from a crowd, she explained. “That’s why, last time he was President, he never stopped having rallies — he was on the circuit! I wanna say: ‘You don’t have to be president to throw a party for yourself, y’know?’”
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Another reason Trump might remind Silverman of certain comedians? For years, she said, they were doing the same bits. In her early years of stand-up, Silverman affected an “arrogant ignorant” persona intended to ridicule those who were inexplicably proud of their stupidity. But as David Duchovny pointed out on his Fail Better podcast, Silverman retired the character when Trump won his first election.
“The Sarah Silverman Program was an arrogant ignorant, you know?” she agreed. “But especially when Trump was elected and how the world changed in that way, that character was no longer really amusing to me, because he embodies that completely.”
That led Silverman away from that particular comic persona, even though it wasn’t a conscious “that stuff doesn’t work so I’m gonna go a different way” choice, she explained. “I just very naturally started changing.”
Although critics have called out Silverman for some of her cringe comedy choices in earlier years, she said that pleasing sensitive audiences wasn’t behind the change. “I learned this pretty early on,” she continued. “Comedy really dies in the second guessing of your audience. You really have to stay with what is funny to you.”
Will Silverman talk about Trump in her stand-up? She’s wary. “I’m scared of telling a journalist that I think our president is human garbage — even though that’s the truth — because he is a vindictive man,” she told iPaper. “While some Trump voters here are starting to realize that his policies aren’t in their best interest, others will believe everything he says. He’s like a cult leader.”
Despite her fears, however, she notes that her profession — and Trump’s? — is doing better than ever. “Comedy always thrives in the darkest times.”