Scary Clown Politicians
When Donald Trump first presented himself as a candidate for the Republican nomination for president, I think it was safe to say that the worst most of us saw was the potential for a field day of SNL humour and impersonations. His sort of unfiltered spew of malapropisms and non-sequitorial free association has long been a rich vein of comedy. A line of policitians from Dan Quayle through to Sarah Palin have made buffoonish politicians a fun but safe archetype.
The harmless clown/everyman politician are types played to great humourous effect in the Will Ferrell/Zack Gakifinakis film “The Campaign.”
This is broad satire — in a bizarre twist Ferrell actually met with our former man-child mayor Rob Ford during while promoting the film in a head-spinning mash-up of real world and scripted comedy. One could argue that Rob Ford was a early instance of the clownish politician archetype getting dark, but situation and the checks and balances of our city council, kept him from doing any real damage.
Donald Trump’s raising the stakes of in-your-face absurd electioneering in the interests of gaining real and global influence can no longer be relegated to the level of clowning. It hearkens back to another era of archetypal demagoguery that saw its expression in the like of Huey Long, Joe McCarthy and George Wallace, elected officials who cast long shadows and ruined lives.
Comedian Jim Jefferies jokes that there is a part of him that wants to see Trump become president just to see how crazy things can get. This weekend’s debate and the panel of that preceded it were more than crazy enough, thanks.
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