The 2017 White House Press Corps Dinner Needs to Be Canceled.
Donald Trump has spent an entire lifetime at the intersection of painfully embarrassing narcissism and comedy. Ask Gary Trudeau, author of Doonesbury, and he will tell you, Donald Trump gave him truckloads of material. All he had to do was turn on the television and the next day’s strip was waiting for him. And to this point, the perpetual roasting of Trump has not been dangerous.
The comedy surrounding Trump has often done its job to expose him for what he is as opposed to dangerously humanizing him. One thinks of David Letterman, Alec Baldwin, and Samantha Bee to name a few. But viewers of the late night show with Jimmy Fallon were angered when Fallon laughed with him while he asked to touch his famously coiffed hair. Fallon somehow crossed a line that can be hard to see, and the public noticed. It’s the line between cathartic exposure and irresponsible complicity. The reaction to this interview was justified. They saw that Fallon was unwittingly normalizing a dangerous man by laughing with him and not holding his feet to the fire in any meaningful way at all. Something we have come to expect of much of our entertainment.
And so on April 29th, at the Washington Hilton, the press and power brokers of DC will gather to eat, network, and as always, laugh. This event often serves as a moment of national catharsis, and it can bring some healing to our divisions. We look for the video of the roast of the president the following day, and are reminded that even though the leader of the free world is just another imperfect human, the Republic is still standing. After all, if we’re laughing, we are still alive, right? It’s this very spark of camaraderie that we cannot afford as a nation at this moment. Resistance to Trump must be total and without pause.
I say this because every president in recent history has had at least some measure of stabilizing force on our world. Even George W. Bush could give a speech and comfort the nation during tragedy with at least some kind of genuine empathy and effect. In comparison to Trump, all were at least at a certain level of accomplishment and maturity. All of them released their tax returns. All of them explicitly called out hate when it was most egregious. In stark contrast, Donald Trump is by all appearances attempting to consolidate power, circumvent our checks and balances by creating chaos and then leveraging it to advance his un-American agenda. Trump is a qualitatively different threat than any previous leader has posed to America. We should not create a positive moment of camaraderie, with a leader that wants to destroy the foundations of a free society.
To roast Trump and contribute to his normalization is to insult twice the women that are victims of his misogyny, the students that he sold false dreams too, the investors he duped, and the part of America that still thinks he is on their side. Please don’t do that.
Looking to do your part? One way to get involved is to read the Indivisible Guide, which is written by former congressional staffers and is loaded with best practices for making Congress listen. Or follow this publication, connect with us on Twitter, and join us on Facebook.
