Imagine someone like this British comedian woman, unfortunately I forgot her name, who (on purpose) asks these really absurd or stupid questions during interviews with scientists etc. in an interview with Trump.
Like when he mentions this “Democrats because many people don’t know dumb ends with a B” and then going like “Wow, I never new that, you’re so smart. Please explain how you came up with that”.
I guess he wouldn’t be defensive about it because he got called smart and really expose himself.
I don’t know if I’d call Philomena Cunk a “level headed interviewer” but I agree it might be fun. But also he’s so far gone at this point and he had so little self awareness to begin with, I’m not sure that gotcha moment you’re imagining is even theoretically possible. He exposes himself like that every day, his voters don’t care. They live in a different reality where rationality and truth don’t exist.
Exactly, you don’t get called Teflon Don by being resilient and perfect, you get that way by being made of toxic chemicals that have permanently made the world worse. DuPont made him in a lab, don’t give him more interviews
While true, I’ll also say that Cunk has a style and power that is something special. It takes talent to play that character, not everyone can convincingly play the bumbling idiot that effectively. There’s a special something that the Diane Morgans and Steve Carells of the world have that even a Stephen Colbert can’t pull off because he still comes off as a fancy and smarter-than-you east coast elite to a flyover country person.
I’d argue an attack from Cunk, if seen by his supporters, would be more effective than an attack from almost any other source, because only she (and some Steve Carrell characters) are stupid enough to actually make them see how stupid it all is.
You need to be that level of dumb to parody him (edit: or more accurately, MAGA as a whole) to his own supporters though, even the likes of The Onion is usually too intellectually complex. Otherwise it doesn’t work, too much of it goes over their heads. And lets be real, these are some of the stupidest characters we have ever conceived of. Lenny from Of Mice and Men had significant intellectual strengths over the likes of Philomena Cunk and Michael Scott. They need that stupidity to deal with Trump on the level.
All based on the sadly false notion that Trump’s supporters care whether he’s smart. Please be assured they do not. Free books on the subject that I think may help: https://theauthoritarians.org/
It’s not about him or thinking he’s smart. It’s about why they like him and how they perceive the actual issues of the day. When Carrell or Morgan poke fun at something, they usually do it by taking it to other (quasi)logical conclusions that are so (overly) simple a young child can follow their logic. They only reason they can get away with this is because they’re clearly being Monty Python levels of serious. This lets them get away with seriously and enthusiastically espousing bad ideas in a way that makes them look even stupider than they are, in a way the rest of us can’t manage. They can parody what we cannot. Not effectively anyway.
We’ve had a solid decade to test whether satire can save the world from Trump. Sacha Baron Cohen got Giuliani to pull his pants down on camera in Borat 2. We all love to laugh, but at some point we have to face the fact that it’s not the right tool for the job.
Eh, I disagree. It’s not enough on its own by any stretch, but it remains a very useful part of a multi-pronged approach. I’ll also point out that I addressed how almost all satires fail to have any impact on his supporters. Have you seen any Cunk though? It’s a distinct style.