Larry David just wrote this op-ed piece for the NY Times (gift link):
It’s spoofing something that Bill Maher did (talked about? wrote about?), some dinner he had with Trump. I tried to track down what happened, but all the articles seem to be about this Larry David send-up.
Did anyone here see, hear, or read the original that prompted this piece? How well does David lampoon it?
If this is better in P&E or the Pit, I’m fine with it being moved.
A lot of talk about it in the on going Maher pit thread.
Basically Maher reports that we are all a bunch of cry baby wokies because he bravely had dinner with Trump. In fact, Trump is a pretty normal and nice guy. He laughed! It was cool.
Not like those evil blue haired zooming kids who I dedicate 90% of my raging to. Where’s Bari Weiss, or Andrew Sullivan, I need to SMUGLY VENT how we are the real progressives!
Ah, thanks! Old guy thinks he’s liberal as the world passes him by.
Did you read the Larry David piece? Curious as to whether he nailed it.
Not really, liberals used to think that he was one of them while he was attacking (and got attacked by) Trump. But he thinks liberals are flawed as well and they don’t like him for calling out their own BS. Liberals feel betrayed by him, but he never really was a far left supporter.
Trump seriously sued the guy for $5M and he stood his ground. That didn’t make him a liberal.
How long ago was that? I think of him as an edge lord who is extremely full of himself and thinks he’s smarter than everyone else. Maybe 15 years ago, I had a different opinion?
No, he very much has always pitched himself as liberal. Not sure why you’re mentioning “the far left” and liberal like they’re remotely the same thing. He’s been attacking Republicans for as far back as I can remember.
It’s just that, around Trump’s time, he started treating the “far left” as the same level of threat, and then started moving more rightward, falling for the whole anti-woke anti-SJW bullshit.
That he’s gone so far now that he’s praising Trump, when he used to use him as the ultimate sign of the horribleness of the Republican Party?
That is Trump Derangement Syndrome. Our brain’s protective strategy of treating things as normal in order to cope.
(Not that I don’t have the bias. I do go about my daily life as normal to be able to function. But at least I don’t feel I have to somehow accept Trump in any way. Then again, I’m not a guy whose humor and fame involve shocking people with shitty statements every once in a while to get publicity.)
Liberals used to like this guy when he did one thing, but then the guy changed and did something else, and now liberals don’t like him. Crazy liberals can’t make up their mind!
You never see conservatives change their minds like that. They’ll stay with Trump right up until we’re all destitute.
Conservatives believe they should remain loyal to their idols; liberals believe their idols should remain loyal to them.
Love this!
Reminded me of a 40-year old quote in V for Vendetta:
“People shouldn’t be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.”
The story depicts a dystopian and post-apocalyptic near-future history version of the United Kingdom in the 1990s, preceded by a nuclear war in the 1980s that devastated most of the rest of the world. The Nordic supremacist,[1] neo-fascist,[2][3][4][5] outwardly Christofascistic, and homophobic fictional Norsefire political party has exterminated its opponents in concentration camps, and it now rules the country as a police state.
I’ve never really liked that quote. Governments often attack the things they fear.
True. I think I was reminded of it because there’s a lot of people in the US (and around the world) right now who are afraid of their government, either its outright maliciousness or the consequences of its incompetence. It’s like the Norsefire party is something that some Republicans would aspire to become.
Yeah, he’s always been a smarmy edge lord. Always. But he straddles the political divide in some respects (which I don’t really regard as a positive or a negative). He’s a PETA board member who despises religion, supports single-payer healthcare, promotes smoking weed and, like most Hollywood-based folks, is vaguely socially liberal and gay friendly. But he’s also very much in the anti-woke, somewhat transphobic, anti-MeToo, anti-PC brigade.
Regardless of his political views he’s always been an asshole IMHO. I disliked his shtick thirty years ago when he was a politics-based stand-up comedian, still dislike it now. He relishes being a gadfly on just about everything and has built an entire career off of it. More power to him, I suppose - but I’ve never liked watching him back when he was riffing on Republican national convention silliness for Comedy Central in the 1990’s, still don’t like him now as he is getting snowed by a briefly affable Trump.
“Conceivable!”
I can believe Trump can be cordial (I wouldn’t say “gracious”) and a decent host just like Hitler (a few witty killing-jews jokes aside). Trump is incurious and just has no intellectual depth. Yet like Hitler he is a psychotic Narcissus. A couple Benzos and a couple lines before dinner with Maher will put him in a reasonable sort of “good” mood.
Yet let’s say The Alamo somehow came up. Trump would know “Big win that day for Mexico but we got even” and not know anything about Santa Anna or the decision Sam Houston made. I’m not saying he needs a Phil Collins (guru level knowledge of The Alamo) level of knowledge. Though if Phil came up Trump might certainly recall how great and admirable Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) was in “American Psycho” which to Trump provides more laughter than his supposed favorite movie, “The Godfather”
I reckon now Maher gets to play “You done me wrong” bit when someone even brings up the dinner let alone burns him with fire like David did.
Haven’t seen him or his show in a long time, yet if he was ever funny his show sucked. I hope next show he invites (probably not for the first time) Dennis Miller to bring his witty rapid-fire, hyper-literate rants - twisting similes or metaphors - that blend political commentary with esoteric cultural references.
LOL! I’m quite certain that Trump would describe The Alamo as a huge victory for America.
Well, it’s not always the right thing to keep your head down.
I’d rather point out that fear of the people is exactly why a certain political party is treating the president like royalty.
That is my view too. TDS is normalizing what a horrible person Trump is. I read an article about malignant narcissism once which basically said malignant narcissism is as close to a definition of the psychology of evil that we have. It combines sociopathy, narcissism, sadism and paranoia. Trump suffers from malignant narcissism, Musk may have it too (Musk seems to be narcissistic, sociopathic and sadistic. Ironically Musk is the opposite of paranoid, he’s too dumb to realize how much everyone hates him).
But the point is we are in a national trauma and people keep trying to normalize it. America is in a nationwide abusive relationship and the MAGA cult members are the golden children of the toxic, abusive father figure (Trump). The left are the black sheep/scapegoat who gets blamed for everything wrong. And sadly when people are in a traumatic situation they look for ways to normalize it so they won’t have to deal with it.
When you understand toxic family systems and cluster B personality disorders, Trumpism makes a lot more sense.
Donald Trump, being a narcissist, has spent his whole life learning how to manipulate people into doing what he wants. He is amazingly good at it, and he knew what to say to Bill Maher to make Maher think and say what Trump wanted. Maher is just too dumb and clueless ot understand that fact. If Trump frothing at the mouth with rage was an effective tactic to make Maher think and feel what Trump wanted him to feel, Trump would’ve done that instead.