This titillation of the Left by a continuous stream of mockery of Trump is an onanistic exercise – political onanism, let’s call it.
A witty burlesque of Donald Trump does for the politically frustrated exactly what an inspired erotic fantasy does for the sexually frustrated: it generates a fleeting release from frustration and a brief, hollow pleasure.
Just as fuel for erotic fantasies is available with the click of a mouse or the swiping of a screen, so is the fuel for Trump gags. Every day brings a new, tantalizing episode of Donny Does Washington.
Laughing at Trump is easy – but it gets us nowhere. Worse, laughing at Trump seems to give some people the feeling that they are doing their part, that their laughter is a political exercise, that all our accumulated laughter will, somehow, give a boost to the anti-Trump movement.
No. Sorry. The only effect of Trump gags is to make us feel better, relieve our political frustration, unburden us for a few moments, before we again have to face our lonely fate.
Lonely, even though there are millions of us; lonely in the same way that an abandoned spouse is lonely. Here we are, rattling around in this lovely progressive edifice still under construction, completely abandoned. Obama is gone (sorry, occasional encouragement from the sidelines doesn’t help) and no one has taken his place.
I won’t try to analyze why Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren have failed to play the role that Obama played, that Teddy Kennedy once played, that even Al Gore played, for goodness sake. Whatever the reasons, the fact remains that the Left is leaderless.
A political movement without a leader hardly deserves to be called a political movement. We’re just a bunch of unhappy, dissatisfied kvetchers. All we can do is relieve the embarrassment of our powerlessness by endless mockery of the other side.