America’s “democracy”: When the president becomes the punchline

TOI reporter in Washington: Historians may one day conclude that U.S. President Donald TrumpThe greatest contribution to American political discourse has not been immigration enforcement or peace treaties or even trade wars. It could have been a grueling seminar on how he coined the term “Dumocrats.”“In several interviews and speeches over the past week, Trump has unveiled what he considers a linguistic breakthrough on par with the discovery of fire. “Do you know why I call them Dumocrates?” he patiently explained the situation of his weakened political rivals. “Because they’re stupid.” Then came the etymology lecture, which included the priceless assertion that not many people know that the word “dumb” ends in b. More than once, the president carefully guided viewers through the spelling of simple, one-syllable words that a three-year-old could master, as if introducing the alphabet to a caveman. He once explained that “see” was spelled SEE, not SEA, and another time he said he had made the extraordinary discovery that America, like America, was spelled “US,” like us. Late night comedians reacted as if Diwali, Christmas, Hanukkah and Super Bowl jokes all arrived together. One host observed that Trump now explains words the way a kindergarten teacher explains crayons to children. Another joked that America had somehow elected a president who could turn a two-syllable word into a graduate seminar.However, this is just the latest installment in the longest-running comedy series in modern political history. While previous presidents occasionally cracked a joke or two, Trump has transformed the presidency into an industrial-scale content factory for comedians. On certain nights, when most of America is asleep, the president launches into a marathon social media posting campaign, like a drunken uncle discovering touch screens for the first time.On a recent night, more than fifty posts were posted in rapid succession. The resulting message reads less like a communication from the commander-in-chief and more like someone handing a smartphone to an ape. There are posts about judges, polls, TV ratings, construction projects, and people not being grateful enough for him. He has also posted AI-generated images, adding himself to Mount Rushmore, riding with George Washington and presenting himself as a superhero. Somewhere around Post 47, even loyal followers seem to have forgotten whether the United States is winning a trade war, building a dance hall, invading a country, or simply debating renaming a building.Trump’s obsession with architecture has become particularly noteworthy. He now discusses construction projects with the enthusiasm of a retired contractor who cornered you at parties. Updates like ballrooms, reflecting pools, fountains, expansions, additions, improvements poured out like a torrent, marginalizing China, Canada, Greenland and even Iran.No account of Trump’s comedy work would be complete without his enduring obsession with cognitive testing, a subject he returns to with the persistence of a man who insists he deserves a Nobel Prize for identifying a camel in a picture book. The president has repeatedly boasted about acing the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, reciting portions of the test as if he were recounting the moon landing. The joke, as several cartoonists have pointed out, is that the test is not designed to identify genius but to detect signs of cognitive impairment and dementia. One comedian quipped: “It’s like bragging about passing a breathalyser.” Another compared it to a driver announcing that he successfully stopped at a red light. Then, the “Freedom 250” concert series celebrating America’s 250th birthday came crashing down. Organizers announced the lineup. The team immediately began to flee. The artists retreated so quickly that the entire event began to resemble a lifeboat maneuver on the Titanic. Several performers said they fled without fully understanding the political nature of the event.Trump’s response has been typically mild. Why not replace the musician with himself? After all, he argued, he drew bigger audiences than Elvis Presley, and he didn’t own a guitar. So he proposed replacing the concert with a MAGA rally, starring a performer who never canceled: Donald Trump.