What if a Joke Tips the Election?
Would it be dumber than anything else that's happened?
It looks like Tony Hinchcliffe’s Puerto Rico joke might actually matter. Harris is running ads about it, and the Trump campaign took the unusual (for them) step of admitting that something went wrong. Republican officials in Puerto Rico and elsewhere are fleeing from the joke like it’s a turd in a swimming pool. This is remarkable to me partly because I thought I’d seen (and experienced) every type of bombing, but in all my years, I’ve never seen a comic bomb in a way that was history altering.
It seems strange to me that this might matter. I mean…this? After all that Trump’s said and done? Will this joke really be the thing that causes some folks to think “this Trump fellow might lack character” — to quote another comic: “Who are these people?” To anyone who is just now realizing that Trump might be kind of racist, here’s another mind-blower for you: Woody Allen is Jewish. And Mick Jagger likes to bone. And Tim Burton is one spooky little fucker. I’m actually glad to learn that people this naive exist, because it validates the plots of so many lowbrow ‘90s comedies; I remember watching White Chicks and Weekend At Bernie’s and thinking “how could anyone be fooled by this?” But if people can observe Trump for nine years just now realize that he’s racist, then people might walk among us who would be tricked by putting sunglasses on a dead guy.