President Donald Trump’s approval rating sits comfortable at 39 percent following its peak at 45 percent in January. It’s clear he’s not the most popular president around, but he is a goldmine for comedians.
In the 2016 campaign, the majority of the candidates on both sides made for decent parody targets. Banal hacks found an ocean of opportunities with said candidates.
Saturday Night Live’s 42nd season featured a plethora of sketches about the election. The cast gleefully lampooned candidates and other politicians on both sides of the political scale.
For the most part, SNL’s jokes were well-balanced. The Democrats received as much diatribe as the Republicans. The majority of the sketches focused on the debates between Trump and then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and gave each equal screen time.
Trump was a celebrity even before his run in the election, so he had a pre-existing stage to play clown on.
It’s admittedly difficult to take a man seriously after a cameo in a “Home Alone” film and four years as the host of reality show “The Apprentice” and its follow-up “The Celebrity Apprentice.”
In addition, Trump hosted an episode of SNL in 2015. He even noted the myriad of jokes surrounding him in his monologue, including a smug remark saying he’d be president soon.
Now, with Trump in the Oval Office, the jokes haven’t stopped. SNL went back to the drawing board with a series of sketches following his first 100 days in office, and every left-leaning “comedy” outlet followed suit.
There’s only so many ways you can call someone an angry citrus in a wig. Even the small hands gag gets old.
The problem isn’t with the president’s previous exposure to pop culture. Former President Ronald Reagan was an actor before assuming the presidency in 1981. His place in the media and pop culture didn’t sully his powerful presence as president. The same should be true for Trump.
What is indicative, however, of Trump’s capability is other nations’ responses to his policies thus far.
In a sample of 37 countries, 35 rated former President Barack Obama considerably higher than Trump. Israel and Russia were the two outliers who prefer Trump’s run over Obama’s.
Germany, one of America’s biggest supporters in past years, has an 11 percent confidence rate. Compared to Obama’s 86 percent, Trump’s low rating spells trouble with foreign relations.
Of the 37 countries polled, a median of 64 percent viewed America favorably. With Trump in the White House, the median dropped to 49 percent.
Trump isn’t popular stateside or overseas. The lack of trust and confidence is jarring for the country as a whole. Part of the president’s job is to stand as the face of the country, to be the representative of the people.
Right now, Trump’s posing a poor presentation of the American people, but the representation is sadly accurate.
Calling our president a fool is a fair exercise of our rights. However, the rest of the world looking in will see us choosing people we deem foolish to lead us.
What results is a self-fulfilling prophecy. At some point, it doesn’t matter whether the chicken or the egg came first. The masses are just as foolish for following a jester as the jester is for playing the fool.
Kyle Richoux is a 20-year-old sociology sophomore from LaPlace, Louisiana.
