Regarding Fuckface Von Clownstick

Non-serious presidential candidate Trump, with clownstick.

Non-serious presidential candidate Trump, with stick

It’s the busy season here at Combat! blog, and the interns who write these posts on my behalf are prohibited from doing anything fun so they have more time to work. Before we all sink into a vortex of drudgery, though, I thought I’d draw your attention to Donald Trump’s satisfyingly uncool Twitter reaction to being called “Fuckface Von Clownstick” on The Daily Show. I submit that his series of tweets—which begins by calling people who picked up the hashtag “losers” and ends in attacking Jon Stewart for changing his name—encapsulates what is wrong with Trump’s personality. Also what’s wrong with the personality of a spoiled adolescent—your brain stops developing after you become the owner of a building in Manhattan, though, so that should not surprise anyone.

I more abstractly submit that the Von Clownstick Affair captures the ideal function of comedy in society. Donald Trump is a nuisance. Over the last few years, he’s run a vanity campaign for president and perpetuated one of the more baseless, destructive rumors in American political history. It’s not illegal to tell people without evidence that the president is not constitutionally allowed to be president, but it is irresponsible. In a free society, what do you do about wealthy narcissists? Enter Stewart, whose juvenile attack on Trump is not illegal either, but merely mean. Welcome the exchange of ideas, Mr. Trump. Your money is no good here.

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1 Comments

  1. But…but…reading what the Combat! blog interns write is how I have fun while putting off work. This is symmetrical but still unsatisfying.

    In lieu of a full post, I will supply the best 200 words I’ve ever read here:

    “I was maybe eleven years old when I first heard the phrase “life of the mind.” Up to that point I had been living the life of the sweatpants, so the possibility of doing all the same things I had been doing—Dungeons & Dragons, Isaac Asimov novels in which one of a roomful of robots has committed a crime, math—but with the imprimatur of stately pursuit seemed hugely appealing. At school, I calmly announced that I would be living the life of the mind from there on out. Obviously, that would exempt me from life-of-the-school activities like hitting, although I recognized that it also would require certain sacrifices, like never overcoming my fear of talking to girls. Twenty-three years later, the life of the mind is going strong: strangers still express an inordinate desire to hit me/continue to not meet me, depending on gender, and I know more about robots than anyone except people who have actually worked with them. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it. This week’s link roundup is about those intellectual pursuits that make even my life worth living: history, books, awful movies about books, and awful people who wrote plays, which are like movies that have been ruined by books. Won’t you live the life of the mind with me? Or at least keep an eye peeled for jocks while I do?”

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