Trump Time Capsule #146: Al Smith Dinner
“Light” events are some of the heaviest lifting in political life. Comedy is hard to begin with, and for the kinds of people involved in politics, jokes are vastly more difficult to write than “substantive” remarks. And for presidents or presidential aspirants, we’re talking about a special kind of joke. These eminent figures need to come across as “modest” and self-deprecatory, but only up to a humble-brag point. (That is, just enough so that the audience and reviewers will say, “Oh, isn’t it charming that he’s willing to laugh at himself!”) Real comedy often includes a “what the hell!” willingness to say something that will genuinely offend or shock, which national politicians can’t afford to do. The White House Correspondents Dinner, the Gridiron event, the Al Smith Dinner—these are hard (as David Litt, a former member of the Obama speechwriting team, explains in a very nice item just now).
But you’ve got to do it. And to “seem” to like it. And to maintain the closest simulacrum you can to a “genuine” smile or laugh, when others are making fun of you.
Last night at the Al Smith Dinner, which is the subject of Litt’s essay, Donald Trump could perform only a tiny handful of the basic moves. In the process he spectacularly reinforced a crucial point about himself, even as Hillary Clinton was demonstrating an under-appreciated implication of one of her familiar traits. Let’s go to the tape and see what he didn’t do, and what she did.
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The clip below is cued to begin as Trump takes the stage, nearly an hour and a half into the whole elephantine pageant. (Reflect for a moment: you’re sitting there for the first 90 minutes, eating while on camera and purporting to socialize, realizing that a high-stakes performance is ahead at the end of the night.)