And Now Here It Is, Your Moment Of Absolute Panic

Jon Stewart is stepping down from The Daily Show next week. As you might expect from the style of this blog, I've been a fan, and have generally agreed with his perspective on things. Surprisingly, probably the biggest disconnection I've experienced has been in the last few weeks. And the issue is Donald Trump's presidential run.

(My keyboard interpreted that last phrase as "Donald Trump's presidential ruin.")

Stewart and others on the show have portrayed his campaign as a fun and entertaining side show. Essentially they're seeing it as the political equivalent of Sharknado: so bad it's harmless entertainment.

I don't find it so funny, and I think I can explain my feeling using another recent bad movie: Pixels. I'm sure i wasn't the only one who the ads for it and said, hey a movie about life-size eighties video games, that looks like fun, why I bet they... Oh god, Adam Sandler is in it, never mind. I'm guessing many conservatives had a similar reaction to Trump; a new candidate with business experience, from outside the establishment? That's great, is been... Oh god, it's Donald Trump.

But back to the explanation of why I don't find Trump funny. Imagine if you will that the premise of Pixels - aliens take the form of old video game characters to destroy us all - actually happened. I don't mean, you're watching this happen on TV; I mean you're minding your own business, when suddenly the guy from Dig Dug walks by and blows up the house across the street. You go outside to see what happened, only to be chased away by the alien fleet from Galaxian.

Now here's my question: would that be fun? I doubt it would be. Really, I doubt you would have any chance to assess your feelings at all. You'd be too busy dodging the alien abductors from Defender to think about it.

Superficially you might assume that being attacked by something fun would be better than just being attacked - say, by more evil-looking insectoid aliens - since you'll end up dead either way, you might as well have some nostalgic fun in your final moments. But really, I think it would be worse to go out at the hands of giant games, since you'd be denied any sort of dignity.

And that's my problem with Donald Trump. If he was polling three percent, he'd be hilarious. But leading the race for a major party, he's a threat of the impending collapse of civilization. The fact that he's a silly threat of the impending collapse of civilization doesn’t make him amusing. He’s a reminder that we'll be the first society to end not with a bang or a whimper, but with a rim shot.