The Toupeéd Elephant in the Room

Even though the election season is not yet in full swing,we have all been thrown into the boiling hot pot of Donald Trump’s presence. Whatever side of an issue he flip-flops to, whether it be the sexual allure of his own daughter or the contention of President Obama’s birth certificate, it is brought into the public eye with tweets in all caps and fingers wagging. However, recently he has come under fire for something far worse — or rather, the people around him have. Jimmy Fallon had Trump guest star on his program which spawned the all-too compassionate image of him ruffling what Trump calls hair. After what seems like an eternity of disparaging Trump on national television, why did Fallon humanize him in this way?
Comedian Samantha Bee commented on this, by stating that while NBC supposedly cut ties with Trump after his comments about immigrants and the people of Mexico, they continued to allow him to appear on their programs and partake in their network activities. With that broadcast, Fallon did little more than soften Trump’s dangerous personage. Even when asking about Trump’s stance on the Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Fallon immediately backpedaled for fear of his guest’s comfort. Where is the compassion for the people affected by Trump’s hate speech? Where is the fear of making people of color uncomfortable when he heralds that we are dangerous predators who have come to wreak havoc on the nation we call our own? Where is the remorse when his supporters openly proclaim that, yes, they did physically attack someone for daring to disagree with them?
Although comedians cannot be placed in the same arena as a journalist or a political commentator, this almost entirely glosses over Trump’s history of general antipathy toward his fellow human being. There is something to be said about putting aside political beliefs and viewing Trump for what he is: a demagogue with steadily rising support. Of course, we laugh this off and say that, in this era of humanity we could never put someone with such a fractured understanding of government at the very head of it. But the possibility is still there and somehow grows bigger and bigger by the day. This then becomes an issue of what we as a viewing populace are willing to accept when it comes to true portrayals of who a person is. Intentionally or not, Fallon has made Trump a figure to sympathize with as though he is saying, “Look! He’s harmless.” But Trump isn’t harmless. He is a man who routinely abused his wives, conned millions of people out of hard-earned money, and exploited the labor of desperate people for the sake of a business he almost sank four times. He is a man who chose a running mate who supports torture as “conversion therapy” for LGBT+ youth and supports the subjugation of minorities, women, and children. At this rate, the voter revolution against Trump will not be televised, but it will happen.