Liberals have long honored the power of "satire" to bring the mighty down to size -- when they're conservatives. Liberals are honored and adored. Take The Daily Show on Comedy Central. At least since the days when Jon Stewart brought his "God, I admire you" routine to Democratic candidate John Kerry in 2004, they've been a pliant platform for Democrats.
On Wednesday, Daily Show host Trevor Noah offered that to Al Gore, mocking Trump as a "famous scientist" (as if Gore is an astrophysicist?) and only interrrupting Gore's talking points with "right, right" and agreeing with everything. Gore insisted "the vast majority" back him, and not President Trump, on "climate denial."
AL GORE: It's really significant, Trevor, that Donald J. Trump is now the face of climate denial. His voice is the voice of climate denial. And there are those who are still giving him their loyalty and trust, and I get that, believe me. But the vast majority of Americans, not to mention all around the world, are really kind of, they’ve had it --
TREVOR NOAH: Right.
GORE: -- with the constant craziness, if you want to call it that way.
NOAH: I think we do wanna call it that way. [Laughter, applause]
GORE: When he is the principal global face of climate denial, I think that’s a cue. You know, in physics there’s this well-known principle— for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction.
NOAH: Right.
GORE: I think that some of the mobilization that is really building --we saw it in the election three weeks ago with the blue wave-- part of that is a reaction to what Donald Trump is saying and doing....There will be an opportunity, a little less than two years fro now, for people who've had enough of this stuff --
NOAH: Right.
GORE: -- to register and vote in large numbers to make a statement that we want to get back on track to the real America and the real American Dream.
So the "real America" is the one that wants to ban the internal combustion engine, as he proposed in his book Earth in the Balance. The "real America" didn't elect him over Bush, or Trump over Hillary. Who's in denial here?
PS: Gore also drew a friendly interview with Jeremy Hobson on Thursday on NPR's afternoon talk show Here & Now, where he repeated his talking points, and claimed "two-thirds and more" back him.
GORE: But for the two-thirds and more who are signaling that they have had enough of Donald Trump, I think it is making it easier for people who associate him with the nonsensical views that he articulates to re-examine the facts and to say, as some conservative columnists have done recently, 'Whoa, wait a minute — we've taken another look at this climate crisis and it's an existential threat. We've got to do something about it.'
Hobson at least asked about how he would explain Marsha Blackburn being elected to the Senate from Gore's state of Tennessee. Then, oddly, Gore touted how Beto O'Rourke and Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum -- who all lost their elections -- were great on the climate issue. So much for the "vast majority" who have "had it"?
