Humor columnist Alexandra Petri writes that she’s expecting a baby — a baby boy — due on January 6, 2025.
She joked:
“It’s a… Proud Boy?”
In her column, she revealed her mixed feelings about bringing a child into a world where a person, who could conceivably be elected U.S. President in less than two week, has promised to make life miserable for his enemies — which is apparently anyone and everyone who disagrees with him, and anyone and everyone who lives outside America’s borders, except maybe Russia.
She summarized the case for Donald Trump:
“I know that he has made many ominous-sounding threats about mass deportations, going after his political enemies, shutting down the speech of those who disagree with him (especially media outlets), and that he wants to make things worse for almost every category of person — people with wombs, immigrants, transgender people, journalists, protesters, people of color — but… maybe he’ll forget.”
That’s either mildly funny or not funny at all. As she herself would admit.
What’s also mildly funny or not funny at all is the fact that Ms. Petri writes her humor columns for The Washington Post, which — much to everybody’s surprise, including its Editorial Board and its staff — has refused to endorse either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris, after endorsing a presidential candidate in every general election since 1976, with the exception of 1988.
Ms. Petri joked about her newspaper deciding not to endorse a candidate. I guess you can joke about that kind of thing without getting fired, if you’re a humor columnist.
She wrote:
But if I were the paper, I would be a little embarrassed that it has fallen to me, the humor columnist, to make our presidential endorsement. I will spare you the suspense: I am endorsing Kamala Harris for president, because I like elections and want to keep having them.
Not everyone likes elections — after all, they’re messy, expensive, and often annoying.
It’s clear that many Americans would be perfectly happy getting rid of presidential elections and allowing the country to be ruled by a dictator, from the fact that a huge number of people responding to election polls have expressed support for Donald Trump.
Then, we have the people like Ms. Petri, who actually like elections.
I blame the whole problem on the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote. And the right to run for president. A proper president should look good wearing a baseball cap.
Apparently, former news commentator Tucker Carlson — who is not a humor columnist but still gets listened to by people — is also angry about women like Kamala Harris getting involved in politics, according to a video clip shared on The Late Show by host Stephen Colbert.
That’s also mildly funny, or not funny at all.
Anyway, I was a bit surprised that our Daily Post editor, Bill Hudson, offering some amateur advice about the 2024 ballot issues and candidates, took the risk of endorsing Kamala Harris for president.
Which puts the Daily Post ahead of The Washington Post in the endorsement racket, by a score of 1-0.
Of course, it could also make our editor, and our publication, and our staff, the enemy of a man who might be our next president. Including the Daily Post humor writers? That’s not at all funny. We might now be included in “the enemy from within” mentioned by the former president in his Joe Rogan interview last week. He compared us (the enemy from within) unfavorably with the ruthless, repressive leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un. The former president had no problem with Kim Jong Un, he said. Kind of a nice guy, really.
“We had no problem with him. I say it to people, we have a bigger problem, in my opinion, with the enemy from within.”
It’s possible that The Washington Post owner, Jeff Bezos, knows something Daily Post editor Bill Hudson doesn’t know. In fact, that’s very likely.
Speaking only for myself, I don’t want to be anyone’s enemy from within.
And I also like elections and want to keep having them.
I guess that puts me in the same mildly-funny-or-not-at-all-funny camp as columnist Alexandra Petri.
Hoping to be mildly funny.