In August 2016, a nude state of Trump was erected overnight in Union Square, in Manhattan, with an enormous belly and tiny penis tucked up beneath it, apparently without balls, and an ass like tuna tartare. The dick jokes, like the gay jokes, are now part of the canon. But given the state of political discourse in the Trump era - a time when penis-size posturing made it to the floor of a Republican presidential debate - the cultural brow may have sunken irretrievably. The best political cartoons and memes highlight an embarrassing truth, be it that Trump seems to be afraid of stairs, or that his adulation of Putin continues to be a threat to national security. It’s still a joke about the unsettling affection between them, but the joke is no longer just “lol gay.” (Honecker kissed Gorbachev in the ’80s.) Vrubel’s reframing of this event, on the occasion of the end of East Germany - and painted onto the most potent symbol of its rise and fall - is not a gay joke.Īfter the original in Vilnius was vandalized, “Make Everything Great Again” was updated to show Trump shotgunning marijuana smoke into Putin’s mouth, an edit that actually improves it immensely - Trump blowing smoke Putin’s. The fraternal kiss was a traditional greeting among socialist leaders. Artist Dmitri Vrubel painted it in 1990 based on an actual photo from 1979, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the founding of East Germany. A mural from 2016 in Vilnius, Lithuania titled “Make Everything Great Again” features Trump and Putin engaged in a kiss meant to reference “My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love,” the famous “fraternal kiss” mural on the Berlin Wall depicting Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev and East German leader Erich Honecker. The Putin-as-lover theme is common in the “lol Trump is gay” #resistance, but not all lame memes are created equal. It’s exhausting, frankly, and most of the time I can hardly manage outrage. Masculinity, and particularly American masculinity, is primarily defined by what you are not: You’re not weak, not emotional, and most of all not gay. But what these examples reveal is that many still think it, whether or not they realize they do.
No straight liberal worth their weight in Mother Jones magazines would dream of using the word “fag,” of course. The only thing lamer than laughing at something like this is believing it rises to the level of commentary, and it’s embarrassing that anyone greenlit such a gratuitous show of basically calling the president a fag. The same could be asked of the animated video the New York Times shared last month, in which a cartoon Trump fantasizes about Vladimir Putin, drawing hearts and swooning like a preteen. Bad writing is its own disappointment, but the question in any of these cases is, what exactly is the joke? If you’ll forgive the pedantry, a holster is somewhere a firearm isn’t discharged, and is therefore a poor blowjob metaphor. Last year, Late Show host Stephen Colbert referred to Trump’s mouth as “Vladimir Putin’s cock holster,” and subsequently sort of apologized. Saltz was far from the first to have a laugh at the idea of Gay Trump. “Joke” is certainly too generous chanting K-I-S-S-I-N-G at the president and his craven fan club of self-interested hacks is resisting nothing but real critique. This makes the butt of the joke not Trump or Hannity, but homosexuality. Whatever point they mean to make, images like the ones Saltz shared last week elide any real criticism of the relationship between Fox News and the Oval Office with a cheap joke about same-sex desire. The image wasn’t offensive, really - just dumb. The latest chapter came last week with an image tweeted - and soon deleted, and apologized for - by New York magazine’s Pulitzer Prize–winning art critic Jerry Saltz, showing Sean Hannity, tongue out, facing the presidential crotch and preparing to give Trump a blowjob. Somehow, the best that people can come up with, time and again, is a variant of lol, Trump kissing men. Is there anything more tired than a gay joke? Haha, boys kissing, gross.Īnd yet! Somehow, the hilarity of Donald Trump making out with another man has emerged as a mainstay among some parts of the internet Resistance - a crowd that is well-stocked with comedians, entertainers, and people who should both know better and be funnier.