What Bill Maher Taught Us About Trump

Last week comedian Larry David wrote an op-ed for the New York Times likening Bill Maher’s recent dinner with Donald Trump to a meal involving a fictional individual who willingly dines with Hitler…

My letter to the editor below was published in the New York Times:

Our After-Dinner Debate About Larry David’s Satire

I thoroughly enjoyed Larry David’s satire and, understanding his exaggerated sense of humor, I won’t feign indignation at the implicit comparison of President Trump to Adolf Hitler. However, I would like to make a defense of Bill Maher.

If we take Mr. Maher at his word, his mission was to engage in dialogue with someone he strongly disagrees with and report back exactly what happened. The public can then decide for itself what to make of it.

What Mr. Maher discovered was that a “crazy person doesn’t live in the White House. A person who plays a crazy person on TV a lot lives there.”

If that’s true, it’s a relief in one sense. If I’m a passenger in a car, I’d rather have a driver who’s pretending to be drunk than one who actually is. But in another sense, this revelation is far more damning of Mr. Trump’s character; it shows he has no principles. If Mr. Trump is simply acting unhinged to rile up his base or distract the media, it suggests not madness, but cynicism.

What’s more dangerous: a leader who truly believes false information — or one who knowingly manipulates it for personal power?

The answer is clear. The performance artist is more dangerous than the misguided true believer — because while the latter may be wrong, the former knows better and simply doesn’t care.

Heywood Reynolds
The writer is the editor of Marginalia Magazine and an editorial cartoonist.