As someone who grew up on Johnny Carson and then David Letterman, not to mention being an early viewer of Saturday Night Live, I know a thing or two about irony. I know irony can’t save us. I know irony treats things that aren’t funny as a joke. I know irony, by definition, can’t tell the truth.
And yet, as I try to absorb the overwhelming actions of Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and others of their ilk in the past seven weeks, the irony is astonishing. They don’t mean to be ironic, but they are.
Take the “Gulf of America” for example. It’s ridiculous and at the same time absolutely correct. Not as the name of a body of water, but as a description of the country. The gulf of America is huge. If you believe the 2020 election was rigged, that Fox News is fair and balanced, that childhood vaccinations cause autism, that Gaza should be a resort for the super wealthy, that there’s a war on Christmas, that climate change is a hoax, that Ukraine started a war with Russia, that Democratic politicians harvest the blood of children in a D.C. pizza joint, that there is a Deep State, that DEI is crushing white people, that Christians are persecuted in the United States, that trans people are ruining sports, that every relationship can be boiled down to a financial transaction, that people at the southern border are not just taking your job but are rapists and murderers, etc., etc., etc., you’re on the right side of the gulf.
I’m on the other.
How can the administration suggest “The Gulf of America” with a straight face? The irony is incredible.
Or how about the irony of this image?
Many around Trump identify as Christians. I can imagine they might not be aware of Nebuchadnezzar’s huge gold statue dream in Daniel 2—that reference is a little obscure—but at least you’d think they’d know, “You shall not make idols.” It’s on all the plaques they want to get inside classrooms.
Or how about this?
I thought these people were patriots. Have none of them read the Declaration of Independence? Or seen Hamilton?
And what are we to make of this inauguration gesture?
You look at these images and have to draw one of two conclusions, both of which are chilling. 1. They have no idea what they’re doing. 2. They know exactly what they’re doing.
Sometimes I think “horror” might be a better word than irony. But then I read that the President wants to eliminate the production of pennies because they cost two cents to make. Guess we’ll need more nickels, which cost 13 cents apiece. That’s ironic. Or let’s slash the budget of the National Parks Service, because we spend over $3 billion annually on our parks. That’s a lot of money. Never mind that they generate $55 billion in revenue. And what else besides irony do you call this line from the January 20th inauguration speech: “I was saved by God to make America great again.” I don’t know what, other than ironic (okay, I’ll admit there’s also “tragic”), to call putting a vaccine denier in charge of public health and then having measles, a disease once believed to be eliminated through vaccinations, return.
Every week—seemingly every day—brings another outrage. One week the United States votes in the United Nations along with Russia and North Korea and against almost every traditional ally. The next week Volodymyr Zelensky is ambushed at the White House. Zelensky was criticized at the outset because he didn’t wear a suit. (Zelensky has not worn suits since the Russian invasion.) Meanwhile, Elon Musk walks in and out of the Oval Office dressed like me when I toss something on in the morning to run to the store because we’re out of milk. That’s irony!
Zelensky’s real mistake, as Fareed Zakaria pointed out, was not beginning the meeting playing to Trump’s ego with a faux medal and words of adoration. (Other world leaders have figured out it’s useless meeting Trump one-on-one, you have to play him.) A few days later, Trump kicked off his unnecessary trade war with Canada (a good definition of irony might be “taming inflation by imposing tariffs”). But then, as so often happens with this administration, Trump backed off, apparently because someone pointed out Republicans like pick-up trucks. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau went to the airwaves and asked Americans to consider that their country had started a trade war with their closest ally while sucking up to Vladimir Putin. “Make that make sense,” Trudeau said. But that’s just it, Mr. Prime Minister, irony doesn’t make sense.
Last week, America was bludgeoned by the longest State of the Union address in the nation’s history. After equating himself with George Washington and reprising the inauguration line by being saved by God to make American great again, the President blamed the avian flu on Joe Biden and pointed out the outrageous amount the Biden Administration spent creating transgender mice. As someone else has pointed out, if the immigrants hadn’t eaten all the cats, transgender mice wouldn’t be running amok, dominating the mouse sports world. (After CNN fact-checked this, the White House—the White House!!!—issued a statement calling CNN “Fake News losers.”) Just to keep the irony rolling, Trump proclaimed free speech is back moments before a Black member of Congress named Green was shown the door for heckling. I recall a white member of Congress named Greene heckling President Biden a year ago and staying in her seat. The list of lies, half-truths, and exaggerations in the President’s speech takes as long to read as listening to the original. Yet the MAGA world eats this stuff up.
The state of the union is divided.
There’s a name for that.
The gulf of America.
It’s no joke.
What fresh ironic outrage will this week bring?
45 Responses
What’s really ironic is that I’m banned from commenting on your essay.
Really? I’m no longer banned?
Now I suppose I should have something to say.
Talk about pressure…
Ok:
The 2020 election was rigged. On may levels.
Fox News is NOT fair and balanced. Mr. Munroe, you political adversaries no longer get their news from Fox.
Childhood vaccination protocols should be reviewed. That’s science.
Gaza should be none of our business.
2008 called: they want their War on Christmas back.
Climate change is a hoax.
Pizzagate? Look up John Podesta’s emails and James Alefantis’ Instagram pictures. Or don’t, because it’s real dark.
There is a Deep State. 51 DS ghouls showed their faces right before the 2020 election that was rigged.
DEI is not crushing white people. But it is evil and Marxist and pits imagebearers against each other.
Christians is the only religion in our culture that is allowed to be mocked.
Biological males playing in girl’s and women’s sports will wreck girl’s and women’s sports.
Who said every relationship can be boiled down to a financial transaction?
Mass immigration completely changed the economics of labor in this country. Many of your neighbors were adversely affected in the past 40 years. During Biden’s administration, many countries emptied their prisons and mental institutions and we took them in. There may still be cats and dogs in Springfield, OH, but somehow 20,000 Haitians were sent to a town of less than 60,000. Did the residents of Springfield have a say? The population of Holland, MI is 35,000. Can we send 15,000 Haitians your way?
Ok, that’s paragraph three. One more:
Are you really so unaware of how Trump enjoys getting under the skin of his opponents? The video of him and his Gaza dreams is a trolling operation. His supporters know this. You should too. It will make the next 12 years go better for you.
Do you really believe all that nonsense?
Yes, Mary-with-no-last-name.
“Gaza should be none of our business.” Right – a massive humanitarian crisis (for both Israelis and Gazans) and a political flashpoint in the tinder-box of the Middle East, facilitated by long-standing U.S. policies and military hardware, but … none of our business. Must not be any image-bearers there. And then Trump uses Gaza as troll-fodder. Very presidential!
What do you suggest we do?
Work within diplomatic channels for a two state solution is one idea…
Vaccines are reviewed regularly. See for example, https://www.chop.edu/vaccine-education-center/science-history/vaccine-history/developments-by-year
It is not until recently that such reviews have been disrupted, two in the last month, one by US FDA on next year’s flu vax and the other a CDC meeting of advisers. https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-fda-confirms-cancellation-vaccine-advisers-meeting-2025-02-27/
I don’t think it is particularly helpful to science for our new health leader to tell the Senate that all of us children are vaccinated but also on record to say, “What would I do if I could go back in time and I could avoid giving my children the vaccines that I gave them? I would do anything for that.” I don’t think that’s science.
I am very sad that you think climate change is a hoax. How much more scientific proof do you need?
Is it really such a threat that we should drastically reduce our carbon footprint for the sake of future generations?
Definitely
Ok, then, for heavens sake, advocate for nuclear energy. It would solve your problem completely. No other option exists, except for returning to the Stone Age.
Oh, I missed one:
Ukraine didn’t start the war with Russia. Our State Department, specifically Victoria Nuland, did more to get this war going than anyone.
Does that mean that America holds ultimate responsibility for the safety and security of Ukraine since we are responsible for all that has happened there? Or at least for starting it?
Yes.
Thank you. I disagree with you on who started it, but frankly, I really care about our moral responsibility going forward. Abandoning Ukraine at this point is morally wrong. I don’t think we should be involved in an endless war, but anything less than the safety and security for Ukraine and its citizens and standing beside them while they negotiate a moral and just peace deal is shameful.
I see 3 options:
1. Keep sending arms and money to Ukraine. Some arms will be used to fight Russia, some will be sold on the black market. The money will be used likewise. And, eventually, there will be no more young Ukrainian men.
2. Send US forces to fight. This will endanger WWIII, and get our young men killed.
3. Sue for peace, give ethnically Russian areas to Russia, and promise no NATO in Ukraine and refrain from meddling there (no color revolutions or biolabs).
We can’t fix what Victoria Nuland and our neocons did. We can’t only stop and learn.
Irony is so much fun. Except it’s hard to laugh with a straight face. That kind a hurts.
I agree with Jeff. Thank you for trying. The Trump supporters are frustrating and of course ironic. That DEI is evil and Marxist. Goofy.
“Goofy” is not an argument, just a perjorative.
Evil: because it pits imagebearers against each other.
Marxist: because it is based on Critical (Race) Theory, which is cultural Marxism.
Fair enough. I do not believe DEI pits image bearers against each other. It brings out our differences and seeks to benefit everyone in doing so.
CRT needs to be studied because racism has caused major evil in America.
We can’t seem to shake it’s bias.
I also do not believe CRT is cultural Marxism. This probably isn’t the place to analyze Marx.
All this (including comments above) reminds me of John 8:44b, “when he [the devil] lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” In Rev 12: 9, Satan leads the whole world astray. In his first term 45 told so many lies, they gave up after documenting 30,000 of them. Now as 47 the lying liar continues to deceive the world and deflects attention from what is really going on and how much less safe we are now.
Are you saying Donald T is under the influence of the “Father of Lies”or possibly possessed by. Him?
Awesome Jeff. Thanks for this.
Our country’s culture is ironic, divided, and inhumane. Thank you, Jeff, for this article.
How come some people get 7 comments and I only get one? Oh, I forgot, the President gets 90+ minutes while the rest of us get nothing except unauthorized firings, attacks on the rule of law, a mounting Federal bill for trips to golf in Florida, and, of course, trolling launched at us. So presidencial. Isn’t it ironic. Thank you for showing us that the emporer has no clothes.
You’re welcome (?)
Thank you Jeff for a great essay. Thank you Marty for reminding us what we have gained from the test obsessed GOP’s replacing teaching critical thinking skills with test taking strategies in the social studies curriculum in the 1990s by demonstrating the result of that brilliant decision.
You’re welcome, although I think your run-on sentence is actually an insult. For the record, my critical thinking skills were honed in the 1980’s. That’s before “teaching for the test. But, I was guilty of being a better test-taker than a student.
The new Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, had this to say yesterday: “I know that these are dark days, dark days brought on by a country we can no longer trust.” A country we can no longer trust! The undoing in two months or so of a relationship between two countries, Canada and the U.S., that had been rock-solid for a century or more, defies belief. But President Trump pulled it off.
I feel like I’m traversing the gulf in America right now.
Thank you for this honest critique. In 1997 New Yorker Columnist Mark Singer wrote the following at the conclusion of his article on Donald Trump’s comeback in the real estate market. “He has achieved the ultimate luxury – an existence unmolested by a rumbling of a soul” I keep that thought in mind every when I agree or disagree with the current president.
From Heather Cox Richardson this morning. Presented without irony… The Cross Section, Paul Waldman notes that the point of the right wing’s dehumanization of political opponents is to dismiss the pain they are inflicting. If the majority of Americans are not really human, toying with their lives isn’t important—maybe it’s even LOL funny to pretend to take a chainsaw to the programs on which people depend. “We are ants, or even less,” Waldman writes, “bits of programming to be moved around at Elon’s whim. Only he and the people who aspire to be like him are actors, decision-makers, molding the world to conform to their bold interplanetary vision.”
Thank you, Jeff Munroe. I appreciate your perspective.
Forsooth.
Thank you Jeff, for writing what I’ve been noticing, too. How ever did we get here? My only hope now is remembering that my God is in control over all things.
Thank you RJ for allowing opposing perspectives so we aren’t just bouncing off our own silos. Keeping it civil keeps it healthy.
Wonderfully articulated, Jeff. Thank you. Such wisdom guards our sanity in these chaotic times.
Well done Jeff, thank you.
Jeff, your words have the “ring of truth”. Keep speaking it!
We here in Germany are also very astonished… what comes next..? MAGA? Make GOD (Jesus) great again! Jeff, go on .. I like the way you think ..
Thanks Jeff, sad but so true as evidenced in the comments above.