Seth Meyers Looks at Trump’s Rush to Reopen the Economy, and How It Repeats His COVID Mistakes

How much longer are we going to have to tolerate this? Not just the virus, but this utter disaster of a president, whose sole goal in life seems to be to destroy everything around him for his own enrichment?

This is a major conundrum. It’s more important than ever to keep tabs on what our government is doing, because this is the most incompetent, untrustworthy and openly hostile government we’ve ever had to deal with. And yet the psychic toll of dealing with Trump’s bullshit is unimaginable. I wouldn’t begrudge anybody who has to block this ghoul and his wickedness from their sight to preserve their mental health, even though lack of oversight is the very thing that most allows Trump to flourish.

The lead story in Trump’s dystopia is the rush to reopen the country from the quarantine, against the advice of medical experts, and with open dismissals from the right over how many Americans will die as a result. It’s an irresponsible plan from an irresponsible administration, and one that reflects the failures in handling the coronavirus seriously in its early months, as Seth Meyers points out in the latest installment of A Closer Look.

Meyers somehow hasn’t jumped out of his attic window yet, despite coolly dismantling Trump’s self-serving nonsense almost every single night. I think I’ve said this before here at Paste, but whatever power jokes once had to make it easier to learn about the ruling class’s anti-human agenda has almost completely disappeared during Trump’s presidency. There’s simply too much happening, and almost all of it is absolutely terrible. And it’s interesting to see how Meyers’ approach has changed over the years in response. In this latest Closer Look Meyers doesn’t mince words about Trump or try to come up with jokes about him, straight-up calling him a sociopath whose only skill was pretending (poorly) to be a smart businessman on TV. Yes, there are jokes here, and some of them are funny; yes, Meyers still delivers them with that sharply sarcastic snap of his that was basically self-parody before he even left Saturday Night Live. But there’s no cutesy attempts to preserve the supposed dignity of the office or the man who holds it, as there was on shows like this during the George W. Bush years. There’s none of the fatuous mimicry of Alec Baldwin’s impression on SNL, all cosplay with no point or political consciousness. Yes, there are jokes here, but also an immediate, straightforward acknowledgement of who and what Trump is. If that sounds like something you can tolerate at this time, check it out.