The legacy media’s reaction to former President Donald Trump’s recent performance at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner has been nothing short of hysterical — just not in the way they think. As a progressive, I’m no fan of the former president, but the vitriol directed at him post-dinner feels like a classic case of taking a roast too seriously.
At a dinner where political humor is the main course, Trump cracked jokes that could have made Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) and the late Sen. John McCain proud. Remember Trump’s quip about being the first person to write Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) a check? Or the zinger suggesting that if “the Democrats really wanted to have someone not be with us this evening, they would have sent Joe Biden”? These jokes were witty and, dare I say, quite clever. And yet, the aftermath saw Trump labeled as “disgusting” and “mean-spirited” by various pundits.
