Trump and ROCEJ

I found this on Trivia.Sharknado 3 Oh Hell No under What Could Have Been:

• Lifelong conman turned failed reality tv star Donald Trump demanded that he be cast as the POTUS, and threatened to sue the producers when they went with the infinitely more likable Mark Cuban.

According to Wikipedia, most of this isn't even accurate. The producers offered Trump the part, but he took too much time to decide, so they cast Cuban instead. The bit about Trump threatening to sue is true, though.

My proposed rewrite:

• The role of the POTUS was originally written with Sarah Palin in mind, but she turned down the part. The producers then offered the role to Donald Trump, but he took too much time to decide, so businessman Mark Cuban was cast instead. Trump wasn't happy when he found out and threatened to sue the producers.

Unnecessary and possibly untrue (failed reality television star?) insults aside, if the claims are untrue, then they definitely need to go. I vote for the proposed rewrite.

Think it's a good idea to axe this random potshot at the end of a Follow the Leader paragraph on the unwritten rule that presidents don't try for a second term after losing once:

"The fact that Donald Trump has broken with this long-held tradition (which, again, is no where encoded in law) is one of many things his opponents dislike about him."

As mentioned, running again after losing once isn't even kind of illegal and someone's done it and won in the past, it's just against tradition. Also, everyone's opponents dislike them.

And Trump hasn't even (officially) announced he's running.

YMMV.Star Trek Deep Space Nine S 03 E 11 Past Tense Part I

• Harsher in Hindsight: The episode depicts a world in which the death of Gabriel Bell and others during the Bell riots triggers a reckoning with attitudes towards the homeless and disadvantaged, one which ultimately sets humanity on the path to the Federation. In the actual 2020s, given the rise of hyper-partisanship in the United States and the response to similar tragedies, it's now virtually impossible to imagine any consequences from Bell's death except for people dividing even further along their normal political lines.
  • And that's before you get to the actual condition of San Francisco and other major cities on the West Coast of the United States (including Los Angeles, Portland, and Seattle) in the 2020s.
• Values Resonance:
  • The premise that the United States will be torn apart by class conflict in the 2020s looks more and more prescient as we approach the episode's date.
  • With Brexit and parties in other EU-countries advocating for leaving the EU, "Europe is falling apart" seems fairly possible, too. Though Russia invading Ukraine in 2022 may modify that one way or another.
  • On a lighter note, Julian saying that the mentally ill can live very fulfilling lives resonates well with the fact that we're starting to have more awareness of mental health issues.

Hindsight Cleanup is saying cut the former. What of the latter? Other thoughts?

cut them all. end of story.

Just popping in to ask about this Steven Universe Unintentionally Unsympathetic entry (taking a guess it's not allowed).

Kill it with fire.

I think Andy could be effectively Unintentionally Unsympathetic (I know he was for me), but it needs to rely on the text of the work, not the subtext.

I'll go ahead and delete it then.

Values Resonance has this example for Lobo (Webseries):

• "Lobo for President" can be seen as satire for unfit presidents such as Donald Trump.

The corresponding example on the work's YMMV page doesn't mention Trump, but just cutting the name results in the example feeling a bit thin and lacking.

"Can be seen" is always a bad sign, weasel words to try to force an example. But even without them, it is just a zero-context example, as it doenst say HOW it is a satire. At best, it should be hidden.

This was added today on Madeline under Expy:

• Madeline's Holiday with Mr. Grump sees the titular boys' school headmaster with a strangely familiar combover but he has a Heel–Face Turn, much unlike his potential real-life comparison.

Given that it says that the real Trump didn't have a Heel–Face Turn... also, isn't Expy only for copies of other fictional characters anyway?

Expy is misused so often that I'm not sure what it's supposed to be anymore. But it certainly isn't this.

(Trumplica exists, but still.)

Move to Trumplica (maybe add more detail) and cut the part about IRL Trump not having a Heel–Face Turn.

I haven't seen the character in action firsthand, so all I know about him besides what was already written under the Expy entry comes from the Madeline Wiki, but I will try my best. How's this?

• Trumplica: Ebenezer Grump, the titular boys' school headmaster from "Madeline's Holiday with Mr. Grump", who acts as a substitute minder for the girls while Miss Clavel is away. He sports the signature combover and runs the boarding school as if he were a Drill Sergeant Nasty, forbidding the girls from doing fun things like hanging up Christmas decorations or having puppet shows, and making them go outside in freezing weather because he thinks that being cold builds character. However, he turns out to be a Jerk with a Heart of Gold when he heads out into a snowstorm to look for the girls out of genuine concern when they run away, and softens up when Madeline saves him from the snowstorm and helps him warm up.

Edited by SereneSpecter13 on Mar 25th 2023 at 11:38:40 AM

Hmmm, maybe, but he sounds more like a Scrooge parody, and all that seems to be relevant to Trump specifically is the combover. Maybe just comment it out for now.

In that case, wouldn't it be better to keep him under Expy but say he's a reference to Scrooge instead of Trump (unless there's a specific subtrope for Scrooge Expies too)?

That description seems to make me think he isn't an Expy of Scrooge either. An Expy has to be obvious.

So, I'm guessing the best course of action would be to outright delete the example?

Delete.

Done.

Unperson.Real Life

• Former United States Secretary of Labor Robert Reich had suggested going above and beyond impeachment and doing this to President Donald Trump in implicit accordance with the Constitution if it was found, through overwhelming and indisputable evidence, that he had direct involvement in the Russian interference in the 2016 election, in the sense that his very presidency is unconstitutional on the grounds that he had conspired with Vladimir Putin to rig the election in his favor. These accusations were later proven to be unfounded after an extensive investigation.
  • After the end of his term, and particularly after the January 6, 2021 riot there was a tendency to avoid any mention of his presidency and even his name (being often referred to as "the former guy", most notably by his successor Joe Biden), with several works excising any appearances he did (beginning with his cameo in Home Alone 2, which was edited out by an Internet group, receiving the approval of Macaulay Culkin). Interestingly, Comcast and NBC have denied ever engaging in business of any kind with him since 2015 after he left The Apprentice and sold them the Miss Universe pageant, as a result of his controversial presidential campaign.
    • As of 2023 this largely fizzled out even among his political adversaries, who while usually not any fonder of Trump have gotten used to directly referring to him. This also goes to show the functional problems with a Damnatio Memoriae or Unpersoning approach, especially with a highly influential figure who is still active. Most historic examples have happened after someone was dead (or in lesser cases like Spiro Agnew disgraced), and relied upon heavily authoritarian systems, usually with limited literacy, where the government can basically kill or imprison the supporters of the target, scare the rest into compliance, and basically order the (limited) media to not mention them. This backfires when the would-be target is still alive, still capable of getting attention, and has both a large and fairly loyal cohort of supporters (who can run their own media) as well as the ability to attract attention from hostile sources for things like ratings. A democratic system where all of the above have certain rights.
• Iran is a hard-line Islamist state that will not recognize the sovereignty of Israel. This policy goes so far as to prohibit its own athletes from facing off against Israeli athletes in any competitive sports under the threat of imprisonment and death.
  • This has tended to backfire on said athletes because while it is fairly rare for it to happen, the Israelis can exploit it when it does. Either the Iranian athlete can compete against the Israeli and win or lose but face persecution at home, or they can concede and let the Israeli win by default; either way Israel scores a political victory and likely a competitive sports victory.

Former seem like to topical/evolving to count. Last part of latter seems like a jab against/irrelevant to un-personing, might be relevant in deciding what to do with the former.

Also, this makes it sound like Un-person needs a waiting period. Thought on that?

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Jul 11th 2023 at 7:37:06 AM

The first example is self-contradictory. Evidence is overwhelming and indisputable, but also unfounded? I vote cut example 1 - both for self-contradiction and because it's about something that someone wanted to happen, not something that did happen (and also about Un Personing an event - Trump's presidency - not Trump himself, so I'm not sure if it counts) - and example 3, because it's just natter about how and why people don't Un-person Trump. If they don't do it, it's not an example.

No idea about the Iran/Israel example, but I lean towards not being an example. They're not hiding Israel's existence, just refusing to acknowledge its rights as a nation.

I believe the bit about Home Alone 2 should be replaced with an actual creator-done edit to remove Trump from a work (as in, not by fans).

Edited by DongwaChan on Mar 15th 2024 at 11:36:51 AM