Sometimes it takes a foreigner’s eye to bring the right perspective on the insanity going on in your own country — and John Oliver has surely delivered this time, with a brutal take on the rise of the new Republican frontrunner. And that’s not all: John is also embarking on a new quest to change the entire brand of Trump’s very name itself, with his own line of campaign hats.
After tearing Donald Trump to pieces on his overinflated ego, failed (and often shady) businesses, support from racists, and the constant boasting and branding of his own name, John finally figured out the secret to Trump’s success: The name “Donald Trump.”
“‘Trump’ does sound rich — it’s almost onomatopoeic,” John explained. “‘Trump’ — it’s the sound when a mouthy servant is slapped across the face with a wad of $1,000 bills. ‘Trump.’ It’s the sound of a cork popping on a couple’s champagne anniversary, the day that renovations in the wine cellar were finally completed. The very name ‘Trump’ is the cornerstone of his brand.
“If only there a way to uncouple that magical word — from the man he really is. Well, guess what? There is,” he discovered. “Because it turns out the name ‘Trump’ was not always his family’s name. One biographer found that a prescient ancestor had changed it from — and this is true — ‘Drumpf.'”
“Yes — F@#$ you, Drumpf!” And ‘Drumpf’ is much less magical. It’s the sound produced when a morbidly obese pigeon flies into the windows of a foreclosed Old Navy. ‘Drumpf’ — it’s the sounds of a bottle of store-brand root beer falling off the shelf in a gas station mini-mart.”
John also pointed to Trump’s own criticism of former Daily Show impresario Jon Stewart’s use of a stage name: “And it may sound weird to bring up his ancestral name — but to quote Trump, he should be proud of his heritage. Because ‘Drumpf’ is much more reflective of who he actually is.
“So if you are thinking of voting for Donald Trump, the charismatic guy promising to make America great again — stop and take a moment to imagine how you would feel if you just met a guy named ‘Donald Drumpf’ — a litigious serial liar with a string of broken business ventures, and the support of a former Klan leader who he can’t decide whether or not to condemn. Would you think that he would make a good president? Or is the spell now somewhat broken?”
John concluded, then, with a new hashtag campaign for Twitter, #MakeDonaldDrumpfAgain, plus red baseball caps to buy online — and a nifty closing musical number.
So can we all make Donald “Drumpf” again? Let’s see what happens over the next year!
Video viaLast Week Tonight with John Oliver/HBO.
