Jerry Seinfeld has been dragged into the Arab-Israeli
conflict. He’s been at war with the pro-Palestine progressive left ever since
the October 7th atrocities, which gave anti-Semites the right to
crawl out of the cracks and bash Israel and Jews, all while hiding behind:
“It’s the IDF’s actions that we are protesting!”
Of course, Islamic groups and progressive leftists have been
hoisting Nazi flags and targeting synagogues and Jewish hospitals. And now they
are coming for the comedians, at least the ones who won’t pick sides and
promote the meaner ones so that they don’t get cancelled.
Do the left-wing activists target Jerry Seinfeld because
he’s Jewish? Of course.
They also target him because people listen to him, and they
want him to say what they want said:
“Palestine must be free. Free Palestine!”
Comedians, to be successful, don’t tell people what they
want to hear.
They tell people what they themselves are thinking and what
others don’t want to say.
Comedians are supposed to be the most anti-PC members of
society. They push the boundaries; they rant and rave about the fact that
everyone is ranting and raving.
Comedians stand out because they stand up for, well, the
right to say whatever they want about something.
They say what they themselves want to say, and they tell
people what they don’t see, or they are too polite or afraid to say.
Which brings us to the Seinfeld-Palestine controversy.
How Jerry Seinfeld threaded the needle on the challenge
posed by the Palestinian protesters was a miracle to behold.
Last year, he dismissed their demands with “I don’t care about
Palestine.” After all, he was enjoying a walk with a friend.
Then, when pressed on the issue by another pushy activist,
all while he’s entering his car, mind you, Seinfeld simply stated: “It doesn’t exist.”
He told them what they didn’t want to hear, and it made it
clear that he didn’t care one way or another.
Whether he’s teasing them or whether he truly believes that
there is no such thing as Palestine, we don’t know.
And that’s the beauty of it.
Seinfeld is the genius we need for these very tough times.
He rejects wokeness without calling it wokeness. He can
reject wokeness while falling asleep listening to the boring demands of the
Woke Left and Right, who demand the death of Jews, Israel, and anything else
with a Star of David attached to it.
Consider an earlier example of how he deftly dunks on these
daft weirdos. When one entertainment reporter wanted to get into the diversity
and representation issues in media and entertainment, he just rolled his eyes: “Oh, yeah, let’s get into
that!”
He sounded off what everyone else is thinking, but is
unwilling to say because of cancel culture.
He shuts down the abusive Marxism, but he doesn’t go after
the scourge of humor and fun from a political stance. He just makes fun it,
treats it as a dismissive nothing.
What about the Elephant, or rather the President, in the
middle of the room?
First, Seinfeld called Trump “God’s
gift to comedy.”
Then, he called his
happy face “scary.”
Then he states that he’s not interested in
making Trump jokes.
Can you blame him?
His co-creator in comedy, Larry David, wrote a sitcom-flat rant
about his “dinner with Hitler” for the New York Times. The whole point was
to compare Trump to Hitler and shame anyone who likes Trump. David’s humor
isn’t funny because it’s positing something fundamentally untrue: Trump is not
Hitler, and the people who like Trump are not Nazis.
And anti-Trump rants are not insightful or interesting. “F---
Trump” doesn’t resonate. It’s angry, bitter, empty. Everyone has had enough of
Trump, except for the wonks and the policy-makers. They care.
The rest of us, the vast majority of simple humanity who
want our country back, and who can see that Trump has some good—or a lot of
good—about him, we want to have a good time and live our lives.
Other comedians have crashed and burned on Trump. Wanda
Sykes went off on Trump shortly after his election, and
the crowd booed. Her set took place in Massachusetts, so I doubt the booing
came predominantly from hardcore Trump supporters. They just don’t want the
lecture. Comedians need to learn: you can’t win with Trump because he’s so
polarizing, charismatic, colorful, and such a media creation on top of it all.
You can’t win by going after him or going toward him, so just ignore him.
Seinfeld deftly deflected the Trump issue recently, too,
joking that he’d rather tell jokes about … raisins.
I guess he heard it through the grapevine!
Seinfeld has chosen wisely. Without admitting it, Seinfeld
is following the blunt wisdom of Gene “KISS” Simmons:
Just do your art, and shut the f--- up.
The art of comedy looks at the ordinary and finds the
extraordinarily funny in it. That’s been Seinfeld’s successful schtick this
whole time. People don’t want flabby political commentary or a social science
lecture about how they should feel about the state of the world and its
politics and the wars and what they should do about it.
They’re attending a
comedy club.
They want to laugh.
Seinfeld has some welcome precursors of comedy who kept it
comedic, never bitter or hateful.
Johnny Carson made fun of all the presidents. Yes, he was a
liberal, but he had enough class to ask for thoughts and prayers when President
Reagan was nearly assassinated, and
Carson asked for this kindness during the Academy Awards.
Jay Leno was funny because he made fun of both political
parties, although there’s plenty of evidence that he’s a confirmed liberal.
Jimmy Fallon fussed candidate Trump’s hair, made fun of his
skin and accent in skits, but he also focuses on the funny. He doesn’t lecture,
scold, or pontificate. He still has a late-night show, while preachy “Karen” Stephen
Colbert is off the air.
Jerry Seinfeld understands this game, as well. His complaints about
presidential aspirations is hilarious. Instead of getting political, he
gets personal. After all, who would want to be president? Only a crazy person
would want the job, right?
Sure, he did a set in his car with President Obama—when he was
president. Yet even then, the conversation was less political, more
personal.
He doesn’t take Palestine personally, either—and he doesn’t
take it seriously at all.
That’s the real relief. Whether on the left or the right,
the fact that this contentious matter has invaded some of our time, space, and
brain matter, we all want a break!
The protest culture is wearing thin. The outrage culture is
getting old. The cancel culture is just wrong, and people are speaking up.
Seinfeld is the best at making fun of it because he makes
the joke the important part, and we all get to laugh along with him. He’s permitting
us, without saying a word, to laugh at the madness in the streets, and we can
know that tomorrow, we will meet friends at local café and argue about whether
to use the bottom button, how to drink orange juice, or whatever “Yada, yada,
yada” means.
