MAGA feels the squeeze
Nick Anderson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist.
Opinion
Trump is still haunted by a 20-year nemesis — who just came back armed with a blowtorch
No star shines so bright as me—Rosie!
Believe me!”
--- “Really Rosie,” Carole King
I feel sorry for anyone who wasn’t around in the '90s to witness the pure joy that was The Rosie O’Donnell Show.
The daytime talk show premiered in 1996 and ran until 2002, a time long before social media, and was an instant smash. Rosie’s unabashed fandom for her guests was a breath of fresh air, and her true joy in giving away free stuff to her audience instantly earned her the title “The Queen of Nice.” Her desk was covered with toys, she often shot Koosh balls into the audience, and her favorite nickname for everyone she loved was, and still is, “Cutie Patootie.”
Fully filterless, she shared everything from her life in her pre-interview chats with bandleader John McD (shout out to the DLT’s!), from which Broadway show she’d just seen, to her obsessions with Barbra Streisand, Elton John, and Tom Cruise, to documenting the growth, and eventually beading, of a very long chin hair.
Her “Queen of Nice” moniker began to fade towards the end of her show’s run, as she bravely came out as a lesbian and started telling more truths about the people she knew, stories that weren’t as exuberant and fun as in the earlier years of the show. But people should’ve had an inkling of who Rosie really was in May of 1999, barely a month after the tragic Columbine school shooting, when she challenged gun-loving Tom Selleck on his NRA membership instead of letting him promote his new project.
Four years after her show went off the air, Rosie joined the panel on The View, and that’s when her legendary 20-year feud with Donald Trump first began.
There are no lies detected anywhere in this 2006 clip, including her spot-on impression of Trump.
Some of you may not be old enough to remember, but 20 years ago, Trump was rightfully the butt of everyone’s jokes. His persona at the time was of a louche, chauvinistic playboy who was encouraged to say the grossest possible things about women. Rosie nailed everything that made Trump anathema to decent people, and he couldn’t handle the truth because he’s always been a thin-skinned, short-fingered vulgarian.
Trump can’t stand it any when women reject him or call him out on his behavior, even when it’s a woman he doesn’t find attractive. But his vulgar, body-shaming attacks on Rosie went far beyond anything she’s ever said about him, and even when she wasn’t talking about him, he’d find ways to assail her in the press. And once he had a Twitter account, he got even worse, with increased juvenile name-calling (“a nasty, disgusting pig” was a favorite. Projection language much, Donny?) along with shaming her for her sexuality.
Confident men let things roll off of them. Trump just overcompensates, and it shows in everything he says and does.
Trump’s odd obsession with Rosie goes beyond being reactive, and he would often go after her unprovoked at the weirdest of times. People forget that he brought her up during a presidential debate in September 2016 against Hillary Clinton, and bragged about bullying her: “Rosie O’Donnell, I said very tough things to her and I think everyone would agree that she deserves it and nobody feels sorry for her.”
When Rosie announced last year that she was moving to Ireland with her youngest child, Trump seemed to take it personally.
Yeah, that whole “every accusation is a confession” thing is glaringly obvious, because there’s never been a threat to humanity quite like Donald Trump. Aside from not having the power to revoke her citizenship, he posted this because he never emotionally matured beyond fourth grade.
That’s your guy, MAGA. He’s all yours.
Thankfully, Rosie was coaxed back to America, and to the talk show format she revolutionized, this past week when she guest-hosted on Jimmy Kimmel Live. She kicked off the week with oblique references to Trump, knowing he’d be watching. But more importantly, she brought back warmth and joy at a time when there’s very little of either going around.
GenX was in full nostalgia mode all week long, with demands all over social for Rosie to come back to our airwaves, perhaps on an endless loop as the ultimate comfort zone during our current garbage fire.
All the classic Rosie show vibes were there, from the toys on the desk to the fun giveaways to the exuberance she showed for every single guest. I smiled for the entire segment she did with Hannah Waddingham, fangirling over how they were fangirling over each other.
Rosie shared delightful stories about her new life in Ireland with her non-binary, autistic teenager, Clay, and used the moment to talk about how she’s still working on using their proper pronouns.
She could’ve talked about anything, but because she’s Rosie, she told the world about hitting on her pharmacist, Joan, who turned out to be married…to a man. Rosie later encountered the couple in the local pub, and when Joan introduced Rosie to her husband, he said, “She’s not a lesbian, Rosie, she’s just got short hair.”
Does anyone remember laughter? We had a full week of it, even as she kept poking at her not-very-presidential nemesis.
Rosie wrapped up her all-too-brief residency with an old Irish folk song, updated and dedicated to the empty head in which she lives rent-free.
"We know you'll never be Obama. Resign and make this country great again."
We are all Shawn Hatosy right now, Rosie.
REALLY.
MAGA disciples furious as their own hateful tactics fly back at them
So of course, I can’t comprehend why any woman would allow him anywhere near them without demanding payment up front and a chaperone nearby. Too many others have happily thrown their professional lives away for the chance to work for him, then suffered the consequences of falling out of his favor. No one associated with Trump has had any kind of success once leaving his employ, and they definitely don’t have any respect from anyone outside the MAGA cult.
Just ask Karoline Leavitt, the latest casualty of Trump’s casual cruelty. She dared to leave him for a few weeks to have a baby, and because she paid attention to another human life instead of him, she mysteriously decided to quit — leaving Trump with his new favorite, Natalie “Wet Nurse” Harp, by his side.
Harp is said to be so obsessed with him that she’s willing to do “anything” for him. She once rode in the trunk of an SUV so she could be in the same vehicle with him. Leaked letters from Harp to Trump show a cultlike devotion even beyond what we’ve come to expect from MAGA. "You are all that matters to me," she wrote, adding that she wanted to "bring you joy."
I find it astonishing, because there’s so much self-delusion going on. Unless Natalie Harp was born without an olfactory system, she should be repulsed by the reported stench constantly wafting from Trump.
Harp doesn’t have any social media presence, so I can’t ask her why she’s into scatological play. Her estranged brother, Preston, has just emerged as a new social media hero for being as anti-Trump as possible.
Let’s unpack that, shall we?
Natalie Harp is 35 years old. This means she’s been “obsessed” with Trump for 20 years? Two decades ago, he was still the guy he always was, a chauvinistic playboy who couldn’t stop cheating on his wives or running his mouth. Why would a teenager be into that?
I learned what he was when I was a little kid. I grew up in New Jersey in the '70s and '80s, when he was always all over the New York tabloids for being his gross self. When I was 16, I was obsessed with Matt Dillon and John Taylor from Duran Duran.
Make it make sense, Natalie!
And that’s why Trump has never seemed intimidating to me. I’d had plenty of practice standing up to my dad, so it was easy for me to call Trump out when he was first running in 2015. I knew what he was, so 11 years ago this month, I told him what he was — and he didn’t like it.
Trump hates it when women don’t love him, because he knows why women don’t love him. He was ignored by his mommy and rejected by some hot girl when he was in his teens, and that’s how he became the most legendary predator to ever fall asleep behind the Resolute Desk. Just ask E. Jean Carroll, who’s hopefully already done some serious retail therapy after finally getting the first payout Trump owed her for three years.
I don’t know why none of this matters to Natalie Harp or anyone else still supporting Trump, but it doesn’t. In fact, there’s now a coordinated effort to stand up for Harp, now that Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) dared to tell the truth about Trump where other people could see and hear him
"He doesn't want to do the job," he said. "He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar."
That’s it. That’s all he said.
Compare that to literally anything Trump has ever said about any woman who doesn’t work for him. Aside from the infamous Access Hollywood tape, which should have ended his career, he’s always spoken about women as though he has a right to do anything he wants.
How quickly Megyn Kelly and others have forgotten. Just take a look at the coordinated MAGA response attacking Jon Ossoff, as if “innuendo” or “making suggestions” is in the same realm as Trump’s sex crimes against women. None of these people care about Trump’s crimes, because they’re being paid to not care about them. Every last one of them is a traitor to this country.
The willfully obtuse hypocrisy is staggering, the false pearl-clutching is ironic, and the whole thing smacks of Russian Propaganda 101. Six of those accounts have me blocked, by the way. Such brave patriots, she said while rolling her eyes.
We can see exactly what they’re doing here, because we all know exactly how MAGA treats Democratic women. The defense of Trump here would be laughable if it weren’t so disturbing. They’re rolling out the old “Donald Trump is a champion for women” line while making Harp sound like a saint who’s above any reproach, and it makes me want to primal scream for a full hour.
Tell us how he “championed” Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, Nancy Pelosi, Rosie O’Donnell, and Stormy Daniels. Republicans have remained fully silent on E. Jean’s payout while being involved in the Epstein Files cover-up, but Jon Ossoff’s truth bomb is the worst thing that’s ever happened?
Puh-leeze, sleaze. MAGA hates it when we use their tactics against them, so they’re extra triggered over this latest manufactured outrage.
They’re scapegoating Jon Ossoff because they’re scared of how badly they’re going to lose the midterms. They see his charisma, good looks, integrity, and intelligence, and they know they can’t top it. So they bully him instead, using Natalie Harp as this week’s Untouchable White Christian Woman.
It’s also a way for them to bully a Jewish man without being obviously anti-Semitic, which they really want to be able to get away with.
That’s why we’re going to keep Harp-ing on Natalie for providing us with the kind of low-hanging fruit MAGA usually feasts on.