And that’s fine because the White House Correspondents Dinner isn’t for America. It’s for the media.
The WHCD used to be one of those institutions where politicians and the press came to make fun of themselves and each other. In the Jon Stewart era that devolved into Daily Show pundits showing up to take shots at Republicans. Trump skipped the WHCD which was just a version of the Daily Show with the media as the audience. As it stands, Bush will likely have been the last Republican to attend.
Democrats like Obama and Biden are happy to come by, but that’s because it’s an opportunity for their speechwriters to write them some culture war jokes.
Biden’s entry to the dinner is more of the same. As is Trevor Noah’s routine. But Noah’s routine is literally his show. Much as it is Stephen Colbert’s. When your big event consists of the same SNL/Daily Show/Late Show material that’s already constantly on TV, it’s not an event, it’s just more of the same.
Conservatives with any dignity have long since tuned out. Independents tend to yawn when there’s one underlying joke and the material depends on references to culture war events they aren’t following. But again, there’s only one audience and it’s the narrow woke slice of the country for whose benefit everything runs.
Comedy is dead, the culture war is just abusing its corpse.
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