For more than a decade, Donald Trump‘s media critics have tried various attack lines against the president. They’ve endlessly described him as a corrupt authoritarian who is a threat to democracy and our institutions. They’ve decried him as cruel, vulgar, sexist and racist. They have even claimed he’s the return of Hitler.
None of this unending avalanche of resistance seems to make a bit of difference to Trump’s popularity. All those late night jokes, well-reasoned media essays and perfectly honed sarcastic tweets? All those reporters digging around for dirt and quoting Trump’s once-trusted insiders who turned against him? Nothing sticks — much to the frustration of many.
So it is perhaps understandable — even refreshing and certainly hilarious — that this week, the anti-Trump voices in the media seemed to collectively throw up their hands and decide: Let’s just make fun of this guy’s dick.
On Monday, The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart blasted parent company Paramount Global for caving to Trump’s demand for a 60 Minutes settlement and canceling The Late Show With Stephen Colbert by saying, “Maybe it’s the path of least resistance for your $8 billion merger to kill a show that you know rankled a fragile and vengeful president who’s so insecure that he’s suffering terribly from a case of chronic penis insufficiency.”
On Wednesday, Colbert himself weighed in: “An official familiar with the [Epstein] documents said they contain hundreds of other names … names like Donald Trump, Donald John Trump, Donald J. Trump … and a mystery man known only as micropenis DJT.”
Then late Wednesday, South Park dropped the thermonuclear bomb of tiny-dick joke savagery in the form of an AI-generated video showing an all-too-realistic obese and sweating Trump wandering through the desert, stripping off his clothes and exposing a tiny, deformed talking penis.
The history of mocking Trump’s dick is, of course, quite long (unlike some things, amiright?). It’s not remotely a new joke. It might even be unfair (Stormy Daniels famously described Trump’s dick as “smaller than average” but “not freakishly small,” for whatever that’s worth).
But one thing we know for sure is that such jabs bother Trump. During a 2016 debate, Trump defensively said: “Look at those hands, are they small hands? [Marco Rubio] referred to my hands — ‘If they’re small, something else must be small.’ I guarantee you there’s no problem.” To which we were all relieved that the next leader of the free world had a sizable disco stick.
In case anyone thought Trump’s sensitivity on this issue might have lessened since then, the White House quickly issued a statement on last night’s South Park. Assistant Press Secretary Taylor Rogers drew the short straw (so to speak) and had to be the one to tell reporters that the animated comedy “hasn’t been relevant for over 20 years and is hanging on by a thread with uninspired ideas in a desperate attempt for attention,” and added that the popularity of such content “continues to hit record lows.” Of course, companies routinely make $1.5 billion five-year deals to renew shows, which are unpopular and irrelevant, that’s how business works.
But it’s interesting to see three talents zeroing in on Trump’s crotch at the same time and, of course, what’s particularly interesting is they’re all part of Paramount Global — which is facing an open rebellion over its handling of the 60 Minutes lawsuit, coupled with canceling Stephen Colbert’s Late Show. The company is on the verge of completing its $8 billion merger with Skydance Media and perhaps that’s the only thing its C-suite cares about. But it’s been an incredibly messy process, resulting in plenty of hard feelings, which could have further consequences. Colbert and Stewart, certainly, will continue to open fire right up the ladder for the foreseeable future. And in the media business, the only thing that matters more than money is your reputation, and over the past few months, Paramount’s reputation has gotten a lot smaller — smaller than average, certainly, if not freakishly small.
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