I Tried the NYT's 'Say Something Nice About Donald Trump' Challenge and Honestly I Killed It

By Michael Arceneaux | May 30, 2017 | 3:30pm

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Recently, New York Times contributor Michael Kinsley launched a Say Something Nice column about Donald Trump. According to Kinsley: “The president’s flaws are well known to readers of many mainstream media outlets. The purpose of this feature, which will appear regularly in Sunday Review, is to present things the president has said or done that are praiseworthy.”

Despite President Saddle Tan Nixon being a vile, unhinged narcissist who lies like hell and deserves as much respect as he gave anyone not white and male on the campaign trail, I have opted to try Kinsley’s lil’ challenge.

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The 45th president of the United States is not a particularly smart man. That’s not so much an insult so much as it is a statement of fact. Our last president was arguably brilliant, and though some of his predecessors like George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan weren’t the sharpest tools in the shed, they at least felt compelled to employ evil geniuses around them. Not 45!

Even with his new high-profile gig, he still treats nuance like it causes herpes, as evidenced by his previous claim that he doesn’t need daily intelligence briefings. Of course, when are you president, you cannot forgo intelligence briefings completely, but knowing himself, 45 has compelled the intelligence community to limit their briefings to a single page or maybe two pages with lots of maps, bulletpoints, big-ass fonts, and lots of mentions of himself in order to maintain his interest. One society’s frantic fear is another man’s personal achievement.

Now, this may not seem like the proper way to launch a Say Something Nice Challenge, but look how far that dingbat has gone. He is president of the United States of America! It’s a fool’s paradise ‘round his way and he’ll be damned if you force him to remix his personality to suit your fears about civilization ending. Round of applause, shawty make that ass clap for a man who’s true to himself and refuses to break form. He’s stupid and gon’ stay stupid. He told us, didn’t he?

Another nice thing to say about 45 is that he makes lots of white people very happy. I had no idea white people needed such a pep talk about being white after eight years of a black president who nevertheless coddled them, but apparently they did and 45 delivered that for them with “Make America Great Again.” Oh yeah, about that: The slogan is catchy even if borrowed from Reagan and Project Pat Buchanan, but hey, he won a presidential campaign partially by wearing a red hat. That was something nice for some portion of the electorate.

Zoom, look at me go.

Another thing 45 is good at is trolling the hell out of everyone—the media, his political foes, his political supporters/Republicans held hostage, himself—by merely tweeting early in the morning. 45 may not have always been successful in real estate, casinos, pro wrestling appearances, or launching a competitor to the NFL, but the peach-hued man sure knows how to shake the damn table in 140 characters or less. And sometimes he doesn’t even spell the words he’s using correctly. Love it or hate it, that’s mighty impressive, beloveds.

Also: He’s not dead. I’m not wishing for his death, Secret Service, so don’t show up ‘round my way. What I mean is, the man hates exercising, doesn’t seem to sleep much, and eats nothing but fast food when he’s not devouring well-done steaks with a gallon of ketchup. Yet, he’s the oldest first-term president in American history. Sure, he’s rich, but remember his doctor who wrote “His health is excellent, especially his mental health” in five minutes as a car sent by his longtime patient waited outside? That was supposed to settle our concerns about him.

After the election, that same doctor later said: “If something happens to him, then it happens to him. It’s like all the rest of us, no? That’s why we have a vice president and a speaker of the House and a whole line of people. They can just keep dying.”

That strange man seems like he earned his medical degree from DVDs of ER. No shade, but he doesn’t come across as a top-notch medical professional for a “billionaire.” And yet, 45 is alive and golfing, and while he may find the job of the presidency tiring sometimes, aren’t we all truly the tired ones under his reign?

Somewhere Hillary Rodham Clinton is cracking jokes about his “stamina” in light of the White House’s admission that this overseas trip has left him “exhausted,” but she’s at home and he’s touring the globe in a job she spent her entire life trying to get. Someone insert a map of the 2016 electoral college results here. See, another nice thing. He would love the kid for mentioning that damn map a millionth time. I’m killing this shit.

But hold on, I got more.

His cable clearly works. That’s a nice thing.

He’s loyal to his friends even if they might dismantle his administration. Just ask that other Mike out there taking the fifth before the Senate.

He may be chubby, eat poorly, and use scotch tape to wear a suit, but he is married to a former model who can dress her ass off. Melania Trump may slap his hand away (allegedly), but she never grabbed his dick and crushed it (to our knowledge) in retaliation for that Access Hollywood tape in which he bragged about grabbing pussies at random. Someone either has great game or a bomb attorney who could renegotiate the terms of their prenuptial agreement.

And you know what? I will agree with Michael Kinsley that 45 knows when to stay home, i.e. when he skipped the White House Correspondents Dinner. As we learned from President Obama’s previous roasting of him, we know 45 cannot take a joke. Hell, we might have him as president because of that public dragging. I know folks who can’t simply unfollow someone they hate on social media. Dare I say: Learn from 45, beloveds.

Lastly, as much as it may pain me to write this, it is not totally implausible to see him finish his first term. No, it’s not a sure thing given the feds are swarming in around many of his associates and 45’s knack of self-destructive behavior may give way to an obstruction of justice charge. Even so, this is a man who has managed to get away with virtually everything his entire life. Again and again, he’s slickly shimmied past other scandals without facing real consequences.

He’s filed bankruptcy almost at the same volume as Rihanna used to drop albums, but somehow managed to score a reality show in which he was hailed as a brilliant businessman. He also launched a university that may have ended in a class action lawsuit that has since been settled, but hey, have you ever succeeded in conning your way to a sham university? I didn’t think so.

Add all of this to the fact that he became president—taking out an entire field of Republicans candidates, including a Bush, only to defeat a Clinton—and, you know, Joanne the Scammer comes across as a second lead vocalist by comparison.

Folks have used white privilege to score far less, but look at all he managed to accomplish. This is how you fail up, y’all.

This is the best I could do because I hate this motherfucker and continue to cling to the hope that karma karate chops this racist, sexist, dimwitted sum’bitch sooner rather than later. But hey, I tried! And fortunately for 45, there are people in media who somehow think a demagogue and degenerate deserves a compliment every so often in one of the biggest publications in the world for no other reason than they are fortunate enough to not live in fear of him and all he represents.