One of the more obnoxious and spiritually degrading things about having a dumb president in the internet age is that we’re forced to see all of his dumb thoughts anytime he decides to send them to the tiny computers we keep in our pockets. Keeping up with every 140-character complaint, attack, and brand promotion the commander in chief tweets out can get exhausting. Unless, of course, you approach these tweets with the same blasé attitude you would a text from your least interesting friend.
SNL writer Josh Patten has been doing exactly that for the past week. So far, the fairly simple game has succeeded where so many other mockeries of Trump have failed. It’s managed to make Donald Trump seem small.
By responding to Trump’s extreme braggadocio and excessive exclamation points with such casual interest, Patten makes a world leader who wishes to loom so large feel like a boring work friend or relative. Someone you have no real interest in texting with but would feel bad not responding to.
Possibly the best thing about replying to Trump this way is when you really have no interest in what he’s got to say and just want to hit ignore, you can always cover for yourself later with the classic, “sorry just seeing this.”
In a world where it is a viable business strategy to fight to the top of the president’s mentions, such understatement is worth celebrating.