Our Cartoon President 2018

The Cartoon President is an incredibly funny spinoff of The Colbert Show, featuring the infamous animated guest stars from it, notably Cartoon Trump.

Ignore the slew of 1-stars from Trump supporters who label any fairly accurate portrayal of Trump as fake, due to being offended. The show is remarkably accurate and even a useful source of information on current events for the most part (though some episodes are based more on artistic license). Even attempts to provide a relatively fair balancing of comedy at the expense of Democrats and Republicans alike, as well as reporters and news media. It even humanizes Trump (unfortunately, though it does help make it more palatable at least), and is being setup to ridicule whatever president comes next, so it's hard to understand why so many are offended by it.

In the current highly polarized political environment in the US, the number of bot and trolls make it nearly impossible for anything that Trump supporters disagree with to get above a 50% rating, so take into account when considering the rating of this show.

IMO, rating algorithms should provide more intelligent weighted average algorithms to take this into account, discounting the weight of 1-star reviews and to a lesser degree 10-star reviews, and even more so from those who tend to post primarily 1 or 10-star reviews, to account for those who disagree on principal instead of the substance of a show and to a degree those who are promoting their own show.

I appreciate how the show was setup from the beginning to outlive Trump's presidency, with the generic title "The Cartoon President". In recent episodes, they have been developing the characters of Democratic presidential candidates, in preparation for a new star of the show. I look forward to the upcoming seasons post-Trump, as well. And from what I've seen of the setup for those candidates, I will continue to anticipate each episode, and rate just as highly, even then.

I'm someone who was loathe to use the Trump name when I heard the first pronouncements after the escalator introduction. I've adopted different monikers to try and stem the tide of his overwhelming influence. I'm more dead inside than the frothiest pundit attempting to explain the exponentially terrible and long term consequences of what his reign will bring. I felt obligated in a kind of cultural accounting to watch The President's Show, despite the sinking and desperate feeling of wishing for it to all be over. I never much cared for when the cartoon version showed up in The Late Show. I understand that there's a whopping mental discord that needs to be contended with even before we pretend we can piece together the extent of the destruction.

All that said, the case for this show is almost too explicit. They are cartoon characters. This could be a dozen different short-lived cartoon shows from MTV or Comedy Central over the years. What made them exist in the first place were chuckle moments or an exploration of a particular pathology. Here, because the cast of characters is so large, you get to see a slightly broader take on each person. It's one thing to hear a dozen renditions of the same joke from late night hosts, it's another to see it transposed into a light-hearted attempt to not choke to death on what all of the real world examples truly mean.

It's not a particularly good or intriguing show on it's own so far (2 eps). It's more of a therapy session and slightly cranked up mockery. But that's almost the point. Where do we go from here but into tyrannical ever-escalating death? If you can't imagine it as a cartoon, how can you much cope with anything coming out of this saga? Consider the wholly uninspired "Donald Trump is the President" end credits song; when you can't parody anymore, you just repeat it over and over in disbelief.

The main strength is that it doesn't solely rest on another 25 minutes of Trump-isms, but there's plenty. The whole party gets to be implicated and you get a sense of the collective absurd psychosis that has taken hold. This is a show that is looking for laughs after you've conceded you're broken and if life can't be a cartoon, at least this can be. I've been unable to find the funny in Trump from the beginning, which I think stems from a deep appreciation for consequences and historical understanding. His idiot cartoon sons or gonzo Ted Cruz don't feel as much an explicit betrayal to the idea of us ever pulling our shit together and taking responsibility for what's really happening, and were hence what got the chuckles from me. Is it also a cynical small-minded cash and attention grab attempt utilizing an ongoing disaster? Probably. Can it serve as a bridge between the monstrosity and one day feeling capable of cleaning it up? Hopefully.

I don't know man. I'd trade this for a second of hope for the future.