Jason Selvig along with Davram Stiefler make up the liberal-leaning “The Good Liars” comedians. They have made a splash on social media with videos interacting with the MAGA world across the country and exposing the often bizarre and always ignorant logic being employed by Americans who claim they want to make this country “great again.”
Whether they are talking to QAnon adherents at a MAGA rally or to anti-choice activists marching, The Good Liars have made a career out of pointing out the excruciatingly funny and tragic comedy that is right-wing culture. A part of their appeal is how straight ahead, sober, and intelligently they handle their appearances in front of the camera. They don’t lean into hyperbole or conjure up lies, they let the MAGA world and its make-believe reality of facts do the talking.
Trump’s recent call for his minions to rally around and protect the billionaire from the legal ramifications of his suspected crimes means that New York City has had a few, albeit very tiny, groups of pro-Trump protesters arrive. On Monday, in a twist, New York-based Jason Selvig decided to pop down and get himself in front of a right-wing camera to make his point. It is arguably the best two minutes of video you will see today.
In the video, Right Side Broadcasting Network (RSBN), an Alabama-based outfit created and grown out of the MAGA movement in 2015 is covering the possible Trump indictment in the way you would imagine: speaking to a very young adult. That young adult is draped in a MAGA cape of sorts, is wearing an oversized “Make America Great Again” hat, and is pretty inarticulate as to what his reasoning for his convictions is.
The young man is saying something to the effect that this is a political witch hunt set of charges against Trump, vaguely mangling a conspiratorial talking point that different charges have been changed and blown out of proportion. Selvig steps in to be the next person being interviewed, and while the young man recognizes him from “The Good Liars,” the RSBN host clearly does not and both get taken for an entertaining fact-finding ride.
Selvig neutralizes the young man by shaking his hand and then launching into how crime is “everywhere” in New York City, and this DA is going after Trump is a “political prosecution,” a big right wing refrain. But Selvig establishes a very clever baseline here, finishing by saying “It has to be. It, it’s the only way it could be right now, is if they are going after him politically.”
And then, Selvig lays down the hammer, if the hammer is hitting one hundred nails back to back to back. “The only other option is if Donald Trump lost by 7 million votes and is a loser who can’t deal with the fact that he lost the election because he based his whole personality on being a winner, and calling people ‘losers.’” Teehee.
He’s not even close to done with what I’m predicting will be his Oscar reel scene for best performance at the 2024 Academy Awards. The host then, trying to soften the blow, says “So you think it’s his personality that is—“ and Selvig finishes the host’s sentence for him by saying “Is what’s got us into this mess in the first place, potentially?” Selvig uses a friendly presentation of the word potentially, to keep the RSBN host from cutting away, “Or, I’m just going to choose to believe that the election was stolen and everything that he says because I kinda like, base my whole personality on supporting Donald Trump.”
Selvig motions to the young man draped in Donald Trump memorabilia in what is a stroke of simple genius, as his motioning is clearly calling out the MAGA man for being exactly that, but is done in such a way that it could still seem like a general gesticulation by Selvig speaking. At this point, the host seems to have maybe realized he’s been had, but because of his severe haircut he believes he can go toe to toe with Selvig, and asks him if the city is crime-riddled as RSBN and Fox News and others have chanted for a very long time now. In the host’s defense, he does admit he doesn’t live in New York City, but he’s heard a lot in his bubble. (In my defense, he doesn’t say “bubble.”)
A reminder: Facts don’t care about your feelings, right-wing snowflakes. “Yeah. New York City is, I think maybe 59th in crime right now. I think there’s four cities in Indiana that have more crime, statistically, than New York does—yeah, exactly.” But Selvig doesn’t let them off the leash yet: “I haven’t really noticed a lot of crime, but I do see it on, you know, Fox News—they say it’s much more dangerous now. I don’t. I haven’t seen it. I haven’t seen any more crime, so maybe it might not be true, but I’m going to choose to believe that that is true because I did see that on Fox News.”
Republished with permission from Daily Kos.
