We all know the hilarious Key & Peele Obama Anger Translator Bit. Peele speaks in Obama’s calm measured tone, followed by Key’s wild and furious “Translator,” who reaches beneath O’s placid veneer to what he’d like to say and also, what we would like him to say.
Don’t tell anyone, but sometimes I fast-forward through my recorded AM Joy to see just Malcolm Nance and Elie Mystal. Don’t get me wrong. The rest of the usual crew is OK — EJ, Karine, even J. Rube (sometimes). But only Malcolm and Elie bring the fury we feel.
Today, Malcolm went there:
Let me step into the role of Anger Translator for the rest of the government of the United States. This is a disgrace. An absolute, total, abject disgrace. The flag of the United States flying on a par with the flag of North Korea at the DMZ. In that immediate area a United States officer was hacked to death by Kim Jung Un’s father. …….. [Kim’s voice] is the voice of evil.
Elie, who appeared later, doesn’t need to say he’s an anger translator, because he’s always righteously livid, while at times also being very funny. Here he is, commenting on Republicans trying to define who’s an “acceptable” Democrat:
If you're Republican & you're interested in the Democratic party come on down. If you saw the debates this week we've got food coming hot off the grill... But what you're not going to do is show up at our house + tell us I was really hoping you'd make some quiche.
That’s relatively restrained Elie — in February, he said the SDNY “is coming at Trump like Syphilis.”* He seems like he’s always on the verge of exploding into an uncontrollable rant, but just manages to keep control.
And isn’t that how we all feel:
- When we see the travesty of Trump at the DMZ.
- When we see the horror of the border camps.
- When we see the grotesque rulings like the Supreme Court’s "Catch-5 to 4": Circular Gerrymandering Decision.
- When we watch Trump fawning over murderers like MBS and Putin.
- When we see Paris actually burning after Trump pulled us out of the Paris Climate Accord.
- When we see Republicans freely throw around “socialism” as equivalent to Stalinism, but see Democrats pilloried for calling concentration camps what they are, and not daring to call the Republican party what it is: fascist.
- When we see the supine media treating these things as remotely acceptable.
So keep it up Elie and Malcolm. And let’s hear more of that — on MSNBC, CNN and in the debates.
In the meantime, for the best on-air righteous anger, humor, intellect and love, listen right now (and every week) to the Professional Left with Driftglass and Blue Gal, which celebrates its 500th Episode this week. (btw, with Driftglass’s full approval, Blue Gal has taken Elie Mystal as her TV husband. No word from Elie on that.)
*I hope he’s still right about the SDNY.