On Wednesday, in its second episode since the election of Donald J. Trump, “South Park” tackled a currently hypothetical scenario that will almost certainly come to fruition within the next four years: Trump navigating through a complicated international crisis without having any clue what he’s doing.
Midway through the episode, titled “Members Only,” Trump, er, Mr. Garrison arrives at the Pentagon and is handed the secrets and power that comes with running the country. He is shown classified information (”OK, good”), the drone program (”Thanks”), satellite surveillance (”Oh, that’ll come in handy”), the interrogation room (”Oh, hell yeah”) and a football that allows him to order nuclear attacks (”Love me some football”).
“So, I can do whatever the [bleep] I want in here now, right?” he excitedly asks. Yes, he can.
But next, Mr. Garrison is led into what is called the diplomatic strategy and negotiation room. There, he finds complete disarray. The Danish are threatening to release the entire world’s internet histories, and it is causing an all-out international diplomatic crisis. Suddenly, the arrogance has disappeared from Mr. Garrison’s face, and in its place is panic.
“Oh jeez, this doesn’t look very fun,” he nervously says.
Regardless of whether it is fun or not, the Pentagon needs to know what Mr. Garrison wants to do. There are fears of a Chinese attack; troops are mobilizing in Paris; India is moving aircraft carriers into the Gulf of Mexico; Saudi Arabia wants to remind the U.S. of its internet history–related “pinky promise,” and U.S. officials want to know if Mr. Garrison wants troops in Japan, to which he replies, “I don’t know, jeez!”
At another moment, an official tells him the Russians want to know what the U.S. plans to do about the situation.
“Well, why are you asking me!?” replies an increasingly out of his element Mr. Garrison.
We don’t think we need to lay out the metaphor here. We’ll just say that being president requires knowing all the names of the countries and understanding their longstanding relationships with one another. It’s going to be a very long four years.
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