The Washington Post’s Latest Anti-Trump Commentator Is A Literal Clown

On Thursday, the Washington Post published an op-ed titled “Donald Trump is not a clown. I should know.” In the piece, Tim Cunningham — a professional clown and board president of Clowns Without Borders — castigates Trump critics who refer to the president as a “clown” or his administration as a “clown show.”

He cites several examples, including the “Kick Out the Clowns” organized last June by critics of Trump’s parade celebrating the army’s 250th, who saw it as “tacky” and “inspired by dictators.”

“Clown demands years, if not a lifetime, of study,” Cunningham wrote, inexplicably using his title as some kind of proper noun. Cunningham even considers clowning sacred, noting that “several ancient Indigenous cultures revere a sacred clown figure.”

“For example, the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Sioux) people celebrate the heyoka, an honorable community member who uses humor to shed light on societal problems.”

“Real clowns,” he claims, unite people in “laughter, levity, and creativity.”

Nothing on the president’s record “qualifies Trump for such a title,” Cunningham writes, noting that “all Clown shares the common values of healing, empathy and reflection.”

In February, Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos announced an overhaul of the paper’s opinion section. The Amazon CEO wrote that going forward, the Post was “going to be writing every day in support and defense of two pillars: personal liberties and free markets.” This “significant shift,” as Bezos called it, led editorial page editor David Shipley to quit.

It’s unclear how Cunningham’s op-ed relates to the “pillars” Bezos claimed to build the Post’s editorial section around. The paper — which infamously changed its motto to “Democracy Dies In Darkness” in response to President Donald Trump’s first election — has recently offered employees buyouts as it downsizes and restructures its newsroom.

Cunningham — who works for a “humanitarian clowning” nonprofit called Clowns Without Borders — did not limit his criticisms to Trump critics.

“Every election season, the word ‘clown’ resurfaces to compare tumultuous Washington politics to a circus,” he wrote. “Political commentators and social media users are not the only ones who wrongfully sling this jibe. ‘Clown’ is used by almost everyone to belittle those seen as foolish or incompetent.”

Ultimately, though, his piece is yet another criticism of Trump. He ends by urging readers to “find a better metaphor to despise and depose fascism.”

As an alternative, Cunningham suggests the word “buffoon,” which Merriam-Webster defines as “clown.”