In entertainment, “jumping the shark” is when a show runs out of ideas and flails, embarrassingly, for continued relevance. In politics, no one has ever jumped the shark quite like Donald Trump.
The phrase was coined during the 1980s about an episode of the popular sitcom “Happy Days” in which a main character, Fonzie, goes water skiing in California and vaults over a live shark. Today, “jumping the shark” is used figuratively. In Trump’s case, though, it is uncomfortably literal — and deeply troubling.
Remember that bizarre story he told a couple of weeks ago about boats, sharks and electrocution? Trump obviously remembers how people made fun of it, to the point where he told the story again on Saturday, insisting it was “actually not crazy” and “sort of a smart story.”
But what’s striking, and sad, is how defensive Trump is. After saying something that made no earthly sense, and getting ridiculed for it, he couldn’t just move on and hope everyone forgets. He can’t stand being laughed at. After I wrote about the shark thing two weeks ago — a column that, by the way, consisted mostly of Trump’s own words — he singled me out on Truth Social as one of the “fools and stupid people” working here at The Post.
So, once again, here is a transcript of what Trump said about sharks this past weekend. You be the judge:
“Now they’ll say all these stories are terrible. Well, these stories have, you know, you heard my story in the boat with the shark, right? I got killed on that. They thought I was rambling. I’m not rambling. …
“We can’t get the boat to float. The battery is so heavy. So then I start talking about asking questions. You know, I have an, I had an uncle who was a great professor at MIT for many years, long, I think the longest tenure ever. Very smart, had three different degrees and, you know, so I have an aptitude for things. You know, there is such a thing as an aptitude.
“I said, ‘Well, what would happen if this boat is so heavy and started to sink and you’re on the top of the boat. Do you get electrocuted or not?’ In other words, the boat is going down and you’re on the top, will the electric currents flow through the water and wipe you out?
“And let’s say there’s a shark about 10 yards over there. Would I have to immediately abandon, or could I ride the electric down? And he said, ‘Sir, nobody’s ever asked us that question. But sir, I don’t know.’ I said, ‘Well, I want to know, because I guarantee you one thing, I don’t care what happens. I’m staying with the electric, I’m not getting over with it.’
See AlsoHow many senses do we have?“So I tell that story. And the fake news they go, ‘he told this crazy story with electric.’ It’s actually not crazy. It’s sort of a smart story, right? Sort of like, you know, it’s like the snake, it’s a smart when you, you figure what you’re leaving in, right? You’re bringing it in the, you know, the snake, right? The snake and the snake. I tell that and they do the same thing.”
We witnessed this flaw in Trump’s temperament throughout his four years as president — his inability to say “I misspoke” or “I was wrong” — but the shark story shows that his insistence on his own infallibility is getting worse. It sounds to me as though he really believes having had an uncle who taught at MIT gives him “an aptitude” to rewrite the laws of physics.
Trump’s apologists will say that this is just shtick to entertain his audience. (These same apologists keep telling us that Trump’s rants should be taken “seriously, not literally,” but whatever.) If we’re supposed to judge him on his chops as a Borscht Belt comedian, Don Rickles was funnier.
Equally alarming is his disordered, elliptical syntax. Sentences take off in one direction and change course midflight. Pronouns lack antecedents. I suppose Trump could expect his audience at Saturday’s event to follow him when he said “it’s like the snake” — a reference to the lyrics of a song he often quotes to demonize immigrants.
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But if an elderly relative told you “it’s a smart when you, you figure what you’re leaving in, right,” you’d ask whether he needed to lie down.
A verbatim transcript of even the most eloquent speaker’s words is likely to reveal a flub or two. But repeatedly telling a nonsensical story, and in a chopped salad of words, is different — and hair-raising when the speaker is a candidate for president.
Somewhere, out there, a hurdled shark swims in Trump’s wake.
