While it’s safe to say that nearly all of the times in human history have been pretty stupid, it would difficult to mount a convincing argument against us currently living in the stupidest time in history. Nothing makes sense, everything is ridiculous, things still happen for a reason but the reasons they happen are so startlingly obtuse and incomprehensible that you can only alternate between laughing and crying.
The advent of President Trump ruptured the thin veneer of respectability plastered over an office whose primary roles are ordering drone strikes on civilians and pardoning turkeys, and did it in a way that almost makes George W. Bush‘s belief that he received instructions from God and his inability to open doors or form a sentence look statesmanlike and dignified.
Trump is such a profoundly alien, bizarre person that even when someone makes a very obvious joke that describes Trump forcing White House staffers to set up a pirate TV station broadcasting something called the ‘Gorilla Channel‘, a lot of people genuinely believed it to be true. Nothing surprises us anymore, nothing is too ridiculous to be true.
When it’s alleged that Trump paid $164,000 in hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels to cover up an affair they supposedly had in 2006, which she revealed in an unpublished interview with InTouch that took place in 2011, we barely bat an eye. When one of the insane details of the interview turns out to be that Trump just straight up fucking hates sharks, why, we’re barely fazed. This just seems like the sort of thing that would absolutely be true:
He was watching Shark Week and he was watching a special about the U.S.S. something and it sank and it was like the worst shark attack in history. He is obsessed with sharks. Terrified of sharks. He was like, “I donate to all these charities and I would never donate to any charity that helps sharks. I hope all the sharks die.” He was like riveted. He was like obsessed. It’s so strange, I know.
It is strange, Stormy Daniels. Very, very strange.
Unlike nearly everything else he does though, something good has come of his bizarre aversion to sharks, with shark-related charities receiving an influx of donations from people as a weirdly charitable form of revenge. According to MarketWatch, both Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and Atlantic White Shark Conservancy have noticed a big upswing in donations, including ones specifically mentioning that it was because of Trump’s dislike for them.
Atlantic White Shark Conservancy CEO Cynthia Wilgren says it’s been a big help, because it can be hard sometimes:
We have been receiving donations in Trump’s name since the story was published. It can certainly be a challenge to raise money for a species that most people fear.
We live in an exceptionally strange time.
