Our After-Dinner Debate About Larry David's Satire
To the Editor:
Re 'My Dinner With Adolf,' by Larry David (Opinion guest essay, April 25):
Larry David's spoof draws a provocative analogy between Bill Maher's recent meeting with President Trump and a hypothetical dinner with Hitler. It's clever — and clarifying. But it's also incomplete.
By Mr. Maher's own account, he pushed back on Mr. Trump over election denialism, Iran and birtherism — views that the president likely doesn't often hear in his echo chamber. That matters. In authoritarian systems, culpability often lies less with the despot than with the chorus of enablers around him. Mr. Maher's willingness to dissent in that room shouldn't be discounted.
Still, Mr. David makes a sharp point: Personal charm — even in monstrous men — proves nothing. One needn't meet a demagogue to grasp his nature. Mr. Trump's predictably affable performance with Mr. Maher told us little. And Mr. Maher's instincts, however noble, risk confusing engagement with legitimization.
Yes, we should talk across divides. But those efforts are best reserved for people at least open to change or compromise, not for those committed to manipulating and destroying the conversation itself.
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