How Monty Python explains the absurdity of Trumpism

The best comedy pokes fun at the absurdity of the human condition.

What could be more absurd than that condition known as Trumpism, and what could be funnier than a classic Monty Python skit? They were seemingly made for each other.

So it’s hardly a shock that one of the best Python skits explains the appeal of Trump’s con to his gullible “base” to absolute perfection. I speak of the “Burglar/Encyclopaedia Salesman” sketch that aired way back in 1969.

The skit appeared on an episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus titled “Man’s Crisis of Identity in the Latter Half of the 20th Century.” It’s an apt title since it predicted the 21st century crisis of identity spawned by Trumpism perfectly.

For the uninitiated, the skit begins with an encyclopedia salesman ringing a woman’s doorbell and announcing, “Burglar!” Receiving no answer, he rings a second time, again declaring he’s a “Burglar!” It plays out from there as follows.

The suspicious woman opens the door partway and says, “Yes?”

The salesman then states yet again that he’s a burglar.

“What you want?” says the woman.

“I want to come in and steal a few things, madam.”

“Are you an encyclopedia salesman?” the woman asks.

“No madam, I'm a burglar, I burgle people.”

But the woman is unconvinced: “I think you're an encyclopedia salesman.”

“Oh, I'm not. Open the door and let me in, please.”

“If I let you in, you'll sell me encyclopedias...”

But the salesman insists: “I won't madam, I just want to come in and ransack the flat, honestly.”

“Promise no encyclopedias?”

“None at all.”

The woman finally relents and unchains the door, whereupon the salesman steps inside and immediately launches into his pitch: “Mind you, I don't know whether you've ever really considered the advantages of owning a really fine set of encyclopedias, ya know. It can do you a really wonder...”

This is exactly how Donald Trump wheedled his way into America’s biggest flat, the White House. And it’s exactly how Americans responded. They loved that he was blunt to the point of being caustic and “told the truth” — even as he lied more than any other president (or perhaps any other public figure) in history.

They didn’t care if he was a con man, an idiot, and a bigot as long as he wasn’t another typical politician tethered to bureaucracy and bogged down by gridlock — the way unwary residents get bogged down in pitches by encyclopedia salesmen (or used to, back when encyclopedias were sold door-to-door and Wikipedia wasn’t around). Voters figured that anything was better than another politician, even a low-watt, high-B.S. shyster who brags about evading taxes and grabbing women’s genitals. Anything but another politician. Anything but an encyclopedia salesman.

And just like John Cleese’s woman in the sketch, WE LET HIM IN!

Then, we did the same thing with COVID. People didn’t trust an emergency vaccine created to shield them from a deadly virus, so they took quack cures like hydro-I-don’t-care-what-ya-call-it instead. They let another burglar in to protect them from having to deal with an encyclopedia salesman.

But guess what? Both Trump and the anti-vaxxers were really encyclopedia salesmen all along. Trump promised to “drain the swamp,” then he filled it with more corruption than had ever been there in the first place. The anti-vaxxers called COVID a hoax and killed people by selling them bogus, ineffective snake oil “cures.” I seem to remember someone suggesting bleach injections.

This kind of thing was funny in the Python skit. It’s not so funny now.

People didn’t particularly like encyclopedia salesmen back in the day, and they don’t like politicians now. I can’t blame them for that. But if someone comes knocking on your door, claiming to be a burglar, you don’t let that person in, whether it’s an encyclopedia salesman or not.

No one likes a case of acne, either, but no rational person would try to cure it with a case of bubonic plague. Yet, that’s exactly what we did. We were so distressed about that zit on the end of our nose that we willingly exposed ourselves to a bunch of flea-infested rats carrying the Black Death of democracy: fascism.

Trump and his cronies are actually worse than Eric Idle’s burglar in the Monty Python skit, though: They’re both encyclopedia salesmen AND burglars. We invited them in, and they sold us a bill of goods, then ransacked our house for good measure.

And now we’ve invited them to stay, rent-free.

Even Monty Python couldn’t have envisioned we’d be that stupid. But apparently, at least some of us are. 

Stephen H. Provost is the author of three books on the Trump era, the “Trumpism on Trial” series focusing on Trump’s methods, his relationship with the media, and evangelicals’ embrace of him. All three books are available on Amazon.