Tim Blair: Gorilla tactics have Trump enemies going ape

A FAKE news story about Donald Trump spending hours watching footage of gorillas fighting on TV sent the left wingers into meltdown.

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THE story that I have told seems to present this presidency in such a way that it says he can’t do his job,” author Michael Wolff said on the weekend, reviewing his own Donald Trump book. “That’s the background to the perception and the understanding that will finally end this presidency.”

Well, we’ll see about that. Trump has previously survived potentially more damaging allegations than are contained within Wolff’s “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House”. Meanwhile, an Australian artist’s ingenious Fire and Fury parody has proved just how willing are Trump’s enemies to believe the worst of the 45th US president.

Author Michael Wolff.

US President Donald Trump.

“On his first night in the White House, President Trump complained that the TV in his bedroom was broken because it didn’t have ‘the gorilla channel’,” Benjamin Ward’s fake excerpt, posted on Twitter last Thursday, began.

“Trump seemed to be under the impression that a TV channel existed that screened nothing but gorilla-based content, 24 hours a day.

“To appease Trump, White House staff compiled a number of gorilla documentaries into a makeshift gorilla channel, broadcast into Trump’s bedroom from a hastily-constructed transmission tower on the South Lawn.

“However, Trump was unhappy with the channel they had created, moaning that it was ‘boring’ because ‘the gorillas aren’t fighting’.

“Staff edited out all the parts of the documentaries where gorillas weren’t hitting each other, and at last the president was satisfied.

Fire and Fury by author Michael Wolff.

“‘On some days he’ll watch the gorilla channel for 17 hours straight,’ an insider told me. ‘He kneels in front of the TV, with his face about four inches from the screen, and says encouraging things to the gorilla, like, ‘the way you hit that other gorilla was good’. I think he thinks the gorillas can hear him.”

Remarkably, Trump haters — you know, the smart people who voted for Hillary Clinton — fell for it.

Eric Garland, who bills himself as “an educator in the field of intelligence analysis”, posted this all-caps affirmation on Twitter: “THE WHITE HOUSE STAFF MADE A MAKESHIFT GORILLA CHANNEL FOR TRUMP TO WATCH AS MUCH AS 17 TIMES A DAY.”

“I have a question,” asked New York Times journalist Farhad Manjoo. “Is the gorilla channel thing real or fake?”

The Atlantic’s contributing editor Shadi Hamid was in no doubt: “This is my favourite part of Wolff’s book so far. Amazing for what it says about this administration! (It’s worse than you think!!). So amazing, I can barely even believe it. It’s *literally* incredible.”

Yes. Yes, it literally is.

“The amazing thing about the Gorilla Channel story,” summarised Texan genius David Burge, “is that the gorilla turned out to be Trump and the stupid gorilla-obsessed Trump turned out to be the media.”