Thread by @adamfelber

Ooh, wait - I’m a comedy writer! I’m actually qualified to rule on this one!

Let’s have some straight talk about “wah wah...” (1/x)

https://twitter.com/clewandowski_/status/1009428842493169666

See, the “wah wah” sound effect is a fun piece of conversational humor, borrowed from the sitcom world.

It’s a quicker, cleaner variant of the beloved “sad trombone” (wah wah wah waaaaahh)

Now, we can argue later about whether a perfect “sad trombone” has three, four, or even five “waaahs.” There truly ARE good people on all sides of that argument.

But what is inarguable is the meaning of “wah wah.”

It is a sound effect used to connote sad, ironic misfortune.

As in: You tried to stage two dates at two different sides of the restaurant, hilariously trying to bounce between the two tables... and then your dates meet, hit it off, and leave together.

Wah wah.

The point here is that there’s a misfortune, it’s ironic, and -this is key- on some level the person on the receiving end of the “wah wah” DESERVES that misfortune.

See, they made a mistake or at least a miscalculation, and now it has come back to bite them on the ass. Wah wah.

So, Mr. Lewandowski, your “wah wah” could’ve been directed at -

1) the mother of the missing child
2) the child herself
3) the guy who is relating the story about the mother

Let’s unpack this here wah wah...

The most likely target of the “wah wah,” I think, is the mother. To conservatives, the mother is a criminal. So here’s the formulation:

“You broke the law in an attempt to find a better life for you and your kid, resulting in your child being taken from you. Wah wah!”

That’s gruesome, right? But I think it’s possibly our winner.

I definitely don’t think Lewandowski’s target was the child with Down Syndrome. For one, that’s unimaginably horrible. Even from a conservative standpoint, that child is blameless. No “wah wah.”

But the third possibility - which seems more and more likely now that I’m working this out - is closer to Lewandowski’s current claim. (But only “closer,” not “close!”)

It was directed at his liberal onscreen opponent.

As in, “You advocate for humane treatment of illegal immigrants, and now YOUR laws are resulting in children with Down Syndrome being ripped from their mothers...

...wah wah!”

Wow.

I mean, wow, right? And obviously, that’s all bullshit about whose law it is and why this is happening. But I shit you not, that IS the story they’re pushing in Trumpland, and so in that fucked-up ontology, that IS actually ironic.

But for it to be funny, for this situation to actually merit a “wah wah,” you have to be a sick enough person to be focusing on the speaker’s misfortune at having his agenda thwarted, and not on the actual mother being separated from her actual child.

Holy fuck, I literally just shivered while writing that last one.

But really, there’s no other valid comedic interpretation for the “wah wah.” Either the mother deserves what she got, or she and her child are so unimportant, their humanity so stripped from them in Lewandowski’s mind... that he can laugh about at the liberal for giving a shit.

As though the “bad guy” liberal worked hard to steal a pie, and ended up with it on his face. Wah wah.

Except it’s not a pie in the face. It’s a fucking real life woman having her fucking real life disabled child stolen from her. But to Lewandowski they might as well be a pie.

No, my comedy court ruling is clear. All rise:

Lewandowski’s explanation doesn’t hold water. He is, in fact, a monstrous and inhumane douchebag, and he brought this mighty and just shitstorm down upon himself.

Wah wah.