From the “can’t take it but can sure dish it out” department comes the New York Times, which somehow felt a satirical article by a famously corrosive liberal comedian that gently mocked the hard-left Democratic Socialists of America merited a critical pile-on.
Reporters Lisa Lerer and Evan Gorelick again demonstrate the left simply abide being made fun of (which isn’t news): “Larry David Mocks the D.S.A. Some Are Not Amused. -- The comedian satirized the Democratic Socialists of America, its platform and its opposition to Israel in an essay that some did not LOL at.”
This from the paper that not only regularly reprints anti-Trump mockery off the late-night talk shows but actually ran a Larry David comic essay last year, “My Dinner With Adolf,” mocking iconoclastic liberal talk show host Bill Maher for daring to dine with President Trump (the title is a nod to the critically lauded 1980 movie “My Dinner With Andre”).
A David profile from 2025 found Times reporter Jason Zinoman amused at David's Trump-Hitler comparison.
David has kept a mostly low profile, appearing on talk shows and podcasts and writing a few comic essays, like his satirical “My Dinner With Adolf,” which skewered the naïveté and self-involvement of Bill Maher reporting back on the charm of President Trump after a private meeting.
But now that David has flashed a little of his acerbic attitude toward the other end of the spectrum, in a piece for a digital magazine, his formerly cutting satire is suddenly “unfunny and racist" for the paper's ideological allies in the DSA.
Lerer and Gorelick at least hinted about the discrepancy in the lede:
The last time Larry David waded into politics with a satirical essay, it was to take aim at a very safe target in his liberal circles — President Trump.
Mr. David, who is known for his brand of anxious, observational comedy, mocked Bill Maher for dining with Mr. Trump at the White House in a guest essay published in The New York Times Opinion section last year headlined “My Dinner With Adolf,” in which he imagined dining with Hitler in 1939.
But Mr. David’s latest satire took aim at topics that are likely to be far more controversial within the coastal enclaves where his work is popular: the ascendant Democratic Socialists of America and its hostility toward Israel.
In a new essay published by Air Mail, the 79-year-old comic channels the satirist Jonathan Swift and offers a dozen “modest proposals” for the manifesto of the socialist organization, whose actual proposals and guiding principles have been widely debated this year as several candidates aligned with the organization won primaries.
….
Mr. David then aims his pen at one of the biggest fault lines dividing the Democratic Party, wading into the fraught debate over the line between opposition to Israel and antisemitism. Jews, he writes, will no longer be allowed to call themselves “the Chosen people” — a part of Jewish identity dating back millenniums — and will be known instead as “the Bagel People.”
All of sudden David, a Barack Obama supporter (the Obamas were executive producers of David’s 2026 HBO comedy series Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Unhappiness, the former president playing himself in a sketch) is no longer funny.
“I don’t know if Larry is on top of his comedic game right now,” [Matthew] Gauna said in a phone interview.
Another post described the essay as “Larry David has a boomer crashout over Israel.”
Zack Wall, 35, of Columbus, Ohio, replied online to that post, writing, “Someone take the phone from gramps,” along with three crying-face emojis.
….
Many posts focused on Mr. David’s age while criticizing his views, and others described him as unfunny and racist.
Suddenly, random online commenters are worthy of the Times’ respect, at least when defending the Democrats’ left flank from the scourge of light humor. At least there were some lines David didn’t cross.
Mr. David, whose comedy has made him a millionaire many times over, did not mock the D.S.A.’s economic proposals, which include universal health care, raising the minimum wage and expanding public housing and child care....
Mr. David seemed to anticipate the backlash his piece would provoke, daring his socialist targets to take the joke.
