On a sunny Friday afternoon in a park overlooking the Silver Lake Reservoir in Los Angeles, about 30 other people—together with 3 in dress as Uncle Sam, Darth Vader, and Elsa from Frozen—accumulated to listen to the primary authentic stump speech of Dan Greaney, candidate for the 2028 US presidential election.
“My fellow American citizens,” Greaney started, status at a lectern in entrance of a row of American flags flapping in a gentle breeze. After this opening, he added, “Yeah, let’s cross with that. It’s a vintage.”
That self-aware little apart is any such factor you’d be expecting from a veteran TV creator who has labored on The Simpsons since its golden technology within the Nineties. Aside from penning vintage episodes like “Summer time of four Toes. 2″ and “King-Dimension Homer,” Greaney could also be recognized for writing “Bart to the Long term,” a flash-forward episode, initially aired in 2000, through which Lisa Simpson is the newly inaugurated US president and suffering with a monetary mess left at the back of by way of her predecessor. “As you recognize, we have inherited rather the cheap crunch from President Trump,” she explains.
As a result of that comic story, Greaney is ceaselessly credited with predicting the true Trump’s not going upward thrust to the White Area. “It used to be a caution to The us,” he instructed The Hollywood Reporter early within the 2016 election cycle. “It used to be pitched as it used to be in step with the imaginative and prescient of The us going insane.”
For months now, Greaney has been leaning into his “Prophet” modify ego, posting Instagram movies of himself predicting the downfall of Trump and his allies in an Outdated Testomony-style grey beard and wig. On Friday, then again, he wore the extra typical swimsuit and tie of a political candidate working for place of job. And his message used to be earnest.
“It is lovely ridiculous for me to be working for president,” he stated. “It is any such factor {that a} cool animated film dad would possibly do—any person like, you recognize, Peter Griffin,” he stated with a grin, referencing the patriarch of Circle of relatives Man reasonably than Homer Simpson. But, Greaney went on to mention, he used to be moved to get up for the values that he believes maximum American citizens nonetheless percentage. “I feel democracy is underneath assault, and in some ways [has] been demolished by way of a rogue Perfect Court docket, by way of a lawless president, and by way of the cliques of billionaires that they paintings for,” he instructed the gang, most commonly made up of pals and associates in leisure.
“It isn’t a comic story,” Greaney stated of his marketing campaign, regardless of his lengthy profession in comedy going the entire as far back as a stint as president of the Harvard Lampoon. (He has additionally labored as a journalist and practiced legislation.) “Comedy is not just about laughter,” he persisted. “Comedy is ready reality. And at The Simpsons, one of the crucial issues all of us attempted to do used to be to mention the reality about American existence, to appear at the back of the humbug and hoopla and say the reality about The us with love and humor in some way that individuals noticed and hooked up to, and that’s what I am hoping to do right here.”
“So, sure, this is a bit absurd, however it is not a comic story,” he reiterated. “And, in reality, it is an act of sense of right and wrong.”
Greaney concluded his personal remarks by way of announcing, “I invite you all to sign up for my motion and create an The us that works for all, together with Darth Vader.”
