The 2018 Winter Olympics are getting underway as this week draws to a close, but they’re not occurring in a vacuum.
The Games, being held in South Korea, are in almost the literal shadow of the threat from the North Korean nuclear arsenal, a threat that has increased in the time since Donald Trump took office, with the sanctions issued by the West being too little, too late to keep the country from getting to the point of claiming to have the ability to carry out a nuclear strike against the U.S.
Two jokesters exploited the shadow cast on the Games this year to make a humorous but pointed statement.
Two men appeared at the opening ceremony of the Games dressed as none other than U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un, respectively, explaining that they hoped to make a statement on behalf of world peace by showing up in their costumes.
The Kim Jong-Un impersonator commented as follows, the Daily Mail reports:
‘We get along personally, so I believe that Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un, if they talked they’d probably get along. Because in my opinion, they’re pretty much the same person. And [former NBA star] Dennis Rodman has confirmed this and he’s met both of them personally… So let’s start talking and stop with all the missiles and everything else. We want peace, everybody wants peace, nobody wants war.’
The Kim Jong-Un impersonator — who posed for photos along with his friend before being ushered out by security — is certainly on the right track with his comments. The real life Kim Jong-Un and the real life Donald Trump have both shown themselves to be not all that different via their rhetoric, with Trump resorting to bragging about the size of his nuclear button in response to the North Korean leader’s comments about his own button.
Trump’s jabs at the North Koreans — with him claiming at one point that he would not hesitate to totally annihilate North Korea if given the opportunity and provoked accordingly — have given the North Korean regime ample material for crafting excuses for continuing to develop their attack capabilities.
Two individuals with very close relations to the two world leaders were in that stadium in South Korea when the comedians made their appearance. Kim Jong-Un’s sister accompanied the North Korean delegation to the Games, while Vice President Mike Pence helped lead the U.S. delegation to the opening ceremony.
The two of them apparently even sat near each other at the opening ceremony.
Pence attracted controversy ahead of the Games, considering his history of anti-LGBT positions and the fact that the first openly gay Olympian to qualify for a Winter Olympic team — figure skater Adam Rippon — went to the Games this year.
After Pence was reportedly rebuffed in his efforts to meet with Rippon following criticism from the skater, he ended up posting a — rather Trump-ian — statement in support of the skater on Twitter.
Featured Image via Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post via Getty Images
