CULTURE

The Presidential Debate was Michael Scott vs. Leslie Knope, According to Chrissy Teigen and the Internet

Was it real life or was it satire? Monday night’s debate seemed like Michael Scott vs. Leslie Knope fan fiction come to life.


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Monday night’s presidential debate saw one candidate highlight her ability to quickly recall specific facts, figures and positions as her main tactic while the other relied on rambling and interrupting his opponent (at least 70 times by one count) as his go-to strategy.

Leave it to the sharpest supermodel on social media, Chrissy Teigen, to quickly diagnose the vibe that Donald Trump came across like The Office‘s Michael Scott in the debate.

“What we have happening right now is a classic Michael Scott,” she tweeted, while highlighting an absurd Michael Scott quote.

Parts of the rest of the Internet jumped to identify Hillary Clinton as the constantly shocked Jim Halpert from The Office.

“Holy fuck, Hillary just did a Jim-from-The Office direct to camera take! Which Says. It. All,” tweeted comedian Bill Maher.

Others felt Clinton’s vibes were more in line with the main character of The Office‘s sister show, Leslie Knope of Parks and Recreation. In those takes, Trump was likened to Bobby Newport, Leslie’s rich, entitled and ultimately airheaded political foe played by Paul Rudd.

“Hillary is definitely channeling Leslie Knope right now,” tweeted the author Aisha Saeed.

It says a lot about the state of this election that people’s go-to references were the main characters of America’s two sharpest recent television satires. Though, we should add that one of those shoes ended with the heavy implication that it’s main character was about to assume the White House, while the other ended with its main character realizing his time might be better devoted to dropping out of professional life to stay at home and be a family man.

Here’s your Teigen-led roundup of corresponding Tweets.

Image via Nthmetal’s Tumblr

Aside from diagnosing the particular NBC sitcom-slanted mood of the debate, Teigen was on fire on Twitter the rest of the night as well.

She also retreated this tweet suggesting an alternative theory that Clinton might actually be Larry David.