There is a moment at the end of The Hangover where the guys finally find the camera, and the horror is not what happened. It is that they were there for all of it and remember none of it.
Two of those surfaced this weekend. One from the White House. One from a party the Democrats are throwing for an election that has not happened yet.
Exhibit A: The Lost Xi Camera Roll
It opens on the Lincoln Bedroom. The timestamp says 9:14 a.m., the morning after the state dinner. There are red solo cups on the nightstand of the Lincoln Bedroom, which is a sentence that should require a security clearance.
Elon Musk sits up in the bed. He finds a small silver camera. He starts scrolling. His face does the thing.
What is on the camera:
The President of the United States crowd-surfing above the tables of a state dinner. The President of the United States on a white horse, lassoing a man in a tuxedo down the Cross Hall. A man being fired out of a circus cannon over the South Lawn while the First Lady of China watches with the expression of somebody who has already seen worse tonight.
The East Room, flooded. Trump and Xi Jinping duelling with pool noodles while the Secret Service pretends this is fine. An inflatable T-rex chasing a man down the Grand Staircase. Sumo suits, with the President refereeing in stripes.
A keg stand. In the East Room. Held up by the Vice President.
The First Lady karate-kicking through a stack of boards. A kitchen fire with the President of China holding the extinguisher and a chef's hat. A raw chicken in mid-flight. Limbo under a pool cue. A llama in a bow tie being fed hors d'oeuvres.
Bowling, with Trump keeping score at a desk. Segway jousting with feather dusters down a red carpet. Archery, with an apple, on a person. Mattress sledding down the North Portico steps. A mechanical bull in the East Room with Xi riding it shirtless in a cowboy hat.
Xi asleep in the lap of the Lincoln Memorial.
Zorb balls. A swan pedal boat on the Tidal Basin at midnight. Jet skis on the Reflecting Pool. A golf cart in the fountain. The First Lady of China piloting a John Deere riding mower across the South Lawn at speed. Tug of war. Arm wrestling on the Resolute Desk between the two First Ladies while four men scream encouragement. Breakdancing in an evening gown. Hedge trimming. With a chainsaw. In a white suit.
Matching tattoos.
Xi surfing on the roof of the moving presidential limousine down Constitution Avenue.
Then Comes the Morning
And this is the part that makes it art rather than just a gag reel, because the last stretch of that camera roll is all consequence.
Trump asleep on the Resolute Desk under a wedding cake. A man in the walk-in freezer, frosted over, in black tie. The First Lady hosing down three unconscious men on the lawn like a driveway. A bald eagle standing in a bathroom while a man in a tuxedo brushes his teeth beside it, refusing to acknowledge the eagle.
Xi and Trump sitting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at sunrise, shirts open, ties gone, holding coffee, saying nothing.
And Xi Jinping asleep on the floor underneath the podium in the Brady Briefing Room while the President conducts a press conference directly above him.
Exhibit B: The Other Camera Roll
The second one is funnier in the setup and colder in the landing.
Same premise, different party. Joe Biden is holding the camera. Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are crowded around him, and every one of them has the face. The caption stutters across the frames the way it does in the film: these pictures together, okay, and then we.
Then the roll.
Harris on karaoke while Schumer and Pelosi physically cover their ears. Ocasio-Cortez behind a bar with a tip jar that says TAX THE RICH. Newsom carrying a five-gallon bucket of hair gel, which is the single best joke in either video. Schumer firing a money cannon while Pelosi watches a chart go up on a laptop. Bernie Sanders DJing in the mittens.
Schumer floating in a pool on a flamingo with a margarita. Pelosi doing a keg stand. A conga line with a lampshade. Biden with a moustache drawn on his face and a party hat. Newsom crowd-surfing. Golf cart into the swimming pool. 2028 written in sparklers.
Then the morning arrives for them too. Harris face-down on a table. Biden asleep sitting up inside the refrigerator. Schumer in a bathtub with a live donkey. Pelosi at the breakfast table running a cash-counting machine beside a mug that reads BETTER DAYS AHEAD.
And then, of course: WHERE'S BERNIE?
Cut to Bernie Sanders, alone, on the roof, in a folding chair, in the mittens, staring at the ocean.
Our Take
The first video is a joke about winning. The second one is a joke about counting on it, and those are not the same joke at all.
Look again at what the Democrats are celebrating in that camera roll. It is not an election. It is a party for an election that has not happened yet, thrown in a mansion, with a money cannon and a cash counter and a tip jar that says tax the rich sitting on a marble bar. The gag is that they are already spending it.
Which is exactly the problem, and the reason the second video is not really a comedy.
Every single image in that roll becomes real if we lose the midterms. Not the flamingo float. The money counter. The chart going up. The confidence of people who believe the thing is already decided and have moved on to deciding what to do with it. That is not a prediction, it is a plan, and the only thing standing between the plan and the country is turnout on November third. Thirty-seven days. In a midterm, which is the election Americans historically skip.
They are laughing in that video because they think it is over five weeks before anybody votes. The correct response is not to laugh back. It is to notice that somebody already ordered the champagne.
Enjoy the first camera roll. It is the funniest thing on the internet this week and the llama alone is worth the runtime.
Then look at the second one again, and understand that it is a photograph of a future, and futures are not funny. They are just early.
