I think my generation missed the joke.

I just finished reading an article about how Christian men—yes, the exact same guys terrified of living under Sharia law—are launching men-only gyms so they can work out without “lusting after women.” Good job, fellas! Way to practice healthy, safe masculinity. (In case anyone missed it, that was sarcasm—it’s sad I even have to clarify, but given the current political climate…)

As I digested this, I realized I had seen this exact scenario before: it’s an episode of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Remember “Ass Kickers United: Mac and Charlie Join a Cult” (Season 10, Episode 10)? Then I did something most of the guys at those gyms haven’t done in a while—I kept thinking. That’s when it hit me: my generation completely missed the memo that the Gang in It’s Always Sunny were meant to be the assholes, not the role models. In fact, we missed the joke so badly that we elected the Gang straight into the White House.

Let’s start with a prime example of how this plays out in real time. Take “political commentator” (notice the heavy quotation marks) Andrew Schulz—you know, the guy The New York Times framed as “America’s Foremost Political Journalist” on their podcast The Interview. In a podcast appearance, this “foremost political journalist” claimed he was voting Republican because Democrats were no longer the “cool” party, since they weren’t getting laid or getting blowjobs like Bill Clinton used to. Right—who cares about real-world issues like an unstable economy, human suffering, or endless foreign wars, as long as the administration is “cool” and getting laid? It makes total sense when you realize we are being governed by the Gang.

Donald Trump is Frank Reynolds

There are countless examples from the show to support this, but let’s start with Season 8, Episode 7: “Frank’s Back in Business.” In this episode, Frank returns to his old company, fires people at random, harasses the employees, and ultimately strips the business down to its bones, bankrupts it, and sells off the pieces to line his own pockets. Sound familiar? It sure will when the economy collapses while Trump and his gang dance to the bank with our tax dollars.

If that isn’t convincing enough, take Season 13, Episode 4: “Time’s Up for the Gang.” Throughout the episode, the Gang is forced to attend a mandatory sexual harassment seminar. Frank spends the entire time on the phone with his lawyer trying to duck sexual misconduct allegations because he is a fundamentally terrible person. Sound familiar? Our former president—who bragged about grabbing women by the pussy, cheated on every single one of his wives with his next wife, paid off a porn star, and appears in the Epstein documents repeatedly—fits the bill perfectly.

My verdict stands: Donald Trump is Frank Reynolds—a shady, predatory businessman grifting his way through the American public.

Stephen Miller is Dennis Reynolds

And if Donald Trump is Frank, then Stephen Miller is without a doubt Dennis Reynolds.

Throughout It’s Always Sunny, Dennis is portrayed as an unhinged, predatory sociopath with a mountain of creepy, borderline-criminal baggage. Now, I’m not saying Stephen Miller is out here recording tapes in his bedroom, but he is the guy operating behind the scenes who gives off that exact same unsettling, deeply sinister energy.

Take Dennis’s defining trait: he views himself as a “Golden God” elevated far above ordinary human beings. He believes he possesses a divine right to manipulate, control, and dominate anyone he deems beneath him. We see this explicitly in Season 14, Episode 3 (“Dee Day”), where Dennis spends his time trying to prove he can puppeteer everyone around him to do his bidding, treating people as nothing more than instruments for his own vanity and power.

This is Stephen Miller’s entire political persona. A profile in Jezebel broke down how Miller grew up in Southern California—obsessed with gangster movies and harboring an intense, bizarre hatred toward Hispanic populations—before channeling that resentment straight into political power. Dennis’s open contempt for women directly mirrors Miller’s deep-seated contempt for immigrants, minorities, and basically anyone he is forced to share a country with.

In Dennis’s mind, people exist to be used or discarded; in Miller’s mind, entire populations exist to be targeted, separated, and deported.

Sure, Dennis constantly gets exposed as a fragile, pathetic loser whose grand schemes fall apart the moment reality hits. But in the real world, the consequences aren’t played for laughs. Men in power keep handing Stephen Miller the keys to the kingdom, letting him exercise his weird, authoritarian fantasies of domination over the people he discriminates against.

Both Dennis and Miller are completely fine alienating, harming, or destroying whoever gets in their way as long as it gets them closer to total control. For Dennis, that means maintaining his illusion of perfection; for Stephen Miller, it’s building a white Christian ethnostate out of sheer malice.

But hey, as Andrew Schulz would say: at least they’re cool!

Pete Hegseth is Mac

I doubt this one even needs much explanation—Mac is the entire manosphere wrapped up in one deeply confused person. Throughout most of the show, Mac is a closeted gay man hiding behind hyper-intense Christian fundamentalism while obsessively talking about buff dudes, body mass, and “cultivating mass.” To be honest, this comparison could apply to about half the guests on The Joe Rogan Experience, but in the case of Pete Hegseth, it is disturbingly spot-on.

Consider, if you will, a guy so profoundly insecure in his own masculinity that he films workout videos with RFK Jr. or posts clips of himself hanging out with Kid Rock in a sauna. Hegseth, like Mac, is utterly obsessed with testosterone levels, performative toughness, and bashing the LGBTQ+ community to project a “hard” image. I wouldn’t be shocked if we discovered Hegseth spends his weekends oiling up bodybuilders before competitions just like Mac did in “Mac Day” (Season 9, Episode 5).

Hegseth is the perfect mascot for the modern American men’s movement: insecure, hypocritical, deeply homophobic, and convinced that the solution to every complex global problem is whatever a bunch of grunting, shirtless guys would do in a gym. WAR!

Somewhere along the line, Millennials completely missed the joke that Mac was supposed to be a hypocritical Christian—and instead, a whole movement of insecure guys decided he was the blueprint.

J.D. Vance is Charlie Kelly

Throughout It’s Always Sunny, Charlie is the fun-loving idiot who eagerly gets dragged into all of the Gang’s unhinged schemes. For this comparison, let’s return to “Frank’s Back in Business” (Season 8, Episode 7). Charlie is more than willing to tag along with Frank’s ruthless corporate takeover, even though he’s far too dense to understand what Frank is actually doing—he’s just excited to sit in a big chair and pretend to run a company.

Think back to when Donald Trump and J.D. Vance met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy: Vance was only too eager to jump in, tear Zelenskyy down, and pay loyal tribute to Frank—sorry, Donald Trump—without caring about the broader consequences.

We could also look at how Charlie prides himself on being a “man of the people.” He takes defensive pride in his janitorial duties and the literal “Charlie Work” he completes around the bar. That is J.D. Vance’s entire political brand. He pretends to be a rugged man of the people who grew up in rural poverty—a narrative that takes plenty of creative liberties. While performing his “aw shucks, working class” act for his audience, Vance is busy lining his pockets with Silicon Valley money and cozying up to tech billionaires like Peter Thiel and Donald Trump.

Finally, like Charlie, Vance is weirdly hyper-fixated on marriage and reproduction. Charlie spends the entire series stalking the Waitress and fantasizing about having children with her, but Vance takes “creepy” to a level even Charlie Kelly would envy. Imagine being so dense that you don’t even realize—or maybe he does, and just doesn’t care—that the white supremacists and far-right voters he’s courting will eventually turn on his own wife and children the second it suits them.

Dee Reynolds is the Women of MAGA

Delusional, desperate, narcissistic, vindictive, racist, aggressive, self-absorbed, toxic: are these words to describe Melania Trump, Pam Bondi, Karoline Leavitt, or Kristi Noem? No, I am describing Dee Reynolds from It’s Always Sunny, but let’s be honest—it could describe almost any woman in the MAGA movement.

If you wanted a perfect representation of MAGA women, look no further than Paddy’s Pub’s own Dee Reynolds: a woman who is constantly telling racist jokes and doing offensive caricatures, but doesn’t seem to get the joke even when people point it out to her. Just like Kristi Noem or any other MAGA figurehead, Dee is happy to be in the spotlight and does not care what she had to do to get there.

Look at her willingness to sell out other women just to feel like part of the crowd. Dee would gladly push a lifestyle she herself wouldn’t live if she thought she could make a quick buck off of it—just like how prominent Trump-aligned women sell other women on giving up their rights to work, vote, or access reproductive healthcare. Dee (and her real-world counterparts) are hypocrites willing to throw everyone else under the bus. If Dee could profit off running a “tradwife” brand while instructing other women to give up their education and careers, she’d be more than happy to cash the checks while setting women up for a life of isolation and dependency.

Lauren Boebert is another prime example: constantly selling women on the idea of living a moral, God-fearing life with a husband and kids, all while getting a divorce from the man who impregnated her in high school. She was then caught giving a handjob and vaping in a crowded theater with another man—an act so trashy and brazen that Dee Reynolds would actively brag about it.

Finally—with sincere apologies to the brilliant Kaitlin Olson—Dee also has the classic “MAGA face.” I am sorry if this comes across as harsh, but why are so many high-profile MAGA women so pumped full of plastic surgery and fillers that they no longer look like real people, but rather plastic masks with giant, puckered lips? These are some of the most opportunistic women in the world, and they are more than willing to throw every other woman under the bus for financial and political gain.

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is a hilarious show, but these characters were meant to be laughed at, not idolized. We have turned over the very adult business of running a country—understanding an economy, managing foreign policy, and wielding war powers—to people who are fundamentally stupid, cruel, and self-centered. (If you want to see how the Trump administration understands the economy, just rewatch Season 5, Episode 3, “The Gang Recycles Their Trash,” or Season 4, Episode 9, “Paddy’s Has a News Station,” where they try to recreate the Dave & Buster’s economy with self-sustaining bar dollars).

Just like the Gang leaves every single life they touch in ruins—think of Rickety Cricket spiraling from a wholesome priest into a crack-addicted street urchin, the Waitress going from a gainfully employed apartment owner to living in a car, or the McPoyles losing their eyes and businesses—this administration is leaving America systematically worse off. We have alienated our traditional allies, handed tech executives unchecked authority, and blown up the national debt.

If we don’t start paying attention to the joke, the entire country is going to end up as the global Rickety Cricket.

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