This past week, Jason Spencer, a Republican state representative from Georgia, revealed that Sacha Baron Cohen had tricked him into shouting “provocative language” during what he thought was a real anti-terrorism training video. Now we know that “provocative language” was the N-word.
The shouting of racial slurs by Spencer, who was recently defeated in a GOP primary after serving four controversial terms, was just one of several unnerving moments from the most outrageous segment in the second episode of Showtime’s Who Is America? Week two of this news-making show also featured former Vice President Dick Cheney signing a “waterboard kit,” Ted Koppel arguing about the size of Donald Trump’s inauguration crowd and The Bachelor’s Corinne Olympios gamely pretending that she helped clean up the Ebola crisis in Africa.
In last week’s premiere, we saw some pretty gullible gun rights advocates fall for Baron Cohen’s deception. But even arguing that toddlers should be armed with guns is nothing compared to the behavior the comedian elicited from Spencer, admittedly a far less prominent and powerful figure than people like Cheney or Bernie Sanders.
Posing again as Israeli terrorism expert Col. Erran Morad, Baron Cohen enlists Spencer, who claims to be a victim of death threats, for a training video on how elected officials can protect themselves from terrorists. The training involves a parade of Islamophobic, homophobic and racist “techniques” that Spencer takes in stride.
