Political satire is the tip of the spear in combating the trump crisis, according to Carlos Maza of Vox. I posted the video that Maza made to contrast late night comedians treatment of this political theater of the absurd we find ourselves in with the supposedly serious news media to this blog's Facebook page but I didn't have a chance to comment on its significance. I am not sure how to actually embed the video but here's a link that should prove durable enough to last a while if for some reason you don't use the actual Vox link. Drawing on Professor of International Affairs and Comparative Literature at the Pennsylvania State University Sophia A. McClennen's work on the subject, Maza lays bare why it is that watching cable news especially can oftentimes leave the viewer more confused on a particular issue.
It is not easy to cut through the crap. A reporter or anchor needs to present context and adheres to the
journalism standards of balance. Which means they have to treat peer-reviewed science and conspiracy theory as equally valid sides of a story. Satirists and comedians do not. They can get right to the point, obviously ridiculous ideas and the people regurgitating them should be ridiculed. When the republicans are caught blatantly and obviously lying people like Stephen Colbert, Samantha Bee, John Oliver, everyone on Saturday Night Live, Bill Maher, and Seth Meyers have no reason to pull punches. The late night comedians can call it the straight bullshit that it is and do it with humor so the average American who can only process about fifteen minutes of news will actually pay attention.
And it is being done on boring old cable television. Despite the telecommunications and technological leaps made since George W. Bush was taking a giant dump on democracy and the rule of law, these shows are anchored in a medium that hasn't changed much in almost four decades. That said, it is great to be able to catch a video clip of Colbert, Oliver, and Maher through Facebook or Twitter when I have a free minute. So the social media revolution that is responsible for so many of our ills, ideological clustering, trolling, decimation of attention spans, fake news, and so on can actually also be used for good. Though Mark Twain's apocryphal quote about lies shooting around the world while truth is putting on its shoes may still be appropriate for the second decade of the twenty-first century.
Satire is powerful and comforting at the same time. I would not have made it through the bush hell without my copy of Al Franken's Lies and the lying liars who tell them among other titles. Now Senator Franken's voice was about the only one I could find that helped understand what was happening and to find the courage to resist. To refuse to accept the right wing version of reality, in short, to call bullshit on them. Jello Biafra used to call building critical thinking skills "cultivating bullshit detectors" and told a simple anecdote about his dad laughing at TV commercials. "Son, that woman jumping up and down about how great her laundry detergent isn't really that happy because detergent isn't that exciting, she's just trying to sell you laundry detergent."
Unfortunately, critical thinking isn't something culturally transmitted from generation to generation anymore if it ever was. Each person has to hone and sharpen their bullshit detectors on their own it seems. Why that is could be several doctoral or post doctoral programs, but it comes down to this: the very wealthy and business people are always waging a bitter class war for their own benefit. The political right carries water for them and duly "works the refs" who are supposed to be watching the goalposts of truth. They did so by furiously attacking "bias" in the news media through boycotts, direct mail campaigns, buying a single share of stock in a media company to raise hell at their annual meetings and other stuff detailed a decade ago by Eric Alterman and others. Reporters and editors all the way up the food chain of news became so intimidated by these relentless attacks that they abandoned the search for truth in favor of balance. Then there is the fact that political discussion has gotten so toxic that most parents just prefer not to talk to their kids about it. When those kids get to college age or so and start taking an interest in the world around them, they are often without political socialization and have to start from scratch. That is where the cowed media and propaganda machine really fails the republic.
Watching the late night political satire can correct this. Tune in any night to any program and you will see a host shooting all kinds of holes in whatever the lies of the day are. This does two things, first it helps you see the lies and see through them, second it gives you the confidence that you are not alone and are under no obligation to treat the nonsense and vicious cruelty as anything but a ridiculous scam. And it is important to be able to resist while laughing. The trump crisis, president shithead himself, his cronies, the servile minions in the media, and his insane supporters are such a laughing stock that they make themselves easy targets for talented satirists.
The road back to a functioning democracy and a healthy republic with responsible discourse is going to be long and difficult. But it doesn't have to be all grim struggle as more sober commentators like Keith Olbermann present this quest. There is plenty of room for laughs. I hope you check out the link back to Vox, I know I will be looking into Prof. McClennen's findings more closely.
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