Targeting the Comics

The White House revs up attacks upon outspoken voices in TV entertainment.

Very little shocks me these days. But I was mouth agape from the South Park takedown of Trump that aired yesterday.

Wow, they really went there.

And bravo to that. Scholars of fascism know that a wannabe despot will face determined opposition from many forces: universities, judges, lawyers, civil rights advocates, a free press. He’ll go to war with all these institutions, just as Trump has with varying degrees of success.

But there’s one force that’s potentially more powerful and destabilizing to the regime than all of these: comedy.

You see, comedians and political satirists have a superpower. They can strip the leader of his absurd self-aggrandizements and lay him plainly before the people, revealing that the emperor truly has no clothes. The guys at South Park literally did this yesterday, depicting an obese, pale Trump wandering naked in the desert with nothing but his micro penis to keep him company.

Sorry for the visual, but these are the desperate, yet paradoxically hilarious, times we live in.

South Park’s mockery of Trump isn’t in a political vacuum. It comes on the heels of CBS canceling Stephen Colbert’s top-rated late night show, which officials have been suggesting that Trump had something to do with (duh). And it seems they aren’t done. Some are now suggesting that a show like The View lies in the White House’s crosshairs for cancellation because of its strong criticism of the Trump regime.

This is the beginning of a larger assault upon the comedians and hosts who very effectively bring anti-Trump sentiments before the masses. But as the South Park crew just proved, it’s a course the White House might be quite foolish to pursue.

Colbert isn’t shutting up

After Paramount/CBS announced it was canceling Colbert’s popular late night show next year, a cowed and chastened Colbert apologized for his outbursts and begged to be restored to his former position.

Just kidding! That might have been the move by Columbia University or the Paul, Weiss law firm. Colbert understands that capitulation and groveling will only encourage worse behavior, while Trump’s attack actually give him a bigger platform than ever.

After the cancellation announcement, Colbert sharpened his criticisms of Trump, declaring in his first show to air after the decision that the “gloves are off.” He even told the President to “go fuck yourself,” with fellow comedians John Oliver, Seth Meyers and Jon Stewart there in the studio audience to cheer him on.

On his own show, Stewart added his voice to the criticisms.

“The fact that CBS didn’t try to save their No. 1 rated late-night franchise that’s been on the air for over three decades is part of what’s making everybody wonder,” Stewart said. “Was this purely financial, or maybe the path of least resistance for your $8bn merger?”

“If you believe — as corporations or as networks — that you can make yourselves so innocuous that you can serve a gruel so flavorless that you will never again be on the boy king’s radar … Why would anyone watch you? And you are fucking wrong.”

You can listen to Stewart’s remarks on the cancellation of Colbert below at around the 20 minute mark.

The administration isn’t exactly running from the idea that it pressured Paramount to kill Colbert’s show. In an appearance on the Fox Network yesterday, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr lent that idea significant support. Asked whether Trump had anything to do with the cancellation of Colbert, Carr’s response was telling:

“When Trump ran for election, he ran right at these legacy broadcast media outfits and the New York and Hollywood elites that are behind it. And he smashed the facade that these are gatekeepers that can control what Americans think and what Americans can say.

And once you do that, you’ve exposed the business model of a lot of these outfits as being nothing more than a partisan circus. And so I think there’s a lot of consequences flowing from President Trump deciding, ‘I’m not going to play by the rules of politicians in the past and let these legacy outfits dictate the narrative and terms of the debate.’

And he’s succeeding. Just look at what’s happened. NPR’s been defunded. PBS has been defunded. Colbert is getting canceled. You’ve got anchors and news media personalities losing their jobs. Again, all of this is downstream from President Trump’s decision to stand up.”

The Fox host noted that he didn’t hear an answer, yes or no. Carr demurred, saying simply that it was not in the networks’ “profitable business interests” to keep someone like Colbert.

Is The View next?

Joy Behar recently remarked to her co-hosts on the popular talk show that Trump is “jealous of Obama” because “Obama is everything that he is not. Trim, smart, handsome, happily married, and can sing Al Green’s song ‘Let’s Stay Together’ better than Al Green. And Trump cannot stand it. It’s driving him crazy.”

Her comment came on the heels of Trump threatening to arrest Obama for “treason” based on an intentional misreading and distortion of intelligence around Russian interference in the 2016 election. That false claim is being pushed by none other than the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.

The comparison to Obama didn’t sit well with the thin-skinned president, and the White House decided it would respond. Assistant Press Secretary Taylor Rogers called Behar “an irrelevant loser suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.” Rogers added, “It’s no surprise that The View’s ratings hit an all-time low last year. She should self-reflect on her own jealousy of President Trump’s historic popularity before her show is the next to be pulled off air.”

Asked whether The View is now “in the crosshairs of this administration,” FCC Chair Carr piled on the threats, noting, “It’s entirely possible there are issues over there” before adding, “the consequences aren’t quite finished.”

South Park goes nuclear

This brings us back to South Park. Yesterday’s episode wasn’t just about mocking Trump’s physical form and alleged lack of certain attributes. It also ripped into Trump’s settlement with CBS and its parent company Paramount. It portrayed Trump terrorizing America and suing the town of South Park. And it compared Trump to Saddam Hussein while making him Satan’s new boyfriend—who has a real problem with the fact that Trump is in the Epstein files.

The Trump White House pretended it didn’t care, but there was certainly a high risk of ketchup hurlage. Rolling Stone had asked several Trump advisors if clips of the episode had been circulating among them, and one senior administration official admitted “of course” and said their phones had lit up over it.

White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers again lashed out directly at the show:

“Just like the creators of South Park, the Left has no authentic or original content, which is why their popularity continues to hit record lows. This show hasn’t been relevant for over 20 years and is hanging on by a thread with uninspired ideas in a desperate attempt for attention. President Trump has delivered on more promises in just 6 months than any other president in our country’s history — and no fourth-rate show can derail President Trump’s hot streak.”

Hasn’t been relevant? As a friend pointed out, there was only one thing that beat out Trump/Epstein in Google searches yesterday, and that was Trump/South Park.

The real kicker? The season 27 opener dropped just days after Paramount reached a $1.5 billion deal with creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the streaming rights to the show. For a show “hanging by a thread,” these guys sure cleaned up.

Asked at San Diego Comic-Con about their response to the reaction at the White House, the creators deadpanned, “We’re terribly sorry,” to the laughter of the audience.

Going to the mat with Colbert, The View and South Park are fights that the White House may regret picking. As with the Epstein files, the more Trump complains and attacks, the greater the public interest will grow. And the more despotic and censorial Trump becomes, the sharper the responses will be.

That’s the other superpower of this kind of entertainment: Strike it down, and it will grow more powerful than Trump could possibly imagine.