Political Satire, Postmodern Reality, and the Trump Presidency: Who Are We Laughing At? 1498562574, 9781498562577

Citation preview

Political Satire, Postmodern Reality, and the Trump Presidency

Politics and Comedy: Critical Encounters Series Editor: Julie A. Webber, Illinois State University This series brings scholars of political comedy together in order to examine the effect of humor and comedy in a political way. The series has three main components. Political Comedy Encounters Neoliberalism aims to look at how comedy disrupts or reinforces dominant ideologies under neoliberalism, including but not limited to forms of authority, epistemological certainties bred by market centrality, prospects for democratic thought and action, and the implications for civic participation. Political Comedy as Cultural Text examines the relationship between the more bizarre elements of contemporary politics and comedy, including but not limited to countersubversive narratives that challenge or reinforce anti-democratic political authority and market thought, radical social movements that seek to undermine it, and political comedy’s relationship to the cultural unconscious. Lastly, the series welcomes proposals for scholarship that tracks the context in which comedy and politics interact. Political Comedy in Context follows the intersection of politics and comedy in viral, mediated, and affective environments.

Titles Published Political Satire, Postmodern Reality, and the Trump Presidency: Who Are We Laughing At? by Mehnaaz Momen

Political Satire, Postmodern Reality, and the Trump Presidency Who Are We Laughing At?

Mehnaaz Momen

LEXINGTON BOOKS

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL, United Kingdom Copyright © 2019 The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data ISBN 978-1-4985-6257-7 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4985-9275-8 (electronic) ∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America

To Anis, for making me laugh, always!

Contents

List of Images

ix

Acknowledgmentsxi Introductionxiii Part I: Our Postmodern (Un)Reality How Is the Media Postmodern? Why Are Irony and Parody the Language of Postmodernism? The Structural Reality of the Postmodern Media What Is Political in the Postmodern World?

1 1 17 42 56

Part II: Satire as Political Performance What Is Satire? Political Satire in Cartoons What Is Satire in the Present Political Context? The Postmodern Fusion of Politics and Entertainment

93 93 107 131 144

Part III: The Inevitable Trump Presidency The Presidency and the Media The Modus Operandi of the Trump Campaign How Do Trump Supporters Relate to Popular Culture? This Election Did Not Take Place

175 175 196 216 232

Conclusion267 Selected Bibliography

285

Index293 About the Author

299 vii

List of Images

Image 1.1 Image 2.1 Image 2.2 Image 2.3 Image 2.4 Image 2.5 Image 2.6 Image 2.7 Image 2.8 Image 2.9 Image 2.10 Image 2.11 Image 2.12 Image 2.13 Image 2.14

Mission Accomplished The Looking Glass for 1787 Gerrymandering Columbia Teaching John Bull His New Lesson Old Zack Taylor Is the Man! A Downright Gabbler Congressional Scales King Andrew the First The Boss of the Ring Running the “Machine” “The Nigger” in the Woodpile Puck Cover of McKinley: Declined with Thanks Puck Cover of Uncle Sam: No Limit Judge Cover: Another Voice for Cleveland Puck Cover: Another Shotgun Wedding with Neither Party Willing Image 2.15 Judge Cover: It Ought to be a Happy New Year: Uncle Sam and John Bull Image 3.1 President Ford and Chevy Chase Image 3.2 Melania Trump’s Jacket Image 3.3 Trump Wrestling with CNN Image 3.4 Trump with Bloodstained Shoe

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19 111 112 113 114 115 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 127 128 181 202 225 226

Acknowledgments

This book started quite unexpectedly with a conference presentation which I did more as a labor of love back in January 2017. The focus at that time was to explore the significance of late-night satire in our political lives. The following two years with Trump at the helm of government forced me to rethink my own understanding of satire and to dig deeper into its history and evolution to figure out its current meaning. Although this journey has been filled with laughter and frustration, it has also tarnished my one source of pleasure, as I am now unable to enjoy satire without analyzing its structural make-up and intended implications. I want to thank the library staff at my school, Texas A&M International University, for helping me to sort out copyright issues for the material on the Internet. Two of our graduate assistants, Martha Lerma and Erica Benavides, helped me with much of the transcription. A large part of the research for this book was done at the University of Texas at Austin library and I thank that institution and their helpful staff as well. The cartoons used in this book are from the public domain images at the Library of Congress; detailed references are in the text. Late-night satire shows such as The Daily Show, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Real Time with Bill Maher, Late Night with Seth Meyers, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, and others now archive their material on their own YouTube channels. Hence the transcriptions of many of these videos use YouTube as the source of citation. My friends and family have always been at my side, and I would especially like to thank my mother, my sister Nausheen, and my friends Moniza, Miti, Laila, Elora, and Gemini. I wish my dad could have seen this book.

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My association with satire is intertwined with the way I enjoyed watching late-night satire with Anis, with whom I continue to have vigorous arguments about satire and politics. Without his inspiration, input, and especially editing, this book would not have come to fruition. This book is dedicated to Anis, for sustaining laughter in our lives, through the darkest of times.

Introduction

This book attempts to understand a paradigm shift in American politics through the lens of satire. Political satire has a long and colorful history intertwined with the formation of the nation—in verse, cartoons, and performances—as it attempts to capture the people’s unease and convey it with humor, lampooning those who abuse power. While doing so, political satire constructs a cultural memory that taps into the formation of identity and nationalism. This meaning of satire works only where it thrives on common consensus about reality, follows accepted cultural codes, and is consumed by a constitutive part of the population. Political satire has come a long way as it now occupies a central place on American television and its programs are available in multiple formats throughout the world, but its audience base is homogenous with respect to political affiliation. The underlying factors that have shaped political satire in its current iteration are comprised of several strands, all of which reached critical mass and a degree of prominence in the 1990s: satire moved from the counterculture to the mainstream; television, which at first had allowed only limited space to political satire, opened itself to satirists seeking new audiences; the conglomeration of media networks made possible the creation of a worldwide audience; the synergistic nexus of globalization, technological advancement, and neoliberalism became clearly discernible; and politics and entertainment became inextricably fused on television. All of these trends and transitions reflect parts of the story that reached fruition in the 2016 election, where President Trump was elected, embodying what I consider a major turning point in American history. This bigger story contains various subplots that are embodied in the rise of the neoliberal economy, the acceptance of postmodernism as the primary cultural code, and the role of the voyeur superseding that of the engaged citizen. It is only through understanding each of these pieces and connecting them that we can xiii

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comprehend the political transformation that is currently occurring. In this book I am using the evolution of political satire as a means to find my way in this apparently chaotic paradigm switch that has so loudly announced itself. Political satire started out as a mode of pure entertainment for me, as I appreciated the quick wit and jab of the satirists in the relatively tame 1990s; during the Bush presidency, however, its significance to my life greatly amplified in degree and substance. As satirists like Jon Stewart voiced opposition to many Bush administration policies, late-night television became a solace for me, a place with like-minded people asking the questions that I had on my mind. Later I would understand that much of the satire I liked so much during the early Bush years fell into the category of the relief or release theory of laughter, a common mode that seems most suited to authoritarian regimes where legitimate avenues of opposition are few and far between. Political opinion is seldom explicitly forbidden in American culture; rather, the participants follow implicit rules of self-censorship. The line which determines what is permissible and what is not is ambiguous and keeps moving. This elusive line became tangible when, for example, Bill Maher’s show was canceled because he asserted that the 9/11 terrorists were not cowards. The larger context of his denunciation of terrorists was ignored as attention became fixated on one particular description considered offensive to American soldiers. Press secretary Ari Fleischer chimed in with his approval of Maher being fired, highlighting the permeable sphere of politics and entertainment. Thankfully, that line eventually shifted toward greater normalcy, allowing the vigorous censure of the Bush administration, in news and in satire, on television and in real life. The two other types of humor theory informing the structure and purpose of satire are superiority theory and incongruity theory. Satire derived from superiority theory focuses on personas, revealing their deceptions to illuminate the audience about specific fraudulent behaviors. While it is less subtle than the art of relief or release, it creates a distance between the target and the audience, as the laughter comes from recognizing that we are morally superior to those who are deceitful. This form of satire is usually directed against particular persons, groups, or events, and is rarely hurled against an entire system as is true of the relief or release mode. Relief or release theory delegitimizes the total structure, whereas superiority theory points at the disjunctures in the system in order to remedy the lapses. During the Bush administration, once it became permissible to judge the radical policies, most political satire changed from the release or relief mode to superiority; the focus moved to individual officials in the administration, rarely the underlying principles of American empire which had nurtured troublesome reactions and counter responses. The debacles of the Bush presidency offered the perfect opening to satirists. They kept us entertained as we hungrily consumed

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the nasty takedowns of government follies and demanded more. We laughed long and hard at the Bush administration, its supporters, its spokespeople— above all, the Fox News Channel—in short, everyone deemed to belong to the opposing team. This feature of sectionalism is not new in either politics or audience bias; but what was new and lasting in this instance was that the penchant for partisanship solidified through satire, coalescing into stable communities which made it a habit to censure politicians belonging to rival squads. Finally, the incongruity theory of laughter demands the coexistence and contrast of the real and the absurd, in order to convey a hidden or supplemental meaning to the inconsistency. Political satirists have turned out to be quite adroit in fulfilling this checklist. Using multiple frames to juxtapose various lies and misstatements through readily available cultural codes that we can all decipher, satirists have constructed durable spectacles to entertain us to such a degree that our thirst for satire for its own sake has only intensified. Within a decade of the start of the Comedy Central channel, the number of satirists performing on late-night television, their status in the cultural domain, and, most importantly, their role as political experts, became established and magnified. Stephen Colbert heightened our expectations from parody—satire which is personalized—when he adopted the persona of a right-wing pundit, in order to shame the disingenuous framing of political news that has been flooding television. In the Trump era, incongruity makes eminent sense and has evolved as the cherished device of comedians. Incongruity is a wonderful method to uncover trickeries, as satirists have amply shown us; however, when fraudulent behavior is performed on the open stage, this sharp and artful apparatus loses its edge. This turns out to be one of my important deductions about contemporary satire, when I analyze to what extent satire succeeds in inspiring us to become politically involved because of its revelations. Along with these three classifications, I also look at the function of satire: whether it normalizes the excesses it criticizes by making them seem laughable, or whether it questions the systemic reasons for the failings in order to bring everyone closer to the problem. It is an intriguing expedition to figure out the blind spots of each category of satire, its slippages and fault lines, and its correspondences to existing economic and political mythologies. Throughout the book I have pointed out when satire seems normalizing and when it seems questioning, as satirists operate in both modes. The normalizing approach consoles us even when it exhibits gross violations, because the underlying assumption is that only the people who are being laughed at are engaged in abuse of power. We can shame them to address the surfeit and return to normalcy. On the other hand, the questioning form of satire shakes our presumption of innocence by linking us with the target of ridicule, because it unearths the systemic or historic constructions of the misuse of power. When the Iraq War is presented as a mistake of the Bush

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administration, satire, irrespective of the sharpness of its tone, is operating as a normalizing agent. But satire in the questioning mode situates the Iraq War within the rubric of American foreign policy and its history of aggression, enabling it to agitate the audience’s cognitive framework pertaining to war even with mild jests. One of the striking features of contemporary satire is its postmodern essence. Since postmodernism makes room for all kinds of contradictions and ironies to exist on the same field, it seems appropriate for satirists to be postmodern in their performance. The embrace of postmodernism in the media did not start with satire, but satire certainly explicated this outlook for its viewers. The concepts of hyperreality, simulacra, and integral reality, introduced by Baudrillard, seem like indispensable tools to uncover the layers of meaning of contemporary satire and its connections with reality. Simulacra is the process of copying and replicating reality, usually through images, but what is produced during this passage subverts the meaning of the original that was being imitated. Disneyland is often viewed as one of the most tangible examples of simulacra. First-order simulacra attempt to resemble the reality as closely as possible, while second-order efforts often convey the opposite meaning of the reality they reflect. This is also known as hyperreality, where the replica of the reality ends up meaning something quite different from the original version. We have experienced hyperreality in the countless projections of the Bush administration when they hailed the liberty and freedom of the Iraqi people even as they were occupied in their own country. Third-order simulacra manifest without any pretense, so that all manipulations of the truth take place as necessary parts of the performance; the Trump administration is following Baudrillard’s script quite faithfully to showcase their lies as reality. The coining of the expression “alternative facts,” and its clear overlap with Colbert’s “truthiness” which endorses gut feelings over empirical reality, is nothing but hyperreal because it is brazenly transparent. Images play an integral role in the construction of hyperreality, and technology paves the way for these figurations in the realm of integral reality, where all symbols become unattached from reality and their meaning becomes self-contained. Simulacra and hyperreality appear authentic not because they genuinely reproduce any sort of reality, but because of their wide acceptance. In this book I have tried to elucidate how the media makes room for these processes and how these performances are being paraded, erasing the blurring boundaries between reality and falsehood, politics and satire. The Bush administration is often credited with creating the ideal stage for satire with its blatant duplicities, shameless attempts to distort the truth, and often risible lies accompanied by the tenacity of claims refuting objective facts. My argument is that they exploited a matchless platform to display their flair for playing with the truth throughout the media, which was already

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obsessed with the spectacular after the rise of technology which allowed representations of unreality as reality, and after the neoliberal transition in communications which offered a global stage for a value-free yet sharply partisan political game. I rely on postmodernism to decipher how these codes were applied and how and why the audience reacted to these theatrical productions. The power of shared cultural codes helps us to decipher meanings undergoing transitions, and to intercept and interpret the dizzying landscape of signs and symbols. I often turn to Saturday Night Live (SNL) in this book because this show has for a long time astutely chronicled presidential politics and scandals, with a great deal of exuberance and relevance. Jonathan Gray considers the SNL brand of humor as more of a parody than satire, where having fun becomes more important than handing out scathing denunciations.1 I would argue, however, that SNL has established a cultural code broader than political exposition, and serves as a useful historical reference point to illuminate the transitions in media frames that are accepted by the mass audience. As I discuss in detail later, one of the rare nuanced analyses of Trump supporters on late-night TV came by way of an SNL sketch where Tom Hanks appears as a white supporter of Trump; although the Hanks character is racist (this is clearly implied), he shares many common traits with minorities who are afraid of and despise Trump. This is the sort of insightful satire that contains many layers of meaning and delivers a shock to our worldview to allow us to consider alternate viewpoints and thus enrich the overall cultural conversation. Moreover, SNL and its predecessors paved the way for contemporary stand-up comedians and political satirists, and therefore are an important part of this narration. I analyze the messages of a number of present-day satirists like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Samantha Bee, Seth Meyers, John Oliver, Bill Maher, and the like as examples of what works as satire and what doesn’t, and whether or not it has any impact upon the political reality we inhabit. All these investigations lead to the divergent meanings of present-day satire held by satirists, the media, audiences, and political players trying to negotiate the complex landscape. What often gets lost in the intellectual discourse around the media is how foundational changes in the media—issues related to production, ownership, and viewership—are very much responsible for allowing the postmodern outlook to flourish on television. Along with new global sensibilities and the technological apparatus which allowed us to enjoy such connections, the American economy opened itself up to the global market, removing barriers to participation for stakeholders and elevating profits over all other criteria—the phenomenon known as neoliberalism. Neoliberalism was based on a consensus regarding the economic power of the state between liberals (who believed in strong states to deliver the best possible services to the most number of people) and conservatives (who believed in the market as a sacred

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space to be safeguarded from the state); the ideological conflict regarding the role of the state between the two groups diverged from the political realm and started taking place predominantly in the cultural arena. These encounters were framed more as culture wars than policy disagreements, which made for more accessible stories. This is not to claim that partisan fights over the budget or rolling back the welfare state do not occur, but that these skirmishes are also framed in the new lexicon of personal responsibility (privatization of public services), proof of eligibility (welfare reform), and economic rationality (trade treaties), which both parties have accepted. The American media underwent an extensive makeover in the 1990s, with deregulation allowing unprecedented media consolidation as a result of the neoliberal outlook. During this era a new technological threshold was crossed, making it possible for a handful of broadcasters to own most of the channels, reach viewers worldwide, and offer a never-ending multitude of programming to new audiences. Globalization allowed the networks to fully utilize their profit-making potential, which in turn allowed cable channels to design programs for specific audience groups and nurture individual niches, rather than competing with each other for the same share of viewers. In the 1990s, Comedy Central used this technique of narrowcasting to build its audience base and to maximize the benefits by responding to the demands of viewers for multiple programs catering to the same tastes. With worldwide audiences and 24/7 space to entertain them, the media redefined entertainment for the neoliberal age and delivered everything—political news, international conflicts, and domestic scuffles—as entertainment. Political satire in the visual media, especially after September 11, has emerged as one of the most powerful tools of criticism not only against government and other power nodes, but also perhaps as the apparatus to hold them accountable to such an extent that our expectations from television reporters and satirists seem to have converged. Unlike previous generations of satire and parody which took place in periodicals and cartoon strips, the new manifestation of satire is both visual and performative, and easily accessible in a plethora of media; these characteristics have made political satire central to entertainment as well as political dialogue. Although the horrendous tragedy of 9/11 and its aftermath of two senseless wars provided fertile ground for satire to flourish by providing a new foundation for political analysis, the relevance of structural changes in media ownership cannot be underscored enough in changing how broadcasters began to reach out to viewers. One significant impact of media concentration has been to cultivate multiple new audience compartments rather than competing for audiences from a perceived limited pool. As globalization and technological innovation expanded audiences worldwide, satire started enjoying a much larger territory than had ever been accorded to it.

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While the background to satire—where it takes place within the cultural codes of postmodernism and the new structural realities of media concentration—is significant, the text of satire—how it has evolved from its historic form in literature and cartoons—is the other important part of the story. Here I look at the historic role of satire as a form of political agency; the normalizing and questioning patterns of satire and the current state of satire as politics and entertainment have conflated into a single form. When I studied the literary origins of satire, I found that the most important component was self-reflection, where people laughed at others only to realize that they possessed the same flaws. Although the focus of my analysis is contemporary American satire on late-night television, I take necessary detours into the parallel worlds of literary and cartoon satire to decipher common traits and points of divergence. Historically, starting in colonial America, we find that satire owned considerable stature as a principal method of political criticism. Humor—mostly in the form of parody in prose or verse or comic strips—has been an age-old tradition in American politics, predating the Revolutionary years. The American Revolution set the stage for much sarcasm and ridicule, and the tradition of disparaging political adversaries through sharp wit and bitter taunts has remained an American staple. American politicians have often been judged by whether they can handle such scorn and whether they have the ability to laugh at themselves. The cartoons in their depiction of political events and personalities have been no less witty, harsh, or virulent than their descendants in the digital or virtual manifestations. The political satire that emerged in sketches was etched on woodcuts, which then evolved into cartoons for magazine covers and newspapers for a long time. Satire eventually became performance in front of live audiences, which in turn was the model emulated in the digital media, where the reach of the audience has only magnified. Although my focus is on performative satire that takes place on television, it is helpful to go back to the roots of satire to appreciate the conversion from the literary to the visual format, which also seems to have involved losing the rebellious spirit of dissent to becoming absorbed into mainstream polemics. When I delved into the history of political satire on American television, I was surprised to find that before the Watergate scandal political jokes were not considered fit for family consumption and were mostly absent from the visual media. During the time that political satire was missing from television, it was thriving on the stand-up stage, with comedians protesting social, political, and religious mores and contributing to the strength of the c­ ounterculture. It was only in the late 1990s that political satire officially moved from the counterculture to mainstream culture. It is true that SNL, the longestrunning comedy show, has been on television since 1975, but without the onset of the Comedy Channel, most present-day satirists would be confined

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to improv theaters. One of the key questions I address is how this transition from the counterculture to the mainstream media has impacted the nature and quality of political satire. The transition of satire from the page to the screen has been a momentous process, affected by changes in political behavior, the role of the media in politics, and the economic and cultural transformations that have shaped both the media and politics and their interconnections. Unsurprisingly, while domestic political conflicts have led to unforgiving satire and tough portrayals of politicians, foreign wars have typically thrust open a more jingoistic and xenophobic vein in American humor. Compared to its literary predecessors, television was rather slow to embrace satire as part of political analysis and mostly opted for safer humor that appealed to a mainstream audience. Even in the turbulent 1960s, the media rarely reflected the reality that was being subverted in culture and politics. The Watergate scandal shifted the bar on the depth and intensity of political comedy, making it acceptable to savage the president in more mainstream forums, and turning humor into an important device of speaking truth to power. Throughout the 1980s and well into the 1990s, political satire continued to have limited assigned space, SNL remaining one of the more intelligent venues, which may have been a reflection of waning political participation. Satire came out as a significant branch of entertainment as well as being a major narrative driver of politics in the late 1990s, reaching new heights after the events of September 11. The portrayal of politics in the media has started following the same principles that go into designing long-running popular shows, which narrate predetermined themes sparked by catchy slogans and provide little room for nuance, avoid complex issues, and reaffirm audience prejudices. Since the space for political presentation has become virtual, visual, and performative, political figures soon absorbed the desire to be popular and remain in the spotlight at any cost. The full circuit of this unhealthy give-and-take between politics and entertainment is represented by the victory of Donald Trump, who successfully applied the touchstones of success on reality TV to politics and changed it forever. The subtext of my thesis is the real-life implications of the metamorphosis in the media and satire that parallels a major paradigm shift in American politics. The 2016 election was unusual because it followed the barometers and yardsticks of satire more than the criteria of political campaigns, and was successful in proving most of the punditry wrong. The fact that Trump’s campaign passionately embraced a number of strategies from the entertainment industry represents a fateful event to study the evolution of satire, the media, and political practices. The events following his ascension to the presidency have provided so much material that almost no effort is needed to add a comic touch to serious events, spelling trouble for satire.

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A number of scholarly works attempt to gauge the significance of political satire in generating political acculturation and engagement. Sophia A. McClennen has emerged as a major voice in arguing how satire has impacted news coverage and established itself as an effective tool of democratic participation by both providing information and encouraging involvement. Two of her books, America According to Colbert: Satire as Public Pedagogy (2011)2 and Is Satire Saving Our Nation?: Mockery and American Politics (2014, with Remy M. Maisel),3 in particular focus on the new ideas of participation invigorated by satirists like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. She hails satirists as being able to reach large numbers of audiences and turning them on to politics with their postmodern zeitgeist. While I agree with McClennen’s appraisal of satire as ingenious and informative, I diverge from the assertion that satire is engaging us politically. My difference stems from my understanding of the media, where politics and entertainment have both changed meaning, so that what counts as engagement is often mere participation as a voyeur. In A Decade of Dark Humor: How Comedy, Irony, and Satire Shaped Post-9/11 America (2011),4 the editors, Ted Gournelos and Viveca S. Greene, have collected articles that explore how the discourse of satire has operated amid the politics of fear and manifested in the context of a neoliberal economy. I am mostly in agreement with much of the analyses in this volume, but what I try to do is to connect the current disposition of satire with its past and what I understand to be its future. Amber Day has focused on the styles of different kinds of satire and their consequences for activism, as she analyzes the new public sphere of late-night television in her book Satire and Dissent: Interventions in Contemporary Political Debate (2011).5 My query is concerned more with the factors that have shaped both satire and activism in the neoliberal and postmodern political landscape. Alison Dagnes has dissected liberal and conservative ideology in contemporary political humor in A Conservative Walks Into a Bar: The Politics of Political Humor (2012).6 Satire, according to Dagnes, tends to be liberal because it is inherently anti-establishment; conservatism, on the other hand, tends to repudiate humor as it believes in social harmony, not dissatisfaction. But I argue that tangible partisan preferences have replaced more diffuse ideological orientation as the basis of political satire. Furthermore, regardless of ideological underpinnings, contemporary satire attempts to normalize rather than question the overall foundation, thereby trying to preserve the system and sanitize it from excess. In Strange Bedfellows: How Late-Night Comedy Turns Democracy Into a Joke (2008),7 Russell L. Peterson walks us through history to show the evolution of late-night television and asks whether or not the value of objectivity has been submerged in collective laughter. I reach a similar conclusion via a different route, because I doubt whether satirists had ever accumulated such power. Rather, the transition where politics has

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turned into entertainment seems to me a consequence of neoliberalism and globalization, which simultaneously empowered media conglomeration and depoliticized both media and the public sphere. Julie A. Webber has analyzed how political issues are translated into cultural codes in her book, The Cultural Set Up of Comedy: Affective Politics in the United States Post 9/11.8 My findings further illuminate the blurring boundaries between the cultural and political domains, as values connected to entertainment emerge as the operating principle for what gets displayed in either arena or what is perceived as permissible in public discourse. The questions I am most curious about are inspired by all these scholarly contributions but are somewhat different. My questions are not only about the role of satire in the political arena, but about why and how this role has evolved, and its interrelations with both the media and political self-understanding. I am interested in the twin aspects of globalization and neoliberalism which shape the media in a particular way and assign a different space for satire than was traditionally allowed. Rather than looking at the political order and analyzing whether it has been tarnished through media coverage or focusing on political satire as a tool to engage people, I look at both satire and the media as part of the intertwined political, economic, cultural, and technological processes, and try to expose how they are connected and how they impact the political discourse. Can the media—and especially satirists—capture the whole extent of political development? If not, which parts are left out and why? I accept the media as the most important part of the public sphere, and want to compare and contrast the discussions in this realm, especially those taking place on late-night comedy in response to real political events. I include in the mainstream media the cable TV channels which profess to produce political news and information accessible to most Americans. And I focus on postmodernism as a worldview that dominates the media and its presentation of politics today. By adopting that particular framework, it may be easier to understand how satire is implicated in the broader course of political evolution, although I am also keenly aware that the paradigm of postmodernism may not be entirely applicable to the overall political dynamic. The book is organized in three sections: the context, the text, and the subtext of political satire. First I delve into the context, namely the meaning of postmodernism, and the language of postmodernism that orients contemporary satire. The production of satire is being defined not only by cultural codes, but also by basic changes in the media stemming from globalization and concentration of ownership. What is deemed political in the new reality? This structural foundation is the backdrop where satire is performed. To analyze the text of satire, I look at history, evaluating the role satire played when it was mainly being enacted in the literary or cartoon forms. I want to access the cultural memory of political satire to identify the continuities and

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discontinuities between different forms of satire. These explorations into the text of political satire highlight the unique characteristics and nuances of present-day satire. The most interesting discovery for me has been how politics and entertainment have become fused into one another, and the way in which different realignments in the media and politics have facilitated such an amalgamation. This leads to the final section involving the subtext, namely how politics has responded to the new reality of the media and the refreshed language of satire. The Trump campaign and presidency seem to me to be the culminating manifestations of the dominance of entertainment over politics. My argument is that the Trump presidency is the ideal embodiment of the new political norms implied by the limited political space allocated to the citizen in the neoliberal economy where space is opened up for engagement only as an audience member. The three sections of the book progress as follows: Our Postmodern (Un)Reality: This section is about the cultural codes, structural framework, and political truths that set the stage for contemporary satire. I am looking for answers to the following questions: (a) What are the characteristics that make the media postmodern? (b) Has the postmodern media produced a culture of irony? (c) How did political satire come to occupy a central stage in the media? and (d) What is actually political in the postmodern world? The analysis of postmodernism in terms of its theory is contrasted and complemented with examples from political satire, which enables us to assess why and how the media is postmodern, and why irony, the dominant tone of postmodernism, resonates with people, especially the younger generation. How does postmodernism, thriving on multiple perspectives without connecting or being objective about those perspectives, impact our political sensitivity? Has the postmodern sensibility created disjunctures among the audience who are now so divided in their beliefs and perceptions that the media, or even popular culture in general, fail to promote a collective message? Irony was pronounced to be dead in the aftermath of the post-9/11 world, along with postmodernism, with the presumed boost provided to the resurgence of clarity and the arrival of a clear enemy. Yet it was in the wake of September 11 that satire came into its own as a political mechanism, often as the only available avenue to question the anomalies of the war on terror and other disconcerting developments. How influential has postmodernism been in politics and popular culture? I analyze how postmodernity has been the recurrent theme that has recently carved our politics, popular culture, and satire, and why irony is such an essential outlook in the postmodern cosmos. In this new reality, there is little room for discussing tangible issues, such as economic inequality caused by neoliberalism; instead, the questions that draw attention are those that can generate the greatest emotional response. I use examples such as Bill Maher and Larry Wilmore to help us evaluate the

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parameters of journalistic freedom and the position of minorities in American political dialogue. Maher’s old show was canceled because of his political incorrectness, yet his new show is critical of various cultural causes beloved to both the left and the right, and also promotes Islamophobia. Wilmore was one of the rare minority comedians with a late-night show, which got canceled, leaving a gap in minority representation. On the political front, I contrast the concrete victories of the Tea Party movement, which used oldfashioned political tactics of co-optation, to the relative lack of success of Occupy Wall Street (OWS), which operated within the archetype of postmodern sensibility. By comparing and contrasting these two significant political movements, I illustrate the consequences when politics functions like entertainment in the new economy, distracting people with superficial information and spectacular presentation rather than delving into deep analysis of root causes. Unlike OWS, the Tea Party has been successful in merging the spectacular with political strategy, hence its dominance over the Republican Party has occurred rather smoothly. By contrasting real political movements with how they are interpreted by political satire I believe we can further our knowledge about the parallel but porous worlds of politics and satire. Satire as Political Participation: This section attends to satire in literary history and in cartoons, and tries to investigate the state of contemporary satire by looking at the different dynamics that have gone into establishing the present mode of satire. The most important questions for me are the following: (a) How is satire understood in different mediums? (b) What has been the role of satire in American history? (c) What are some unique characteristics of present-day satire? and (d) What has been the impact on satire once the two worlds of politics and entertainment collided? This section is an analysis of the meaning and role of satire dating from its earliest literary origins, its triumphs and tribulations as a political vehicle throughout American history, its transformations and challenges in multiple formats, and its role and selfperception in the present setting. Cartoon and magazine satire, especially the examples that best capture and illustrate the stature of satire in American history, are highlighted as historical comparison points. How do the meanings and expectations of satire differ for its past iterations than today? The practice of satire originates in literature but the meanings of satire have changed over time, responding to the particular medium where it happens to be housed. Literary forms themselves undergo many transitions. For example, slam poetry which is so popular today would probably not have been accepted in the literary world a few decades ago. Popular culture has also experienced tremendous expansion in addressing the growing diversity and multiculturalism of our changing society. The focus of political satire in popular culture is on immediate events or the vagaries of political figures, but not so much on self-reflection. Literature, while being censorious, can be

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self-reflective and can draw attention to the contradictions in the social being of the reader, while satire in popular culture today is a different phenomenon. The scope of satire that is being performed today is much narrower, even though it can be argued that it covers political issues more extensively and reaches out to much larger sections of the audience. One exemplary instance is Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, the Super PAC initiated by Colbert which has been helpful in understanding the issue of Super PACs in our political order, and yet has resulted in zero policy impact following the initiative. The Inevitable Trump Presidency: This section consists of an analysis of Trump’s success in winning a presidential election using the tactics and strategies of reality TV and the business of entertainment. My argument is that both the space for political engagement and its rules have been drastically altered to follow the measures of the world of entertainment, and Trump was the first candidate to follow the new rules without any pretense and deliver a winning performance. The most important questions here for me are the following: (a) What are the conditions intrinsic to relations between the media and the presidency? (b) What was the modus operandi of the Trump campaign? (c) How do Trump supporters relate to popular culture? and (d) Where did this election actually take place? I will walk readers through the last few decades to show how politics has become more of a performance than any real debate over principled positions. The analysis of frames within which presidential candidates have been presented on SNL illustrates this point in a meaningful way. It is generally conceded that the attention Trump got from the media and from the leading champions of political satire actually ended up helping him by not only providing him with much more free airtime than he would otherwise have obtained—which meant much greater name recognition and curiosity among voters—but also because the scorching criticism directed against him did not sit well with those who did not wish to be denizens of the alternate space political satire has created for them. During the eighteenmonth debacle of the Trump campaign, political satirists had a field day but never realized that they were missing out on a large group who happened to be real voters and Trump supporters. If the role of political satire has been to present politics as entertainment, Trump has had the last laugh by adopting the criteria of entertainment and applying them to his campaign and winning the election. As a shrewd businessman, Trump recognized that politics had indeed become entertainment and used his skills as a showman to the best efficacy. We were unable to look away from the show and witnessed the point where reality and satire intersected like never before. I focus on the media attention Trump got as a candidate, and has continued getting as president, in order to decipher how he has been projected and how this has translated into political information and served as the basis for voter choices.

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In short, my book is an in-depth analysis of the phenomenon of the takeover of politics by entertainment. I try to find answers in the parallel evolution of satire, the media, and politics, and how each has influenced the other and the implications of this interconnectedness. I focus on popular culture for a deeper understanding of the significance of politics in American life, and the easy transition that seems to have occurred from being engaged citizens to aggrieved observers of politics. This merger of entertainment and politics has occurred in an environment of two major economic and cultural shifts: the rise of the neoliberal economy structured around globalization and corporate power; and the growing dominance of postmodern consciousness that has unmoored social and political understanding, replacing it with fleeting cognizance which cannot be generalized for a collective audience. I explore the role of political satire within these changed dynamics to locate the parameters of the space for democracy or engaged citizenry it promises. This brings me to my final questions: Is satire serving any political or ideological purpose other than entertainment, or is it a mere reflection of the broader political theater which has become more like entertainment than a space for meaningful engagement? What are its larger aims and effects, and how has the younger generation—arguably its key audience—been shaped in their political attitudes over the last twenty years? The rise of the Comedy Central channel in the late 1990s heralded the surge of contemporary satire catering to millennials. Political satire has profound implications for the health or illness of the polity, because in the first place it can create isolation, solitariness, and self-justification rather than conversation across political divides, but it can also create a stronger self-conception of one’s strength as a citizen compared to abstract forces. Is one of the trends stronger than the other, or are both tendencies in effect simultaneously? The contribution of this book is to examine political satire in its entirety, focusing on its transition in becoming a part of the mainstream media, and to elucidate its changing role in American politics, appreciating how it intertwines with our role as democratic citizens. Obviously, we have to pay attention to how these dynamics intersect with changes in format and technology, responding to different demands in politics and the economy. I also want to add to the existing analyses of satire by discussing not only how it influences political information and engagement, but, more importantly, why the enhanced knowledge and advocacy fail to have an impact upon real policy change. My analysis of current American political satire prioritizes its production and evolution in different formats, its connection with the exigencies of the material political world in which it is situated, and its limitations due to broader factors in political culture which seem on the surface to be open to change but are in reality stubbornly resistant.

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NOTES 1. Jonathan Gray, Jeffrey P. Jones, and Ethan Thompson, “The State of Satire, the Satire of State,” in Satire TV: Politics and Comedy in the Post-Network Era, edited by Jonathan Gray, Jeffrey P. Jones, and Ethan Thompson (New York: NYU Press, 2009), 3–36. 2. Sophia A. McClennen, America According to Colbert: Satire as Public Pedagogy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). 3. Sophia A. McClennen and Remy M. Maisel, Is Satire Saving Our Nation? Mockery and American Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). 4. Ted Gournelos and Viveca S. Greene, eds., A Decade of Dark Humor: How Comedy, Irony, and Satire Shaped Post-9/11 America (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2011). 5. Amber Day, Satire and Dissent: Interventions in Contemporary Political Debate (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2011). 6. Alison Dagnes, A Conservative Walks Into A Bar: The Politics of Political Humor (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012). 7. Russell L. Peterson, Strange Bedfellows: How Late-Night Comedy Turns Democracy Into a Joke (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008). 8. Julie A. Webber, The Cultural Set Up of Comedy: Affective Politics in the United States Post 9/11 (Bristol: Intellect, 2013).

Part I

Our Postmodern (Un)Reality

HOW IS THE MEDIA POSTMODERN? This chapter of the book deals with the larger political contexts of media and satire, in terms of how they are shaped and perceived in the era of postmodernism and neoliberalism. My analysis of postmodernity is primarily concerned with the way it is responsible for reshaping the media by creating a space for counterintuitive elements to coexist without apparent conflict. Globalization and massive deregulation have allowed television cable channels to offer different programs to selected parts of the audience without the pressure of competition; as a result, political news has been packaged and presented in an increasingly sensationalist and entertaining garb. The presentation of politics through the media has had a circular impact on shaping priorities in politics, as the performative aspects of politics have gained prominence by being showcased on television. At some point, most clearly evident in the era of Trump, we discover that politics and entertainment have largely become indistinguishable from each other. My argument is that while satire continues to function as an important political tool in the current setting, its resolve and tenacity are decreasing in an age where reality has turned sharply postmodern. First let’s look at the concept of postmodernism, an idea that appears as a shapeshifter and can often seem incoherent at its core. In his seminal work The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (1979), Francois Lyotard has made us aware of the paradigm change from modernism, arguing that the frame of postmodernism is as applicable to the social sciences as it is to the world of art. While modernity rests on metanarrative, objectivity, and purpose, postmodernism operates in the spheres of distrust, ambiguity, subjectivity, and disconnection. Postmodernism begins with disbelieving the modern and deconstructing its narrative.1 Rather than exploring its theoretical 1

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framework or a specific time span during which it developed, my interest lies in the impulses or tendencies of postmodernism insofar as they impact the media and satire. For example, Lyotard’s focus on language and narrative seems particularly useful as a tool to decipher and decode the changes in the rationale of American television broadcasting which occurred in the 1990s. Postmodernism happens to follow such a circuitous and ambiguous route that even the definition of the term is challenging. Most scholars agree on postmodernism’s criticism of modernity and its blind spots regarding its own theoretical rationality. Postmodernism not only follows a meandering path, but often it seems as if it is not guiding us anywhere. Rather than establishing an ideal, or at the very least an accepted, way of understanding reality, postmodernism is centered on the process itself, often oblivious to where it leads. Hart argues that the objective of postmodernism is not to negate what modernity offers, but to understand it in its full meaning by analyzing its moral core, its visible ideal, and its not so transparent power structure.2 This is a challenging proposition, as one of the essential characteristics of postmodernity seems to be rooted in rejection—not only the rejection of commonly understood meanings produced in mainstream discourse, but also rejection of the possibility of anything accruing a universal meaning, as meanings are said to be continuously produced through interactions within contingent contexts. In rejecting stable meaning, postmodernism dismisses a fixed notion of reality, opting for parallel versions of truth. Postmodernism focuses on language to examine the power structure, drawing our attention to who sets the rules, who gains, and who loses in the game of politics.3 If modernity pushed for universal principles that relegated local cultural sensibilities to secondary consideration, then postmodernism pushes for global sensitivity, which promises to incorporate the unique and the outlandish, and to accept reality from multiple perspectives. Bauman has gone so far as to place globalization on the opposite spectrum of universalization,4 as it has produced starkly contrasting manifestations in our worldviews. If universality was elusive for modernity in the sense that we never arrived at common definitions of good and evil,5 globalization, by definition, is a hydra-headed concept with multiple meanings. As an apt example of shifting meanings, here are some fragments from Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, on a segment called the “Semantic Vortex.” Bee laments how words have lost their original meaning in the way they are being discussed in the Trump presidency. One such lost word is lie. Bee shows the different phrases the journalists are using to describe a lie propounded by President Trump, using real news strips. The words that the journalists are using are deliberate misstatements, alternative facts, unsupported, unsubstantiated, unverified, unfounded and bogus, and euphenism (to use Trump’s usage instead of euphemism). Another word that has changed meaning is

Our Postmodern (Un)Reality

3

leaking. Bee describes it as intentionally disclosing secret information and sharing recollection of unclassified conversations, as the definition from the dictionary is projected across the scene. This projection is supplemented by her staff appearing in person, dressed in black, and whispering pee tape and gossip girl. Yet another controversial word is fake news. Bee shows a real encounter between a journalist and Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, where instead of answering an accusation about a lie, she blurts out that the only fake news in the media has been how Trump was unfit to win the presidency. Bee laments that one day fake news meant a deliberate hoax, the next (day) it meant an erroneous prediction. The segment showcases Ivanka Trump stating: “If being complicit means wanting to be a force for good and to make a positive impact, then I am complicit.” We see an exasperated Bee respond: “That is not what complicit means! Is it? I thought it meant, ‘involved with others in an illegal activity or wrongdoing!’”6 The concept of “anti-realism” is often regarded as the core of postmodernism. What it means is that there are no normative rules for any given situation, there is no reality that is independent of mind, and therefore there is no single truth. Anti-realism is based on the negation of objectivity and a celebration of multiple truths. Our languages always remain biased and do not contain the whole reality, and since our reality is shaped by our language, we cannot experience the reality that the language is unable to capture.7 What is real is rooted not in facts but upon the authenticity of its representation. As reality is continuously being mediated through changing representations,8 the new belief system of postmodernism allows multiple perspectives to operate on the same plane, and refuses to grant validity to one or the other. Its purpose is not to analyze what is truth or reality, but to open up spaces—political, social, cultural, and intellectual—to allow multiple versions of veracity and to ignite exchanges about the whole spectrum of systematic questions about issues of power. Lacking an idealized version of “what should be” in the way that other philosophies refer back to, any analysis or critique of power relations tends to become free-floating and personalized, more of a play that exposes the realities but is unable go beyond that exposure and to seek changes because it rests on the premise of making room for different perspectives to coexist. Stephen Colbert is one of the major political satirists who has illuminated this aspect of challenging the reality of media and politics by exploiting a postmodern play upon himself and his alter ego. Starting as a correspondent on The Daily Show, Colbert emerged as one of our era’s sharpest comedians, and in particular his chemistry with Jon Stewart while deciphering cultural and political signals was not only funny but thought-provoking. He started his own show The Colbert Report in 2005, and all through its existence (2005–14) The Daily Show and The Colbert Report ran back to back, often coordinating issues or literally fusing the shows as when they did for election

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coverage. Colbert always appeared in character as a loud-mouthed, boisterous conservative who preferred guts over facts, interpreted every news item based on ideology, and negated anything that did not fit within his ideological framework. Colbert’s alter ego revealed the hypocrisy of conservative media and its anchors for presenting information choked with misstatements and biases. Colbert mocked the hosts of Fox News Channel and other conservative outlets by donning their garb, walking in their shoes, and feigning to be one of them. McClennen identifies Colbert as the most significant comedian in the post-9/11 era, branding his satire as “a form of pedagogical provocation.”9 Colbert has clearly shown how to permeate the porous boundaries of reality and fantasy. Not only is his persona on The Colbert Show different from his new role as host of Late Night with Stephen Colbert, but in real life Colbert is a practicing Catholic who teaches Sunday school and very much upholds the family values that he shares, in the literal sense, with the conservative politicians and media journalists he so ferociously mocks. His old persona often visits his new show, to the extent that these jumbled-up alternative realities prodded journalist Chris Cillizza to write an article in The Washington Post entitled “How Liberal is Stephen Colbert?,”10 coming up with the conclusion that Colbert’s ideology is fuzzy rather than liberal. In a feature on The Colbert Report, Newsweek stated that Colbert closely guarded his personal views, differentiating himself from his on-screen character, which is a parody of partisan Republicans supporting Bush and other conservative leaders under any and all circumstances.11 Colbert has faced a backlash for insinuating a quid pro quo homosexual relationship between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, an accusation that is seen as being critical not only of Trump but also of the gay community. Colbert himself has responded to this question with ambiguous answers, which have involved looking for information through Google, Buzzfeed, and au courant personality tests, all of which have amounted to funny takes on popular psychological frameworks; these tests highlight the different aspects of his persona, not hiding the fact that he wants to present the side of him that would be most likeable to the eighteen to twenty-nineyear-old age group with disposable income—in other words, his prime demographic.12 Another layer of confusion regarding what is real and what is unreal was added when, in response to Colbert appearing as his former persona on his current show, Comedy Central claimed that the character of Stephen Colbert belonged to the network under copyright protection and therefore could not appear on Late Night with Stephen Colbert. Colbert then had the cousin of his persona (obviously playing the same part) visit his show a few times instead.13 It seems that the confusion between the satirist and the character, or the artist

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and his alter ego, can manifest in a number of unexpected ways. When Alex Jones—the theatrical right-wing radio show host of InfoWars—was facing a divorce and child custody battle, his soon-to-be ex-wife pointed to his megalomaniac public performance as an extension of his private behavior, which she claimed made him unfit for custody rights. Jones, or rather his lawyer, claimed that Jones only played a character on his show and was a different person in real life. Unlike Colbert, who has taken care to distance himself from his character, Jones has presented himself as an authentic, committed right-wing pundit fighting against government conspiracy day in and day out. Jones even uses Colbert as a validation for the lack of distinction between him and his character.14 These apparent disconnections between real persons and characters, and the ironic connections between multiple personas, are undoubtedly postmodern in character. The slippages between persons and their second selves are the spaces where we see some reflections of reality, but that reality remains trapped, appearing inauthentic and incoherent. Colbert seems to have inspired Jordan Klepper’s new show The Opposition (premiering in September 2017), which parodies conservative media by behaving as they do. Klepper, also a past correspondent on The Daily Show, is imitating Jones, the radio host notorious for his wacky conspiracy theories and boisterous articulation of liberal malice, but who recently acquired new cachet since he has been publicly thanked by President Trump for his journalistic cojones and his truth-telling. Here is part of the conversation between Seth Meyers and Klepper discussing the premise of The Opposition: Klepper: We’re kind of diving into this alt-media landscape, the world of InfoWars and Breitbart, TheBlaze. We found this world of paranoid conspiracy that had suddenly filtered its way down into the mainstream and into the Oval Office. That was kind of the world we wanted to live in. . . . Well, I do think when you get on the fringe with a lot of these media sources or just news in general, I think what we’re starting to respond to is how it’s not necessarily the facts that these people are pulling from. The veracity and the validity that they get [from them] is how they experience the facts. . . . It’s not like, “I heard this fact.” It’s like, “I experienced this. I got this email. I saw this thing.” So an anecdote suddenly becomes a fact, then it becomes a conspiracy, and it becomes, through a little bit of paranoia, something that other people begin to follow. And so you just start to see this path toward chaos. And then you make a show about it.15

If Colbert once adopted the persona of a ferocious right-wing pundit to expose and illuminate the duplicity of conservative media and politicians by acting as one of their own, Klepper is now taking the game to another level of paranoia. He is being exuberantly ridiculous in his mangling of liberal viewpoints and imagines that everything is a conspiracy, following Jones’s

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mindset. In his promotional piece, he went to a Trump rally to collect signatures for Hillary Clinton’s impeachment.16 Not only were Trump supporters illogical in their rambling accusations against Clinton, they enthusiastically signed a petition to impeach her. Of course, this petition has no validity, since Clinton does not occupy any public office, but this vignette is an example of anti-reality, which exposes a number of real issues in American politics. The fact that Clinton is not the occupant of any current office and therefore cannot be impeached becomes irrelevant. What is exposed is the deep distrust and hostility of Trump supporters and their irrational reaction to perceived wrongdoings by Clinton. These shows are perfect examples of reality getting blurred and the editorializing becoming so sardonic that the substance is submerged in glee. There are many such satirical exposes on social media of the unfounded beliefs of Trump partisans—from animus toward Clinton to disbelief in climate change—produced not always by the top satirists but by activists and humorists at a more amateur level too. These productions are changing the very language of political expertise by adopting the language of irrationality, which one must admit is quite humorous and resonates with a lot of people, reflecting as it does the absurdities of political events in the Trump era. But this new language erases objectivity, because instead of correcting falsehood with fact, we get acclimatized to different but equally valid perceptions on a flat moral scale. There is no one truth, we don’t dispute different positions based on facts, and we no longer argue even about the nature of empirical reality. Postmodernism has opened up the space of multiple truths and devalued objectivity, and instead acknowledges subjectivity as a more useful means to understand the multiple sides of a single story; but in politics we have to reach a policy consensus, and while understanding different viewpoints is essential, agreeing to a common narrative frame to reach a decision or solution is also indispensable. The multiplicity of meanings and the expansive space for narratives are being utilized not only by performers but by people with concrete ideological agendas. Jordan Peterson—professor of psychology at the University of Toronto, and a rising star of the ultra-conservative movement—bashes postmodernism not only as nihilist, but for being based on resentment. He conflates political correctness with postmodernism, accusing that one of the objectives of postmodernism is to shut down all communication as postmodernism devalues consensus.17 In the lingo of Peterson and others like him, multiculturalism and postmodernism are fused in one evil philosophy which puts down Western civilization and intends to extinguish the framework of Western society.18 These misrepresentations are problematic for their reductionism, but they are compounded by the fact that they often come from public figures who have moved from the fringes to positions of great political power. Steve Bannon—who was

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Trump’s chief strategist for eight months and claims to have been the brain behind capturing the mood of the populist nationalist movement that thrust Trump to power—defines postmodernism as part of the corporate globalist agenda19 which attempts to erase national identities.20 It is pertinent to remember that postmodernism has been shaped by such intellectual developments as a new emphasis on linguistic theories and deconstructionism, as well as social revolutions like the counterculture which sought an alternate explanation to the very meaning of life offered by modernism. Postmodernism therefore has always been intertwined with rejection, and the tool for the denunciation has often been the conscious awareness of the use and power of language. Gabardi points to the historically convergent moment when linguistic methodologies emerged and revolutionary politics fizzled out.21 Postmodernism is based on a series of repudiations: of rationality, of historical narrative, of the achievements of modernity. One of the ways postmodernism and poststructuralism negate these values is by questioning the formation of language itself. The unspoken, hidden, and implicit meanings of language reveal the irrationality, subjectivity, and power positions of both narrators and listeners.22 In the language of postmodernism, the satirical programs are presenting and celebrating hyperreality, where the actual and the imitation of the actual blend in such a way that the real and the unreal cannot be distinguished anymore. Baudrillard has introduced the important concept of simulation— or “simulacra” as he calls it—by which he means the process of imitation and reproduction taken to such an extent that the real loses its meaning and simulation acquires its own meaning, which then overshadows the original meaning. This simulation is possible with advanced technology, and the media seems to be the perfect playing field for such experimentation. The presentation of wars, packaged like video games and using such techniques as holograms from the first Gulf War onwards, has definitely impacted our psyche in terms of how we process wars. When the clash of symbols and simulations becomes unrooted and starts a meaning of its own, it takes the form of hyperreality. Gabardi cautions us that hyperreality distorts the context of any given situation when played out on the fast-paced screens of digital media. The projections on the television and computer screens seem more real than our own experiences, and the simulations end up replacing the reality because they are accepted as reality.23 The power of the media is thus not only based on global corporate power, but also on the power to create effective simulations through the popular mode of infotainment, where information is presented as entertainment. It is not reality but what it signifies that becomes prominent in the sea of information in which all of us are currently drowning. As we have reached the saturation point, augmented by technological brilliance, we have freed truth

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from all principles and liberated reality from stable meaning. Baudrillard introduces us to the concept of integral reality, where the symbolic, virtual, and imaginary are dissected from reality and replaced by a delusion—a delusion possible only in a globalized world of technological expertise and total acceptance of what seems real.24 When Sean Spicer, as press secretary of the Trump administration, retweets The Onion’s caricature of his performance as providing the American public with “robust and clearly articulated misinformation,”25 laughing at the way he is being laughed at and showcasing it with pride (not shame or anguish), his performance as a good sport appears as the most authentic part of the story, erasing the sharp edge of The Onion’s humorous take and, more importantly, the serious denunciation of his role. The postmodern condition is more of a disruption than an explanation of any particular framework of understanding or beliefs. Relations between the modern and the postmodern are both symbiotic and conflictual. Most thinkers would agree with the notion that postmodernity alerts us to the insufficiencies of modernity: its reliance on rational knowledge and objectivity, and its intolerance for anything that is intangible.26 If modernity thrived on categorization, by cultivating separate spheres for politics, culture, entertainment, the public and the private, and so forth, postmodernism is built on the demolition of the boundaries of such separate spheres, so that the activities of each genre are often validated only through simulation in other categories.27 Habermas has provided a powerful critique of modernity’s failure to achieve its own goals of a rational society. For him, rationality, individuality, and consciousness have all been defined myopically from the perspective of an individual. Instead of accepting the premises of reason, rationality, and reflectivity, Habermas attempts to replace these notions with a linguistic theory centering on human communication. Rationality and judgment are treated as external components of all forms of communication, and have limited meaning, responding only to particular actions. We should be able to decode the rationality of each communicative action and thus establish mutually understandable communication. A particular discourse contains its own rationality which demands to be interpreted to decipher its real and full meaning.28 Foucault, another major contributor to postmodern philosophy, has challenged the values of modernism, including rationality and humanism, by questioning the production of knowledge and the process by which it gains validity, along with the subjectivity, biases, and power plays involved in these processes.29 If knowledge loses its inherent objective characteristic, then we are at a loss as to how to validate anything anymore. Foucault, therefore, had little respect for social and historical categories, and preferred to perceive modernity and postmodernity as philosophical outlooks rather than

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stable frameworks of belief systems.30 I am adopting the same mindset and looking at postmodernity as a perception and worldview rather than in terms of concrete changes to the social structure. Baudrillard has brought the concept of consumption to the fore to explain the construction of social life amid specific worldviews. Consumption, according to him, is not mere possession of material goods, but what those possessions actually signify. Even though he distances himself from the concept of production, society for him is an intricate web of symbolic or sign relations. Our consumption behavior acts like a code, which contains multiple meanings and demands to be understood only through intense scrutiny of the actual meanings of a number of signs. Brand-name artifacts are perhaps the easiest examples of such symbolism, so that a handbag by Prada, Gucci, or Michael Kors carries more meaning than a mere purse. Much in the same vein, being the audience of a certain program is also a signifier of a certain belief system or worldview. While production is valued in terms of functionality, consumption carries more subtle meanings than its measurable utility. Consumer freedom and pleasure have become much more important values in recent reality.31 We see the reflection of these new modes of postmodern consumption in the systems of postindustrial information and telecommunication technologies, and in strategies of globalization. If we look through the lens of consumption, media becomes the most important space to scrutinize the effects of postmodernity. Postmodernism promotes the idea of fluid identity and focuses on becoming or living a particular experience as the defining experience. While this perception of identity appeals to our sense of immediate familiarity and resonates with us, it also takes us away from solidarity across divergent segments of society who perceive and experience different aspects of life and political reality quite dissimilarly. Without common objective criteria and an ethical core, these different sections remain fragmented and there is no need to bring the pieces together to generate a well-rounded meaning. This practice of selfdetermination or individualization is rooted in the practices of modernity, which was far more successful in uprooting people from hereditary categories, whereas postmodernity, unlike modernism, leaves the process of finding new tribes which they can claim as their own to individuals.32 For decades, race and class (but also often gender or regional characteristics) emerged as obvious strata where people discovered their comfort zones, but globalization and the neoliberal economy have caused a collapse across these categories by adding new elements of cultural sensitivity and making all previously stable categories porous, insecure, and volatile. If we look at the larger political and cultural environment, it is apparent that many of the postmodern traits that the media embraced were only possible because of technology and globalization. I argue that the decades

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of the 1980s and 1990s prepared us for postmodernism through media consolidation, which enhanced the power of media moguls, the expanse and expectations of audiences, and the mechanisms available to shape and alter those expectations. American media has expanded worldwide, yet the power of cultural production has simultaneously shifted to fewer hands, a fact that might not be easy to recognize amid the diversity of programs that are broadcast. As noted by Best and Kellner, “We have witnessed the most expansive concentration of information and entertainment industries in history, including a $7.5 billion merger of Time Warner and Turner Broadcasting, a $19 billion deal between Disney/Capital Cities/ABC, a $20 billion conglomeration of NBC and Microsoft, and a $37 billion merger of Viacom and CBS.”33 This increasingly consolidated media-information complex is corporate-controlled, homogenized, and mainstream. News media networks such as NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX, and even PBS are neither liberal nor conservative, but corporate. Globalization led to conglomeration and an explosion of program variety, yet the ownership and central message of all those programs shrank. Adbusters, the Canadian magazine which has built up a base for its anti-consumerist agenda and was responsible in part for spurring the Occupy movement, was denied a spot for its advertisement34 by all major networks except CNN on the day after Thanksgiving, a day it wishes to reclaim as Buy Nothing Day. Just as deregulation and privatization allowed the concentration of cable channels and enhanced their power manifold, new innovations such as fiber optics, communications software, and the capabilities of the Internet made that power irreversible. Both technological advancement and political transformation resulting from the adoption of neoliberal policies occurred at about the same time, reinforcing each other. It seems that our digital world in its totality—and by extension virtual reality—is now controlled by megacorporations. As Gabardi informs us, “This restructuring of media industries on a global scale has produced a new media-information order dominated by ten transnational conglomerates—Time Warner, Disney, Bertelsmann, Viacom, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., Universal, Sony, PolyGram (Philips), and NBC (General Electric).”35 Here are excerpts of two narratives by John Oliver, in one of which he describes business conglomerations in the wider economy, and in the other the rise of the Sinclair Broadcast Group, responsible for destroying local ownership of news channels. Both processes of corporate power concentration follow uncannily similar pathways. The rental car business is now 90 percent dominated by just three companies. The U.S. beer industry is 70 percent controlled by just two companies, and online search engines are of course as we all know dominated by one major player. That’s right, say it with me, Bing! That’s right. Bing, the best way to

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Google something. In fact, look, full disclosure here. Even our own parent company Time Warner is currently trying to merge with AT&T, which makes this story a little dangerous for us to do. Although, you know, that is presuming that AT&T executives manage to get their shitty service working long enough to see it. AT&T, it’s the top telecom company around alphabetically and nothing else. Look, even some brands that you might think of as indie now have multinational owners. Burt’s Bees? It’s not run by a backward bee fucker called Burt. It’s run by Clorox. Tom’s of Maine, the deodorant which did so little to deodorize your freshman year roommate. That’s now owned by Colgate-Palmolive.36 Sinclair may be the most influential media company that you have never heard of. Not only are they the largest owner of local TV stations in the country, they could soon get even bigger. . . . We did some math and we found out that when you combine the most-watched nightly newscasts on Sinclair and Tribune stations in some of their largest markets you get an average total viewership of 2.2 million households and that is a lot. That is more than any current prime time show. . . . As best we can tell, no other major owners of TV stations distributed their own commentary segments to run during local news. . . . If the opinions were confined just to the commentary or to the ad break, that would be one thing, but Sinclair can sometimes dictate the content of your local newscast as well, and in contrast to Fox News, a clearly conservative news outlet where you basically know what you are getting, with Sinclair they are injecting Foxworthy content into the mouth of your local news anchors. . . . You may not realize that it is happening. Because Sinclair and its digital news subsidiary circuit not only produce and send packages to their stations, they even write scripts that local anchors can use to introduce the pieces. . . . Sinclair’s content can often not be optional; they regularly send out “must runs,” segments that station managers are directed to work into their broadcasts.37

While consolidation of power nodes, whether they are economic or mediarelated, is a consequence of the neoliberal economy, this seldom receives enough scrutiny in the media, which makes it all the more remarkable that this has repeatedly been chosen as a topic of satire by Oliver. Neoliberalism promotes dominance of the market over dominance of the state, yet state power remains the basis of neoliberal policies. These operate on the global stage for the sake of helping business, and yet they control national boundaries to limit competition or to expand markets, as the need may be. Neoliberalism is situated in inherent contradictions—distrusting the state and yet supporting the strong state, advocating for the free market and yet promoting monopoly, focusing on economic prosperity and yet exercising intense political manipulation—which are now part of a new style of governmentality across almost the entire globe.38 We have become so used to such policies and practices now that we seldom notice how our social and cultural

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lives are following a similar framework. It seems that social media, intricately intertwined with popular media, is also ruled by a limited number of technological giants.39 Manjoo may remain optimistic about governing the five technological giants—Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft— and regulating competition, but if we look at their nature and rate of expansion (Amazon recently bought Whole Foods) or their lack of accountability (Facebook seems to have been a major node for disseminating propaganda and lies during the 2016 election), the trend seems to point toward further consolidation of power and influence relating to consumer behavior, which does not exclude political conduct.40 Along with the exchange of opinions and comments, these sites reflect the selective presentation of news and information from not only the mainstream media but also little-known blogs and everything in between, thereby further blurring the line between facts and lies, reality and interpretation, and reportage and speculation. In this sense, the social media sites mimic the media channels which more often than not portray mutually exclusive realities. The realities that are created in the media are decontextualized and thrust upon people as self-referential truths. Instead of an objective debate, postmodernism paves the way for these mutually exclusive presentations and thrives on the continuation and repetition of each presentation as a way to validate one’s own point of view. The Fox News Channel was created in 1996, combining conservative ideology with striking media personalities, which together nurtured a loyal audience base. They have marketed their ideological message with just the correct mixture of righteousness, fury, and sarcasm, and succeeded in reaching out to large numbers of people with similar belief systems and retaining them as viewers in the long run, which has become essential in the cable news era. Jones has labeled this new journalistic manner “aesthetic-expressive,” and considers it essentially postmodern in style.41 Instead of news, what is being presented are partisan narratives with dramatic exaggerations evoking anger and conflict. This performance overshadows the reality and often replaces the real political narrative residing in neoliberal power arrangements.42 Globalization is not only a phenomenon which has eroded national boundaries in terms of economic exchange, but its forms and power nodes allow for an expansive span of control over our perceptions, our palates, our sensitivities, and our expectations from culture, politics, and entertainment. The oligarchy that has manifested in new global-local power points has been possible because of the advancement and ease of use of technological innovations. It is not only goods and services that flow through the global networks, but the information superhighway shapes our worldviews as well. Gabardi refers to this symptom as “techno-oligarchic globalization,”43 and argues that both the type of globalization and the manifestation of hyperrealism are reflections of neoliberal policies. It is these same neoliberal policies that have

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now superseded the liberal state by injecting financial profits as the major rationale for statecraft and trade relations, and relegated the social, political, and economic consequences to the point of invisibility in our political and cultural discourse. Federal deregulation, privatization, and dismantlement of the welfare functions of the state all follow the neoliberal ideology of profits at any cost, while politics is turned into cultural warfare rather than direct treatment of policy preferences.44 We cannot hold postmodernism responsible for fostering neoliberalism, but postmodernism chimes in by accommodating different points of view without critical judgment and validating all perceptions regardless of their factual legitimacy. As postmodernism is indifferent toward rational connections, we can be engaged in discussions about democracy even as the neoliberal economy flourishes and controls politics in a way that actually threatens democratic practices. Globalization, like postmodernism, suggests different meanings. For some it is imperialism by another name, while for others it is about flattening the world to create a fair playing field. Globalization is both economic and cultural. The reality of globalization is the introduction of policies that allow for such a merger, but at the same time to offer multicultural initiatives for the audience. Postmodernism makes it possible for both to exist at the same time and for us to feel our presence in the visual reflections of the media by way of consolation for our decreasing political power. It creates illusions not as a way of hiding any truths, but as the core of its very structure. The global networked society and culture are essential for understanding why the media has become depoliticized even when it covers more political news and events than in the past. The more pressing problem is that when media controls the discourse of politics, the consumers of media production are swayed by what they see and hear, things that are produced from the point of view of popularity or likeability by the audience. In this circular mode of media production, it is the network that has the ultimate power. In depoliticized global media presentations, it is possible to come across a random Bangla song in a popular television serial, Better Call Saul,45 but the plight of the Rohingya refugees, who are going through a mass exodus orchestrated by the state and military in Myanmar and fleeing to Bangladesh, gets inadequate attention. The corporate undertone of the global cannot be more different than the commonly understood definition of the universal. In the same breath, it needs to be noted that political satirists, especially those with a foreign background, do cover international news, both when it is significant and being addressed in the mainstream media, such as in the case of Saudi Arabia’s political turmoil,46 or the aforementioned neglected story of the persecution of Rohingya refugees by the government of Myanmar.47 Oliver’s pieces on Canada, Brazil,48 and many such countries—about which the American audience has little knowledge or

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information, even if these reports do not escape his sardonic wit49—have added an awareness about the rest of the world in a way that is strikingly different than the mainstream media. One of the signal features of postmodernism is to create spaces for contradiction, to hold paradoxes seamlessly in the same plane and yet not disrupt the structure. Globalization is supposed to be about integrating the world while neoliberalism is about maximizing profits by disallowing fluid exchanges and keeping people imprisoned in categories. Multiculturalism is supposed to be about curiosity and respect for each other’s cultural individuality and enriching everyone through understanding and exchange. But identity politics is about maintaining those categories and fighting for more rights within those categories and keeping people inside the assigned categories. Postmodernism makes all of these possible at the same time. We don’t have to choose one or the other, we can be fed all the ideas, and we don’t have to convince or persuade anyone, as there is space for all the beliefs. The different tendencies of globalization, technological advancement, neoliberalism, and postmodernism are symbiotic and interdependent. Globalization exploits its potential for unlimited profit within neoliberal principles, while neoliberal policies cannot flourish without a global market. Digital technologies seamlessly tie global markets together and enhance the scope for the enforcement of various strategies of neoliberalism. The analytical tools of postmodernism can be deployed fully on a global scale, while technology provides an ever-growing field of exploration where the postmodern viewpoint reveals genuine insights about social and cultural transition. Hyperreality is a reflection not only of postmodernity, but also of what is possible through the manipulation of technology, as well as a manifestation of the changed relations between the individual, society, market, and state. Gabardi argues that the media is not only operating as media, but as an extension of the state itself; and it is postmodern because much of our public sphere is hyperreal.50 I have reservations about labeling the entire system of governance postmodern, but I do concede to various postmodern aspects of governance, especially the disjointment of policy and political engagement. On the larger point, it is hard to argue against the centrality of the media-information complex, which seems to be the nerve center of politics, not by connecting the people with government or holding the government accountable, as it was originally intended, but by framing and legitimizing a selective political discourse and excluding issues that are deemed not worthy of popular viewership. Borrowing Foucault’s concept of governmentality, which refers to the rationality and techniques of communication to influence political conduct, the new modes of governmentality seem to be driven by technology, neoliberalism, postmodernism, and the media in general.51

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The “media-information complex,” as labeled by Gabardi,52 is not only at the core of statecraft, but has seeped into our private lives ubiquitously. Foucault, following Jeremy Bentham, applied the concept of the panopticon to show us the expanse of power and control, and how watching is itself a disciplinary measure and always has been the node of power, whether it’s a prison or some other authority of the state that has exercised this power. In the postmodern era, this power is easy to acquire, and even easier is the widespread acceptance of this power as a mode of life. Bauman argues that even though the panopticon remains one of the most accessible metaphors for power and control in modernity, in postmodernism the panopticon not only serves the function of instilling fear but it is also an attractive and socially accepted way of communicating.53 With the new age of digital media introducing personalized systems of incorporating and monitoring information, it is not only government that has the power and capability to establish the panopticon, but we are in fact surrounded by multiple layers of it. There is not only one set of an audience, there are ever-evolving, infinite sets of voyeurs, watching every aspect of personal and political life. In this light, not only does the personal become political, but what is political turns deeply personal. In a sea of information and performance, the only way to catch people’s attention is to create or present an issue which resonates personally. We are not being surveilled by the outside, we are doing it voluntarily. Self-discipline has replaced mass surveillance. The process of normalization is part of that self-discipline, after harsh self-critiques paying homage to the existing system and agreeing not to break free of it. The other, or the opposition, in postmodernity, is not the enemy; rather, it is a necessary part of the story. Regardless of how much we might scream at the other for being wrong, the postmodern structure accommodates all points of view and is based on the premise that multiple views only enrich the narration. Here first is Oliver showing the existence of rationality and irrationality seamlessly merging in media (in the form of a right-wing radio show host), while the next quote is Klepper’s take on the same issue: Oliver: There is a piece of context that you may be less aware of and that concerns the nature of Jones’s show itself. It is four hours long and if you tune into the whole thing, your most shocking discovery might be how frequently and shamelessly he pitches the products that he sells. Cut to video clip showing Jones screaming about government conspiracies (like putting drugs into water to turn us into gays) and then appealing to his viewers: Now before I go any further, we gotta fund this operation. We got the very best nutraceuticals out there. I don’t know if I can run this for another week or so, we

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wanna run this through the end of the month, that’s like eleven days. Because I don’t want to sell out before more gets in. Twenty percent off. Infowarslive. com. Infowarslive.com. Infowarslive.com.

Oliver: Wow! That’s a hard turn to have to make! . . . That clip is not an anomaly. In one week of recent broadcasts on his site, we found that he spends nearly a quarter of the time either talking about or playing ads for his products or pointing you to the Infowars store. . . . Radio hosts doing ads is not inherently unusual, but since 2013 Jones has increasingly focused on promoting his own products which he sells on his site under his Infowars Life brand, particularly vitamins and nutraceuticals, which I believe are the result of the word nutrition fucking the word pharmaceuticals from behind. . . . Two-thirds of his funding reportedly comes from the marketing of his own products.54 Klepper: You freethinkers have been sending Jones your hard-earned cash—at least eighteen million dollars a year—but we also need your support to defeat the globalists. That’s why, next week, you have to ignore all of the corporatist Black Friday sales and instead support The Opposition at our very first All Lives Friday Sale. . . . All Lives Friday will be packed with serious deals for serious threats. Folks, you saw the elections. You saw them last week. Our country is drowning under a blue wave of Democrats. But—yeah, woo, you’re scared too. You can fight back with Seeing Red; our one hundred percent hydrochloric acid drops that give your eyeballs a red fill so the world looks just like Trump’s electoral map. With ShOpposition.com products, we can literally rebuild our republic. The All Lives Friday Sale—it’s the only way to prepare for what we all know is coming later this year: the apocalypse. That’s why I’m stocking up on Oppo-calypse survival packs, filled with the essential products that the best preppers demand: non-GMO bandages, a coal-powered hot plate, miniature Confederate monuments, pepperoni supplements, decals that make sticks look like laser guns, and the complete collection of Trump’s tweets that will become the new Constitution when society rises from the ashes.55

The U.S. media’s patterns of production, and its language and aesthetics, indeed reflect much of these postmodern traits. The changes in media ownership, the accompanying global expansion, and the altered nature of competition among the networks all paved the way for political humor, establishing comedy— especially political comedy—as a central concept in entertainment. The larger context of this change includes the political and economic spheres, as the impact of legislation allowing concentration and global extension of the media was not contained within the media only. I believe that the inherent theoretical worldview that allowed such changes to take place was at least partially influenced by postmodernism, and this was soon reflected in the way the media communicates with its audience, and the way it provides and nurtures information, entertainment, language, performance, and the overall value system.

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WHY ARE IRONY AND PARODY THE LANGUAGE OF POSTMODERNISM? One of the most important instrumentalities of postmodernism is its use of language, which contains multiple meanings that keep shifting in different circumstances for different groups of people. Political satire has amplified this feature of postmodernism by showing with unrelenting enthusiasm the various aspects of the disconnect between spoken words and action, literal meaning and actual meaning, and intended impact and real effect. In this section I want to illuminate how irony and parody are the chosen tools of postmodernism and how they fit so well with the present media production and consumption styles. I argue that satire has therefore been liberated from moral resolution;56 though it thrives on exposing hypocrisy, this is more partisan (targeting Republican politicians or conservative pundits) than ideological (liberal principles or ethical positions). For example, this allows for severe criticism of immigration policies in the Trump era, but maintains silence regarding very similar policies during the Obama presidency. Political satire on American television uses the device of irony to exaggerate and ridicule, and parody to mimic and mock the targets of laughter. My question is why irony and parody resonate so deeply with audiences who are apparently hungry for political information and serious assessment. Just as globalization and deregulation converged to make room for ­postmodernism as a framework in the digital and virtual worlds of media, irony and parody were aided by another accident of historical timing, namely the attacks of September 11. Irony was declared dead after S ­ eptember 11, but in retrospect that moment seems to have been the trigger point when irony became the principal mode of communication in the media. Gournelos and Greene argue that humor, irony, and satire were pivotal in shaping the response in the aftermath of 9/11. The first post-attack show of Saturday Night Live (SNL) on September 29, 2001 began on a somber note in the presence of first responders and New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Giuliani signaled that New York was ready for business, and as one of its prime institutions SNL should do its part in healing the city and the nation. SNL producer Lorne Michaels sought the mayor’s permission to be able to laugh again and to make others laugh, so that the mayor’s deadpan response “Why start now?” signified a symbolic acceptance of humor as a means to deal with the tragic aftermath of the events.57 In so many ways, September 11 not only sharpened our political instincts and sensibilities, but redefined the role of humor and satire in our public lives. Instead of signifying the end of irony, September 11 actually elevated another space in popular media, the space that was already occupied by political satirists, but in contrast to real journalists often touting government propaganda

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and self-regulating themselves so as not to appear unpatriotic, satirists pointed out the hypocrisies, nuances, and often just plain facts during the patriotic fervor which followed September 11. The criticisms of various Bush administration policies regarding the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, Guantánamo Bay, or torture practices were most loudly articulated by Stewart, Maher, Colbert, and others who often demonstrated journalistic zeal and commitment where real journalists were absent, at least at the beginning of the Bush administration. In this section my focus is on why irony and parody reverberated so strongly with the post-September 11 audience as a source of political exposition. The Bush administration’s dichotomy of good and evil in the aftermath of September 11 was very effective in suppressing dissent and criticism toward the U.S. government’s policies. It was in this environment that political satirists questioned various political events, deploying their craft to illustrate both explicit and implicit meanings, using technology in their narratives to reveal various contradictions and juxtapositions, and allowing the audience to participate in the fun game of deconstruction and decoding. Compared to the mainstream media, which often discussed the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan without much if any historical context, Stewart, on The Daily Show, frequently connected such wars with colonialism or even past U.S. foreign policy. One of the first appearances of Oliver on The Daily Show was as a British colonizer carving out countries right and left and in any way he desired. Political satire on late-night television has amplified another significant part of the postmodern vocabulary, which is the nonverbal essence of performance. Postmodernism focuses on performance as part of language games, and contemporary political figures also seem to be emphasizing performance not only to convey their message but to enshrine it as their core message. Performance has always played a role in politics, but now, with our easily accessed multiple digital media and our brains responding more readily to visuals rather than words, it has acquired the utmost importance. Performance also contains both explicit and implicit messages, which can even be contradictory to each other. We see how the Bush administration took the issue of performance seriously when President Bush himself flew onto an airplane carrier and landed to proclaim the end of the war in Iraq with the message “Mission Accomplished,” which was also hung as a banner in the background. Bush claimed: “In this battle, we have fought for the cause of liberty, and for the peace of the world. Our nation and our coalition are proud of this accomplishment—yet it is you, the members of the United States military, who achieved it.”58 Of course, as postmodernism teaches us, the end was indeed not the end. Here is how his own press secretary later argued that mission accomplishment did not signify the end of the mission. Dana Perino: If you only take the one line about the end of combat operations, that’s true, but. . .the left has decided what they want to believe, which is

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Image 1.1  Mission Accomplished. Paul Morse, “President George W. Bush Addresses Sailors and the Nation from the Flight Deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln,” May 1, 2003, Wikimedia Commons, March 3, 2018. George W. Bush White House Archives. https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Bush-USS-USS-Lincoln.jpg&oldid=290393907.

the President was saying that the war was over, the troops are coming home, but that’s not what he said. The USS Abraham Lincoln had been deployed well over its stated period, it was supposed to be gone for six months, and I think it was several months later that they were coming home, and it was the ship whose mission was accomplished, and the president never said mission accomplished in the speech.59

It is appropriate to point out how performance, and specifically the unspoken part of performance, eventually shattered President Bush’s political image when in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina the first pictures of the president showed him flying over New Orleans with an almost disinterested glance below, reflecting a dramatic separation between the president and the crisis situation. Performance is digitally aided through technology in our world, so that presentation becomes more important than substance. While the mainstream media often abuses its technological capabilities (e.g., the grotesquely extended coverage of the disappearance of a Malaysian Airlines flight by CNN),60 it seems that satire has at least the potentiality to strike the right balance between rationality and irrationality to clarify the point it is striving to make. In the Trump era, irony is quickly becoming the language of choice for not only satirists but also journalists, as only irony seems to be able to rupture the sneaky nature of hypocrisy which is now part of White House assertions. President Trump accused Germany of being totally in control of Russia at the NATO summit in July 2018. The White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly

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grimaced at the comment and when press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked if Kelly was on board with the president, she responded that Kelly’s facial expression had nothing to do with the president’s comments, but signified his disappointment at getting only cheese and pastries for breakfast. Hence the coverage in The Washington Post, titled “It was the cheese that let John Kelly down,”61 seems not too different from Colbert’s comments on his nightly show.62 Lawrence O’Donnell, political commentator at MSNBC, would seem to agree with me when he tells Colbert: “Here is what is crazy. Your first ten minutes tonight—this is an entertainment comedy show—could be my first ten minutes tonight and my show is supposed to be a news show about the real world!”63 It is also interesting to note that the style of satirists is often intentionally chaotic, jumping from one seemingly unrelated topic to another, in an attempt to leap across connections often not enunciated in political discussion. Interrupting oneself in the middle of a monologue, or showing news clips at odds with a seemingly personal experience most people can identify with, does not represent a rational mode of discussing political issues. This inter-art discourse or transcontextualization, as defined by Linda Hutcheon, allows the parallel exhibit of the original acts and the interpretations of such acts, in order to illuminate the implicit meaning of political messages and to bring out new layers of meanings.64 Political satirists often combine their monologues with news clips, interjecting their own exegeses along the way. Stewart and Colbert when they were at Comedy Central centered their presentations around monologues and field pieces: pseudo-journalistic expositions which were often more illuminating compared to real news coverage supplemented with brief interviews of cultural and political icons. Some among the next generation of satirists like Meyers follow this overall structure, while Oliver and Bee deliver their monologue and exposition with the help of only visual aids. Maher follows a more elaborate structure revolving around invited guests, hosting usually one featured guest along with his panel, and balances time for his own opinions with the panel discussion. Looking at the operation of parody in a different type of political environment helps shed light on our own predicament. Parody is stiob in Russian, and its meaning includes not only humor and ease of understanding, but also the way it makes it possible to raise issues that are often absent from formal discussion. Satire is credited with the illumination of the invisible, and forcing it to be a part of public discourse, which can then lead to changes in perception and expectations from government.65 Can we say that American political satire has embraced that role? There is little disagreement that in the aftermath of September 11, political dissent was considered unpatriotic and many media personalities, educators, and public intellectuals came under attack for disparaging Bush administration policies.66 But almost two decades

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after 9/11, with much less conformity around suppression of information critical of government, and with satire occupying prime-time status in the media, how do we evaluate its role now? When jokes about drone killings or torture become commonplace in satire (even if the point the satirists are trying to get across is a critical one), what purpose is it serving? Why was President Bush’s joke about not being able to find the weapons of mass destruction (the alleged rationale for the war in Iraq) met with at least partial disapproval, but President Obama’s joke about warning his daughters’ future boyfriends against drone attacks pass muster for laughter? Do satirists have the power today to set or alter such parameters? If they have succeeded as a major source of political news, what has happened to the real sources of news? Which is the real media for real political news and which is the alternate media? A key aspect of satire on American television is parody, which is deployed against personalities rather than issues. In a way it is closer to the concept of “snark,” which Denby defines as a form of bullying with comic effect.67 The Colbert Show was a thirty-minute parody, four nights a week, relentlessly ridiculing the persona of conservative pundit Bill O’Reilly of Fox News. The popularity of this mode of satire is apparent as Klepper has designed his show, The Opposition, as a parody of right-wing commentator Alex Jones. Denby provides us with a number of characteristics defining snark—using negative caricatures built on old prejudices but presented with a new twist, attacking without regard for journalistic responsibility, abandoning the principle of checking facts68—and even if his checklist does not totally apply to satirists who now take on some of the role of journalists, the vicious manner of teasing, the undertone of contempt, and the overall objective of comprehensively undermining someone remain the prevailing modus operandi. Snark goes hand in hand with parody as both are personalized, which fits rather well with postmodernism. It is the performance that draws our attention rather than the message, because if there is a message it is expected to be blurred with the medium, so that the medium becomes the message. The stylistic appeal of parody, where particular personalities or modes of behavior are scoffed at without self-reference, is that it operates as a game or play as understood in the postmodern dialect. The fact that President Obama’s policies on drone wars and mass deportations got a pass from satirists speaks volumes about their role and ideology (or lack thereof). Can simple partisan bias be defined as ideology? Or is there perhaps a moral underpinning to satire today which is broader than partisan bias? I find most satirists portraying a clear bias toward a certain political party and its affiliated personalities, but much less of a strong commitment toward political ideology. We don’t associate Obama with the drone wars or mass deportations, even though he not only continued Bush administration

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policies in those areas but actually escalated them. The cultural capital accrued by satirists pushes them to a comfort zone where they can question specific actions or individuals, even as they remain wary of rocking the boat. To belittle the system is comfortable, but to try to dismantle it is risky. The personalized tendency of recent political satire is apparent in the stylistic changes that can be noted in Michael Moore’s documentaries. Along with political satirists, filmmaker Michael Moore was one of the first voices to defiantly challenge Bush administration policies in the aftermath of September 11. Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004), Moore’s examination of 9/11, presented the United States as a deeply divided society governed by incompetent, self-serving, and authoritarian elites. Rather than analyzing terrorism in its historical context or its connection with American foreign policy, Moore focused on the hijacking of high offices in the land by the corporate-political establishment. The Bush administration was deconstructed through ironic humor and polemical editing, with the purpose of analyzing September 11 in the framework of the contradictions, inconsistencies, and incompetencies of that particular constellation of personalities.69 In his other ventures Moore has always used exposition through satirical methods, by expertly juxtaposing facts, images, and lived experiences, but he has tended to focus on the broader issue by exploring its ideological foundations, whether it is the early impact of globalization in Roger and Me (1989) and American gun culture in Bowling for Columbine (2002), or even his later works about the failings of the health-care system in Sicko (2007) or the deleterious effects of financial deregulation in Capitalism: A Love Story (2009).70 The public visibility and popularity of contemporary comedians is another verification of how well irony resonates with people. Colbert was named one of Time magazine’s most influential people three years in a row, from 2006 to 2008. He has won Emmys, Grammys, Peabodys, and the Golden Tweet award for the most forwarded tweet of 2010, as well as an honorary doctorate.71 Both Stewart and Colbert have long been cult personalities and their influence is felt very widely. From 2008 onward, the presence of celebrities, especially comedians (Sarah Silverman is a great example), in political campaigns has amplified even more. Colbert jokingly mentions the Colbert Bump, referring to the magnification of book sales or electoral votes after coverage on his show, but the Colbert Bump is no joking matter. Late Night with Stephen Colbert in turn is now experiencing a Trump Bump, as Colbert himself has expressed his gratitude to the president for making his show more popular. September 11 was the key political event launching the twenty-first century, and it has continued to operate as the most significant marker of postmodernism. The definitions of war, enemy, and victory have all undergone radical changes since the attacks on the World Trade Center, and the stable meanings of such words have probably been lost forever. For Slavoj Žižek,

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September 11 was the immaculate simulation of all the dystopian Hollywood movies that have anticipated such a catastrophe. We were shocked when we encountered such a scenario in the real world, but our fantasy world had well prepared us with numerous movies (Independence Day, The Matrix, The Siege), and what astonished us was the fidelity with which reality followed fantasy.72 The porousness and confusion between reality and fantasy, reality and hyperreality, and fact and alternative fact are not only limited to abstract theoretical discussions now but have become very much a part of our lived experiences. Instead of provoking any meaningful political communication about terrorism and its roots, within a few days of 9/11 a simplistic explanation of “us versus them,” the clash of civilizations, and pure irrational hatred became consolidated as the rationale for this unprecedented attack. It was The Onion which challenged this puerile notion of good versus evil by introducing various perspectives about the causes of September 11, including U.S. foreign policy, amounting to a much broader explanation than the facile narrative of terrorists simply hating the U.S.73 The Onion featured stories titled “Bush Sr. Apologizes to Son for Funding bin Laden in ’80s” or “Vital Info on Iraqi Chemical Weapons Provided by U.S. Company That Made Them,” connecting U.S. foreign policy with events in global politics and thereby muddying the glib division of the world between allies and terrorists.74 This is especially significant because in the American media, at least on television, September 11 was portrayed as the point when terrorism emerged as an existential threat, while the only past references that were discussed were the few instances when Americans were attacked either at home (the bungled 1993 World Trade Center bombing) or abroad (the USS Cole bombing in 2000), with very superficial reference to grievances about U.S. foreign policy that had already been in place. The cancellation of Maher’s program in June 2002 (described in detail later in the chapter) was a strong message of what could be allowed as satire, and for a few months mainstream satire became conforming and insipid, avoiding any political controversy. Meanwhile, the Bush administration’s Patriot Act and attacks on civil liberties met with this derisive response on The Onion on December 2002: “Bill of Rights Pared Down to a Manageable Six.”75 The Bush administration—with its insistent identification of indeterminate enemies, the new designation of an Axis of Evil including countries which did not attack the United States, and a mismanaged war which engaged the United States in an endless war with terrorists and “terrorist-supporting” nations without any road to triumph or even a finishing line—replicated the characteristics of postmodernism in its messages and processes. Journalism mostly fell in line with the amorphous definitions of terrorists and enemy combatants, and the equally amorphous punishments to be meted out to

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each class of enemies, which could not but have an effect on satire as well, to the extent that satirists also participated to some extent in the ambiguous narrative being told about the nature of war, so-called “homeland” defense, and new forms of surveillance. The incongruity of the situation, where the most outspoken political players in the Bush administration—one thinks, for example of Vice President Cheney’s wife Lynne, in a previous incarnation as head of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), having mounted an extended assault on postmodern pedagogy in the academy—were precisely the kind of people who had the least tolerance for ambiguity and had unshakable trust in their stated mission, cannot be overstated. Some of the absurdities of the Bush—and now the Trump—administration’s fluid reinterpretations of stable sociohistorical meanings seem difficult to address through means other than satire, and it is remarkable how the indeterminate policies and the satire feeding off it have mirrored each other in so many ways. Stewart: Let’s start our continuing coverage of Mess O’Potamia. As you know we went into Iraq for one reason and one reason only. Cut to Speaker of the House John Boehner: That is what this fight is about in this part of the world, planting the seed of democracy. Stewart: It wasn’t about the weapons of mass destruction or 9/11. Once those reasons were found to be unsupported by reality, it was about America. It was about what happens when one country loves another country very much. And that country then deposits its democracy seed, typically laser-guided into another country’s, let’s say, the Fertile Crescent. Cut to President Bush: The seed of democracy has only been planted in Iraq, but democracy, when it grows, is not a fragile flower. It is a healthy, sturdy tree.76

Similarly, Colbert reports on how Saddam Hussein became morphed into bin Laden through the manipulations of Bush’s vocabulary: Colbert: When George Bush began his presidency, he and words had an uncomfortable relationship. Cut to Bush: The best way to protect the homeland is to hunt the killers down [referring to bin Laden]. Cut to Bush: I can’t imagine someone like Osama bin Laden understanding the joys of Hanukkah. Cut to Bush: The objective is not bin Laden. Saddam Hussein is a threat to peace.

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Cut to Bush: We can’t distinguish between Al-Qaida and Saddam when we talk about the war on terror. Colbert: Strong words, but reality wasn’t down for the count. . . . The president’s words fought valiantly, but the facts were about to open up a second front. Cut to Bush: Weapons of Mass Destruction-related program activities. Colbert: The president has courageously modified the war’s justification.77

And here is Bee reacting to the news about Anthony Scaramucci, who was Trump’s communications director for a week, threatening to fire every single member of the staff if there were any more leaks about the administration: The West Wing is already a fun place to work. Steve Bannon instituted casual Fridays. The office is super pet friendly. And every day is Take Your Daughter to Work day. So how’s The Mooch going to architect a happier work place? . . . Go team! Of course, you may want to clear some space in the old book basement if you’re gonna unleash a swarm of disgruntled ex-staffers with tales to tell and student loans to pay. Just please, don’t fire Ivanka. I do not have twenty minutes to read another one of her books.78

And these are Meyers’s scathing remarks on Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, after The Wall Street Journal reported that Kushner should resign from his post as White House senior adviser because of the extent of his contacts with Russian officials and Russian businessmen: Jared Kushner resign? But then who would be in charge of U.S.-China relations, U.S.-Mexico relations, criminal justice reform, opioid crisis management, veterans care reform, the White House Office of American Innovation, revamping the entire federal government, painting the Easter eggs for the Easter egg hunt, and peace in the Middle East?79

However, neither Stewart nor Colbert could in the end compete with Bush delivering a steady stream of comic punch lines seemingly deconstructing his own mission; Trump—particularly with his outlandish tweets, which seem to emanate from a satirical backbone without being diluted by any sense of diplomacy or regard for his high office—has greatly escalated that bar. Here are some gems, which prove Baudrillard’s point about simulacra—namely, that the copy of the copy attains its own meaning and becomes more powerful than the original (since we are still analyzing, and will go on analyzing, these statements for many years)—but to some extent also refuting the point that it is possible to improve upon the original (or make it funnier).

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President Bush: I know that human being and fish can coexist peacefully. Is our children learning? Too many OB/GYNs aren’t able to practice their love for women. Fool me once, shame on . . . shame on you. Fool me . . . you can’t get fooled again.80 President Trump at the National Prayer Breakfast: We had tremendous success on The Apprentice. And when I ran for president, I had to leave the show. That’s when I knew for sure that I was doing it. And they hired a big, big movie star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to take my place. And we know how that turned out. The ratings went down the tubes. It’s been a total disaster. . . . And I want to just pray for Arnold if we can (and) for those ratings.81

I would argue that well before September 11 the language of irony and satire had pervasively seeped into the media during the long transition to cable TV, brought about by deregulation and globalization. Just as we had accepted the postmodern logic of subjectivity, selectivity, and disjointed meanings, we had already made room for irony and snark as major linguistic tools projecting the sensibilities of postmodern skepticism, scathing deconstruction, hypercritical reasoning, and yet lacking any consequences in terms of political change. I would add that much of the sardonic wit that is now the staple of political satire originated in shows like Seinfeld—and earlier Roseanne (1988–97),82 The Simpsons (1989–present), South Park (1997–present), and so on. With the exception of Seinfeld, the other three shows powerfully questioned cultural conventions from a position of great personal angst. The stand-up comedian Jerry Seinfeld chose to focus on the apolitical aspects of his generation’s lives, disconnected as many of them were from the larger realities, and yet was determined to impart meaning to seemingly mundane and irrational behavior so that they might make sense of their existence. Seinfeld was famous for being “a show about nothing.”83 Instead of nihilism, which provokes serious questions about the meaning of life and indulges in abject denunciation of certain standard values, postmodernism expands the space for everything to exist simultaneously in its own compartment and allows good-natured banter to take place between different positions. American life and culture were perceived to be disordered and lacking idealism, and Seinfeld was one of those from his generation who brought forth an acceptance of this reality with humor and sarcasm. In the context of this discussion what stands out is that on Seinfeld controversial issues were stripped of their conventional and often controversial meanings, and exhibited in quite an apolitical way. In one episode, Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), one of the central characters, starts dating someone whom she takes for a black or

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mixed-race person. Her boyfriend is elated to date her as he takes her to be Hispanic. When she learns that he is a white person from South Africa and he learns that she is just a white girl, they lose interest in each other. Though it conveys a sardonic attitude toward the importance we place on images, this treatment ignores stubborn racial issues and is based on the premise that race relations are defined by what is cool, replacing the old conflicts. The presentation of race in the media in the 1990s is a good example of addressing a political issue without political content. Another popular sitcom, Friends (1994–2004), presented issues of poverty in a pleasantly palatable manner, and was criticized for not having any black/Hispanic/minority characters in a show based in New York of all places. The show addressed this complaint by adding a temporary character, an attractive black girl, who is desired by two of the main characters, thus missing the point about the invisibility of ethnic minorities. Seinfeld works only in an apolitical world, and in turn it nurtures an apolitical audience. George, one of the four main characters, is always poor and bound to live with his exacting parents, but the poverty George tolerates is by choice. George’s reluctance to do any real work or inability to take advantage of opportunities for a fruitful career or to stop regretting his lost chances in life are the basis of his storyline. Kramer, another major character, remains without any background information, and his personal lack of context is coolly interwoven into the story. The moment we question the various amorphous premises, the story loses its edge. Seinfeld himself is sarcastic about every little detail of life from air travel to reservations to the daily habits of his parents, but he rarely expresses any grievances about public issues. Seinfeld was only one sitcom, but it signified a huge change in cultural discourse concerning the acceptance of the different, perhaps non-intersecting, realities of modern life. One episode of Seinfeld was built around the theme of alternate universes, with the characters imploding if two universes came into contact. The idea of alternate realities may sound capricious and mythical, but we need to remember that popular culture was able to create different segments of audiences after the rise of conglomeration, when the media companies became free from the old style of competition. Seinfeld was geared to an educated, proficient, and young audience, and beyond that there was no need to expand the audience to those for whom the message did not resonate. In a weird but synchronous way, Seinfeld was repeating some of the same characteristics that the media had acquired in the 1990s: discontinuous and snarky, but highly entertaining. A Seinfeld fan commemorated what the sitcom taught him: “It’s not a lie if you believe it!”84 The path from the 1990s until 2001 in popular media was largely apolitical, even when coverage did include politics. President Clinton inspired a prolific amount of jokes and parodies regarding his alleged sexual misconduct, but his

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various signature policies like welfare reform or NAFTA, which contradicted the established values of liberalism, received little scrutiny. The political criticism was directed to the failed healthcare reform effort or the ambiguities of the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, where the president, the first lady, and the administration were presented unfavorably. Even the bombing of a pharmaceutical company in Sudan on the eve of the Monica Lewinsky scandal received only mild badinage, not outrage, for using the war machine to change the political topic of the day—what was known in the 1990s as the “Wag the Dog” phenomenon, after an influential movie of the era. The most important recent political event in the United States prior to September 11 was the debacle of the Bush versus Gore election in 2000. The forbidding implications of the electoral college vote overwhelming the popular vote, the unseemly and constitutionally shaky intervention of the Supreme Court, and the overall lack of legitimacy of the presidential election following an aborted recount were all drowned in laughter. Obviously, there was an angry electorate and a correspondingly angry audience to contend with, but what received the most attention were the various aspects of the freakish storyline; the media, both satirists and journalists, focused on the unpredictability of the outcome with cynical wit, implicitly conceding that the fun part of the election was more important than the grim result. Looking back at it all, we might say that the Trump presidency was already in the making when we opted for laughter over anger when it came to such a decisive political issue. In a more recent example, here is an excerpt from a real interview broadcast as news by Tucker Carlson on Fox News where he seeks out a witch. Perhaps this shouldn’t surprise us, because we have already had a contender for a Senate seat in Delaware, Christine O’Donnell, who ran an ad titled, “I Am Not a Witch!” It is hard to tell whether life is imitating the media or the media is imitating life while these circuitous and labyrinthine processes keep replicating. To me, this particular piece on Fox News stands out, as it was done without the slightest bit of irony. When, to use the concept from Seinfeld, the two worlds of politics and entertainment collide, both worlds become unrecognizable: Paid Advertisement by Christine O’Donnell: I am not a witch. I am nothing you have heard. I am you. None of us are perfect. I am Christine O’Donnell and I approve this message. I am you.85

Carlson: President Trump doesn’t always do what people expect him to do or even what his supporters want him to do. Is he being unpredictable or could there be another cause, perhaps a magical one? Amanda Yates Garcia is the Oracle of Los Angeles. She says she’s a witch, tarot card reader, spell caster, energy healer, intuitive medium, shamanic practitioner, and magical life coach. . . . What does it mean exactly that you cast a binding spell on the president?

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Yates: Well, I desire that Trump stop harming people that I care about and instituting policies that also harm me or other people that I care about. So, my ultimate aim is that we protect the people that we love from having harm done to them. But in the meantime, I think what’s really important is that we create a sense of solidarity and empowerment within the people who are participating in this spell, to galvanize them toward action so that they can feel empowered to make the changes that they want to see in the world.

Carlson cuts her off as soon as she mentions student debt, nuclear proliferation, and immigration policies.86 The boundary between satire and journalism is indeed blurred in the postmodern era. As legitimate political issues are being stripped of their nuances, and often presented in a shallow form of disagreement between inherently opposing viewpoints, satire is filling the vacuum of the depoliticized media with some real information that can otherwise go missing. I found Oliver’s piece on Puerto Rico more determinedly informative and political than anything I have seen presented in the news media, in connection with either Puerto Rico’s debt or the U.S. government’s unwillingness to help out devastated Puerto Rico after the deadly hurricane: Puerto Rico. The island that has been for decades marketed to us as a beautiful vacation spot. . . . Puerto Rico is currently around seventy billion dollars in debt and it is wreaking havoc on the island. . . . Puerto Rico is not a state but rather, as a 1901 Supreme Court case stated, it is a territory foreign to the United States in the domestic sense. . . . Because it is a territory, many laws that apply to the states have loopholes concerning Puerto Rico. . . . Those little legal quirks have had massive consequences, some good, but many utterly devastating. . . . Section 936 gave tax breaks to businesses that would otherwise have moved overseas. . . . All of a sudden Puerto Rico was a pharmaceutical paradise at its peak, the small city of Barceloneta even housed fourteen pharmaceutical and other plants, including one that produced Viagra. . . . Unfortunately for Puerto Rico Congress got rid of those tax breaks to offset a tax cut on the mainland, phasing them out completely by 2006, and between that and the U.S. recession, Puerto Rico lost over half of its manufacturing jobs, putting their economy in a flaccid state that no amount of Viagra could fix.87

Similarly, Meyers’s short piece on Trump donors has all the trappings of real investigative journalism: Throughout his campaign, candidate Trump constantly brought up how wealthy he was, often bragging he was self-funding his campaign and would therefore not be beholden to special interests or wealthy donors when making political decisions. . . . Trump had the backing of a billionaire family, the Mercers. . . . The Mercers initially supported Ted Cruz, then after realizing they were literally

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the only two people on earth who liked him, threw their money behind Trump and they have been influencing political decisions ever since. The Mercers are now, arguably, the most influential financiers of the Trump era. And unlike other more outspoken donors, most people have a hard time understanding exactly what it is the Mercers are after. But what we do know about them is pretty disturbing. . . . While Steve Bannon claims that his Mercer-backed conspiracy theory candidates want to shake up Washington, D.C., they will be just like every other politician who’s beholden to their donors.88

Often the satirists are better at explaining the nuances of policies than journalists on mainstream American television. Here is Kimmel on Obamacare: The Jimmy Kimmel Test. In a nutshell, no family should be denied medical care, emergency or otherwise, because they cannot afford it. . . . These insurance companies want caps to limit how much they can pay out. For instance, if your son needs to have three open heart surgeries, it can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars apiece, and if he hits the cap, he is on his own. Our current plan protects Americans from the caps and prevents insurance providers from jacking up the rates for people who have pre-existing conditions of all types. . . . The new bill . . . coverage for all? No, in fact it will kick about thirty million Americans off insurance. Pre-existing conditions? No. In fact, if the bill passes, individual states can let the insurance companies charge you more if you have a pre-existing condition. You will find that loophole later in the document. . . . Will it lower premiums? Well, in fact for a lot of people the bill will result in higher premiums. As far as lifetime caps go, the states can decide on them, which means there will be lifetime caps in many states.89

When are satirists better at journalism and why? One way of looking at this issue is to ask when did journalists start losing viewers’ trust. Could it be that the fall-off is related to the shrinking space of serious journalism? The question remains how irony and satire have come to occupy the political discourse so overwhelmingly that these are now considered more trustworthy modes than straight-faced media. Irony is now very much among the major linguistic mediums to analyze politics, and it is increasingly being used by the mainstream media along with their satirist cohorts. As Colbert playfully points out the absurdities of conservative media and associated political characters, the exaggeration transforms the serious into the ridiculous and in turn coverts the farcical into the real. McClennen holds that “as the news media becomes more spectacle than news, satire television experiences an inversion and becomes centrally the space for reasoned deliberation of major issues.”90 While I partially agree with McClennen, my concern remains with identifying the reasons why we perceive the space in the news media and the space in satirical news to have a similar impact upon our political awareness and intelligence. It seems as though satirists have succeeded in conflating reality

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with fantasy to the point where we are not sure which version of political reckoning is more relevant. By adopting the persona of a right-wing pundit, Colbert is able to satirize an actual performer by simultaneously embodying and deconstructing him. His 2007 book, I Am America (And So Can You!), takes this conflict between reality and unreality to the peak by attacking himself, which may be an ultimate example of hyperreality, in the sense that Tally understands, of “the fake newsman who is more real than the supposedly mainstream journalists.”91 One of the most palpable examples of the blurring boundaries between satire and news can be discerned in how the killings of unarmed civilians are covered in real news and satirical news. Stewart’s segments contain much more historical context and forthright analysis of the issues than what is offered on the news media. The Daily Show, at one point, ran an antiquated clip to cover a fresh mass shooting to make the point that things repeat themselves and nothing changes. Here are some excerpts where Stewart addresses the killing of unarmed civilians by police. Consider the clarity of analysis in satire, and compare how the same issue is discussed in conventional news segments: Stewart: Once again the combination of an economically struggling inner city with a police force charged with keeping its citizens out of everyone else’s view has combusted like Watts and Detroit in the sixties, Georgia in the seventies, Miami in the eighties, L.A. and St. Petersburg in the nineties. The cyclical eruptions appear like tragedy cicadas, depressing in their similarity, predictability, and intractability. Cut to Wolf Blitzer on CNN: Hard to believe, this is going on in a major American city right now, this is a scene a lot of us never anticipated seeing in a city like Baltimore. Hard to believe that this is going on, as I keep saying, in a major American city. I don’t remember seeing anything like this in the United States of America in a long time. Stewart: Elvis leading a herd of orthodox Jewish unicorns through a city street, that would be hard to believe! This happens all the time! Ferguson was just a few months ago and you were talking about it!92

After the person who shot the video of the Eric Garner shooting was indicted by the grand jury in Staten Island for possession of guns, this is what Stewart had to say: Stewart: They got the shooter, of the video! . . . What is so hard to understand about this is for months we have been going back and forth about what really happened with Darren Wilson and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Did Brown have his hands up? Did he not have his hands up? Was

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Wilson afraid for his life when he killed Brown? Reasonable people . . . could reach different conclusions. But in this case there was no ambiguity. Even with clarity, though, people continue to blame this death on anything but the injustices of a flawed system. Cut to Real News Segment: What a lot of people don’t understand is, that man was a big man. He was a huge individual. Garner outweighed the officer by probably 150 pounds. Stewart: He outweighed one cop by 150 pounds. What about the other cops? Or maybe that is about how much racial progress America has made? It used to be that black people were only three-fifths of a person. Now they are like six!93

It is important to point out that Trevor Noah follows in Stewart’s footsteps and is able to point to the underlying issues, by contextualizing police arrests and killings, while the news media harps on such events mostly as individual tragedies and falls short of drawing the necessary historical, economic, and political connections: You know what is crazy about these stories? Philando Castile, they say, was stopped forty-nine times by the police, and I know there is always some story about a person’s character. . . . This man could not have been more of a model citizen. [He] worked with children, was revered in his community . . . the kids used to call him Mr. Rogers with dreads. . . . You get to a point when you realize it is just part of a black person’s life in America. Here is how crazy this is. I have only lived in the United States for six years. . . . In that time, I shit you not, I have been stopped by the police . . . I would say going on at least eight to ten times. . . . And every time, that’s the crazy thing, I have accepted it. . . . I believe that the police force as a whole is trained in such a way that it creates a state racism that is different.94

While today’s satirists are revered for pointing out obvious inequities and initiating a more informative discussion of politics, they are generally uncomfortable when they are treated as legitimate journalists. Both Stewart and Oliver vehemently deny such a status with the reiteration that they are first and foremost comedians. The thirty-minute pieces for Last Week Tonight (HBO, 2014–present) that Oliver is doing constitute in-depth analysis of issues such as municipal fines or elected judges, and while Oliver has plenty of talent to find the humor in such topics and package it as entertainment, he will not accept the badge of a journalist.95 I agree with McClennen when she asserts that satirists’ “massive and growing fan base demonstrate[s] that . . . [the] combination of comedy and social critique resonate[s] with a population hungry to vent their frustrations, share a

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laugh, and lampoon those in power,”96 but would like to add that this channel for processing political ideas opened up in the context of shrinking possibilities for change instigated by average citizens. The aftermath of September 11 has also been a transitional period for the U.S. electoral system, particularly when we think about the victory of Citizens United,97 which has permitted unlimited funding of campaigns, along with the beginning and rise to dominance of Super PACs and the corresponding diminishing role of ordinary American voters. A huge chunk of political information and engagement has shifted to the virtual world, where it repeats in circles, at the same time as the real and virtual worlds have become porous; a number of rituals have arisen where journalism and satire are conflated, yet neither journalism nor satire is able to deflate the political realities that have shrunk the space available for citizen engagement with the aforementioned electoral shifts. Even though the presence of satirists who are minorities has started to grace both our cultural world and the television screen, there is still a dearth of such voices able to perform fearless jokes in a way that allows for broad insight. Gray discusses in detail the role of Larry Wilmore as the “Senior Black Correspondent” on The Daily Show. Wilmore leveraged his ethnicity not only to satirize how race was being discussed on television and in the cultural realm, but also provided insights into how the black community itself was responding to such issues and what it deemed insulting. Even as he underplayed the victory of Obama, Wilmore was not hesitant to satirize members of the Congressional Black Caucus facing various degrees of corruption charges.98 He mocked a number of instances of racism (such as when the Reverend Al Sharpton criticized the Academy Awards for the lack of black actors getting the awards) on his program The Nightly Show, even as he compared these newer examples with greater historical injustices, which let him simultaneously situate racism in its historical context and exert agency by being dismissive toward repulsive labels.99 He contextualized the killing of unarmed black civilians in the present political environment by highlighting the underreported news of how the police in Florida used pictures of black men for target practice as part of their training. As Wilmore quipped, “The goals [of today’s black protest movements] are less tangible. In the old days, it was being able to sit at the same lunch counter, or going to the same schools or even voting. Today we are just trying to not get shot on our way to work.”100 In this era of identity politics, such sharp self-deprecating humor seems to be allowed to minority comedians to assail themselves or their own tribes. Contemporary satirists distinguish themselves as being in the business of entertainment while charging the journalists on television with carrying the burden of information. While this distinction is theoretically valid, it has lost meaning because (a) a substantial proportion of the audience treats satire as a necessary source of political information; (b) shows which are entertainment

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but feign as information (Alex Jones, for example) have increased in magnitude and visibility; and (c) the presentation of information in news and satire closely mirrors each other in what they want to reveal. When NBC and MSNBC news anchor Chuck Todd interviews Klepper about his upcoming segment on the State of the Union (SOTU) on Klepper’s show The Opposition and admits that he, much like Klepper, has no idea what to expect and how to present the imminent SOTU, the distinction between news and satire gets all too blurry. It is no surprise when Klepper echoes Todd, “What is going to be the State of the Union, I have no idea. I just know we are going live, just like him!”101 In the globalized and postmodern media landscape, political satirists become proficient entertainers, their role being to nurture their own audience bases while taking on the other segments of media and society with a level of conflict that is acerbic and yet without substantive impact. Yet in this era of political turbulence, American satirists have been saddled with an added responsibility, namely to assure us that we are going to be all right irrespective of the divisions that are roiling us. I would like to mention the notable SNL monologue by Tom Hanks, just before the 2016 election, where he assumes the role of America’s Dad talking to the problem child, adolescent America. This is a humorous but telling example of the expansion of the role and expectations of satirists in general. At the precipice of the Trump victory, Tom Hanks takes on the persona of America’s reassuring Dad: “Rough year, huh? . . . You’re anxious, you’re conflicted. You’re scared what is going to happen next. Well, you’re gonna be fine,” the Dad consoles the nation. Adding historical context, he reminds us, “Remember when you went through that Depression? This is nothing! You’re just growing up, and you’re in an awkward phase.” He underplays the problem of 2016 as a manifestation of adolescent issues: “You may have noticed that your complexion is changing—you’re getting a little darker, and you’re freaking out about it. Well, that’s natural for a nation of immigrants like yourself. Also, you’re a lot gayer than you used to be.” On an optimistic note, he finishes, “You went to the moon. You invented the Internet. You created a cannon that shoots T-shirts.” And he ends with the punch line, “No matter what happens, I’m proud of you.”102 Day asserts that current satire complements the inadequacies of political commentary in the media and opens up a valuable space for engrossing debate. I agree with her former point about the shortage of serious political analysis, but I would argue that the engagement that takes place occurs within particular cliques—not between people of different camps, but rather among the in-group itself. While conceding that most of these shows are products of narrowcasting—the entertainment industry’s attempt to cultivate particular tendencies within constricted bounds—Day also appreciates how the parodistic tendency has penetrated the broader political culture.103 My disagreement with her is not about the overall trend, but its impact. I would reiterate my

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argument that even though satire has reached large numbers of the public, it may still be preaching to the choir for the most part. The carving out of segmented audiences and feeding them the exact kind of news they thirst for has become possible only through the seemingly opposite trend of network centralization and program multiplication. Here are some excerpts from Maher’s “New Rules” addressing some sacred symbols of American conservatives like eagles and hunting, where it is easy to imagine that his targeted audience does not include Trump supporters or even supporters of the Republican Party: And finally, new rule: Republicans have to learn the difference between being conservative and just being a dick. So much of what they have done since Trump took over isn’t moving the party in a more conservative direction. It’s also not a libertarian move. It’s just a dick move. Take for instance the bizarre decision to reverse the ban on lead ammunition. For over a decade we’ve been moving away from lead bullets because when a sportsman experiences the exquisite joy that comes from blowing the head off a chipmunk or a wolf and leaves it to rot, bald eagles eat the carcass, and when it has lead in it, it poisons them to death slowly and painfully. If it doesn’t have lead, eagles, you know, the symbol of our fucking country before they were replaced by a trucker hat . . .  if it doesn’t have lead in it, they don’t die. Why not leave that rule alone? Because hunting is a sacred sport? Is it even really a sport? Is it a sport when one team doesn’t know that the game is going on?104

It is breathtaking that the same technique of narrowcasting, where the focus is to reach out to a small segment of the base or the audience, has been identified as a fundamental strategy to sell the unpopular 2017 Republican tax cut by political professionals, as it has become true for selling policy in general. Irony, parody, and satire are the chosen language of postmodernism, because postmodernism operates within circular paths. As long as problems are deconstructed, hypocrisies identified, paradoxes highlighted, and particular patterns repeated, we can move on to the next issue. At this point we can legitimately ask the question if humor has depoliticized political reasoning. Why are mainstream issues still categorized from the positions of political parties rather than from the ideological prism? Does political satire force the audience to make peace with the absurdities and channel their indignation through laughter? Again, do we only laugh and not get angry? History is helpful here again (as I will elaborate in the next section), because we can notice that popular culture on television has been structurally conservative and monolithic from the very beginning, and televisual media have often portrayed a sunnier picture than what has been occurring in the real world, especially in the unsettled 1960s. Television has generally imagined an ideal world that celebrates the ideal society, along with

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American commercial and technological superiority, and any political or cultural message that challenged that exceptionalism has been duly crushed.105 We should not forget that the early advent of television was intertwined with explicit political messaging, particularly anti-communist propaganda. Later, throughout the turbulent 1960s, instead of adequately covering the protests and political movements centered around war, racism, and gender inequities, or honestly representing the themes of the counterculture, television opted to show a cheerful, serene life. Skepticism toward entrenched politics, let alone political humor, was a taboo for television in its early days. As Peterson notes for the 1960s, “While the news showed us flag-draped coffins and burning cities, prime time showed us talking horses and genies. It was the age of Unreality TV.”106 Most of the shows, including satire such as The Tonight Show, were designed to be gently funny and pleasing. The most consequential contrast is that while satire was certainly being deployed for political resistance in that tempestuous era by Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, MAD magazine, and so on, their views never became part of the mainstream media. They were considered not appropriate for family viewing.107 In the postmodern cultural domain humor becomes a tool not just to process absurdity but to sanitize it. Even while shining a light on absurdity, it humanizes it and makes it palatable. It acknowledges plural meanings, but doesn’t want to tie the meanings to any singular framework, instead just pointing out how different they are. Without an ideal, one cannot truly be critical; but since postmodernity shuns the ideal, the only way to be critical is through irony. Since postmodernism resists deeply generated and universally accepted meanings, it has to procreate cultural artifacts in fragments and let the consumer intuit individual meanings. LaMarre and others have done a study to figure out how the messages of The Colbert Report have been processed. As we might have expected, political ideology deeply influenced the messages that the audience received from The Colbert Report—which we might presume is true of other satirical shows as well. Although Colbert’s conservative audience regarded him as funny, they took his criticism of liberals literally, while his liberal audience base felt that they were in on the joke. The ambiguity of Colbert’s messages was interpreted by the audience at the receiving end in accordance with their own beliefs.108 Colletta argues that postmodern irony is distinctive from traditional irony because the focus shifts from presentation of reality to construction of reality and that these constructions are “self-referential,” as the meaning of irony manifests only with the participation of viewers, the postmodern audience being “in on the joke.”109 Because one part of Colbert’s audience took his act literally and believed him to be conservative, the concept of everyone being “in on the joke” can be questioned. While Colbert used absurdity to lend force to his parody of Bill O’Reilly, O’Reilly himself used similar strategies but

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not ironically, thus “blurring the distinction between absurdity and politics as usual.”110 I disagree with Colletta’s assertion that the irony used in contemporary satire is self-referential, because it seems that the target—whether Bush and his administration in the recent past or Trump and his cronies now—is external, the message being that we can get rid of the farcical cycles of failed political performances if only we elect the right people from the right party or show up in enough numbers at the polling booth. Webber argues that irony and parody have come to represent the common people and their common sense in a media crowded with expert and authority figures, satire becoming the only mode of resistance that can be heard and acknowledged, and that can infiltrate the frames set by media professionals.111 It is difficult to disagree with this assertion. One of the most important terms popularized by recent satire is “truthiness,”112 which was coined by Colbert; it has become such an integral part of our broader cultural vocabulary that it was named Word of the Year for 2005 by the American Dialect Society, and Merriam-Webster adopted it for their dictionary in 2006. The term is defined as the quality of seeming or being felt to be true, even if not necessarily true. Colbert used truthiness as an effective tool to unravel issues which were not based on facts, exhibiting the origins, rationales, and objectives of such half-truths or semi-truths, and demonstrating the extent to which these wishful perceptions can persuade or manipulate people. The items referred to by truthiness seem to me the embodiment of postmodernism, because the concept claims to be against realism and yet enhances our ability to understand that reality from the multiple perspectives of who uses power, who is manipulated, and who benefits from the application of truthiness. The word truthiness has an uncanny similarity to the label “alternative facts,” a term introduced by Kellyanne Conway, President Trump’s counselor, in order to refute the statistical and visual evidence of the extent of Trump’s inauguration crowd. Not surprisingly, Trump’s attempts at post-truth have been called a rip-off of truthiness by Colbert. Notice the circular dance. Notice how politicians in the real world are finding great success in appealing to certain constituencies by first recognizing that truthiness (or “fake news” as Trump calls it) is widespread, and then explicitly appealing to their targeted voter base by portraying themselves as capable of weaponizing, or politicizing, the very items of truthiness (such as the imagined need for the border wall, or for trade tariffs, or to revive American “greatness” in general) that have already been deconstructed by Colbert: The Oxford English Dictionary has named its year of the word for 2016 and it is post-truth. And I am pre-enraged. First of all, post-truth is not a word of the year, it is two words of the year. Hyphens are for the weak. Second, post-truth is

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clearly just a rip-off of my 2006 word of the year, truthiness, which . . . according to this article is defined as the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true. Now, for the record, that is not the definition of truthiness. . . . Hey! If you want to know what truthiness is, you know who to call: Stephen Colbert. Truthiness [is] the belief in what you feel to be true rather than what the facts will support. Now check out the definition of post-truth: “Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Oh, I personally believe I am getting ripped off!113

As we celebrate the new political space created by satire, we should also insist on asking why this became necessary. I would argue that the problem is the shrinkage of political space. Why has satire become such an influential medium in American critical thinking? Political satire and irony flourish as the space for entertainment on the television screen expands, and while this expansion may have been beneficial for satire, it has also changed the nature and tone of information, so that substantive analysis or nuanced debate get lost because of the manner in which real news is conveyed. While the growing corruption and outsized power of the elites have become fodder for late-night comedians, scholars of mass media and performance studies point to the highly choreographed nature of current political debates, where each minute is assigned for, and instead of complex issues the focus is often on style over substance, body language and physical appearance, and buzzwords that can be translated in terms of winning and losing. The structural transformation of the dominant news media, with the accompanying decline in investigative reporting resources and abilities, the consolidation of media ownership (which I will discuss in the next chapter), and the growing perception of news as only a profitable commodity from the point of view of media owners have all functioned in synchrony to homogenize and repackage political information as entertainment.114 Postmodernism as cultural mode, abetted by our obsession with technology, has made images more significant than deeper and more objective analysis, and has made charisma and performance the most important currency in politics. It celebrates the rituals of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement without treating the movement’s comminuqués as an ideological challenge; it champions the Women’s March in Washington, D.C., after Trump’s inauguration without addressing what the march was trying to achieve; and it focuses on Black Lives Matter (BLM) as an expression of personal grievances rather than connecting it with the other historical demands for social justice. The politics of radical personal resistance get much more attention than legislative changes that can genuinely empower marginalized groups.115 Amid the lack of objectivity, the only argument that makes sense is one that can be personalized, otherwise it does not resonate with the audience. The disconnection between political awareness and lack of political engagement is not a failure,

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but constructed by design. When the political is understood only through the lens of the personal, we gain truthiness instead of truth. Postmodern aesthetics and the new revisionist populism together have created a destabilizing effect, but are yet to produce a new paradigm that can explain the complex relations between mediated culture and social structure. Again, what is the role of the audience, and do they rework media messages, and if so, how?116 Postmodernism has to be understood in its relationship with globalization, consumer culture, and the creation of the meaning, value, and circulation of symbolic goods.117 Consumer cultural codes that are now understood with ease have permeated media and reality with unmatched speed, and we cannot forget that for their continued reproduction they only require consumers, not necessarily citizens.118 Consumer society has become saturated with signs, messages, and images to the extent that it is almost impossible to distinguish between reality and myth. Politics is following the mode of production of consumer culture, as it is duplicated and replicated in the digital world and on social media, while facts and alternative facts reside in mutual harmony and are often a real challenge to separate.119 As Fishwick notes, “The stratosphere has been joined by the datasphere; the Interstate highway by the Information superhighway; consumer technology . . . [has] transformed our social environment and hence our society.”120 Putnam has complained about the pivotal place of television in American social life, which he claims has tattered social connection and produced isolation, but he has been less concerned with the impact of new spaces that create new connections and new definitions of reality. Other theorists such as Postman have lamented how television provides distorted political information, though spinning the news and presenting subjective interpretation as fact might stimulate critical thinking in ways he might not have realized. Hart is concerned about how television makes us feel politically engaged or empowered without creating any real change,121 which was a valid consideration to begin with and has now acquired an additional layer of meaning with the new avenues of social media like Facebook, Twitter, and the rest. We have stepped into a new world with unprecedented technological capabilities that can create different realities and replace our lived realities with ease and poise. This new veneer resembles Baudrillard’s notion of integral reality, where reality gets produced on its own without any connection to the real world. The situation just a few decades ago was that satire didn’t aspire to verisimilitude, nor was it taken as a realistic reflection of political or social materiality; its exaggerations were well understood. The change happened partly through developments such as the portrayal of political personas by SNL, which not only became popular but delivered on the potential to impact political careers and shape voters’ perceptions about political leaders. The prolonged opposition to the Vietnam War ushered in long-simmering

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political issues to the comedic sphere, as comedy fulfilled its role of being anti-establishment. Dan Aykroyd could portray a devious President Nixon and later a micromanaging President Carter without a backlash, while President Ford actually signaled that he enjoyed the caricature by Chevy Chase, though it depicted him as awkward and clumsy, and some of the White House staff even blamed the comedian for Ford’s electoral loss. The popularity of fake news got a big boost with the emergence of “The Weekend Update” on SNL, where real news was ridiculed. The political satire of Stewart and Colbert started with this impulse, merging the real and the fake with their own takes, but never claiming to be serious news.122 An intriguing question that remains to be answered is why these shows, the self-proclaimed purveyors of fake news, are taken by anyone as sources of serious news. On the basis of a series of focus group discussions with citizens of all ages, Carpini and Williams find that television remains a key to peoples’ perceptions and the basis for their arguments about political issues. Audiences often don’t distinguish real information from its interpretation on the television screen, and value the visual and visceral exposure on an equally significant plane as their own personal experiences. Popular culture clearly shapes people’s perceptions and meanings regarding social and political issues, often more than the impact from real persons who have the knowledge or experience to deal with such issues.123 Soft power working through popular culture has always been as much of a tool as economic or military power, and has at times succeeded even where the military might not have made much headway. One of the good examples of globalization and its reflection in the media is the prime-time soap opera Dallas, which was the most widely viewed television program in the world in the 1980s, the decade when rapid globalization of the television market took off.124 The seamless exchanges between movie industries globally (Hollywood now invests in and produces Indian movies, which have an even larger market than Hollywood movies), and the characters on Americans serials played by international actors (Indian actress Priyanka Chopra plays a central character on Quantico, an American network drama series, traveling back and forth between New York and Mumbai every couple of weeks), are probably going to grow as they are hailed for being positive steps in multicultural society. Of course, it is not only the media that has led and benefited from globalization, many of the global conflicts and American entanglements are reflections of earlier power rivalries. The new impetus is the packaging steered by globalization and assimilated by the media that strives to make all social problems palatable. I will let Fishwick summarize this tendency: “If Sparta was a military state, and Iran a religious state, the United States might be called a media state, beaming its message to the whole world.”125 Postmodernism allows for not only different meanings of events, whether cultural or political, from multiple perspectives, but argues that the more the

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number of dimensions, even if they contradict one another, the stronger the narrative. This frame of multiple narratives works well for the media, as the media is seeking to reach out to different groups of people with very different demands. In the next section I discuss how globalization and media conglomeration became interlinked and how they expanded the space for comedy, because instead of competing for the same segments of audiences, the smaller number of media powerhouses wanted to capture and nurture the unique demands of different audience groups by offering very different programs catering to each segment. Since there was little fear of losing the audience, the focus was to create new groups of audiences and to maintain their loyalty. With the expansion of the variety of programs overall, satire is now a major genre on late-night TV with politics as its forte. But the problem is that even though multiple viewpoints are essential in politics, it is equally essential to reach an endpoint, a decision, a compromise, an acceptance of what is right at least for that particular point in time. While not accommodating less powerful voices was a concern with modernity, postmodernity allows all voices to be heard but falls short of enabling a fusion or concession or conciliation. We have become so familiar with the constant production and reproduction of images generated in the postmodern mediascape that we have accepted it as part of our normal experience.126 Our cellphones function as extensions of our social and professional roles, offering to fill the gaps with leisurely activities in between other responsibilities. We view the world as spectators, happy with our freedom to travel anywhere, enjoying different palates and different cultures from the comfort of our homes or recreational destinations. For the privileged few, life is structured around different layers of tourism, centered on either work or leisure. Even for those who are not physically traveling, there is enough information and entertainment to create an illusion of voyage anywhere in the world. We can opt for this feeling of uprootedness and support it with our daily practices and life choices if that is what we want.127 By rejecting objectivity, postmodernism creates a space for play and performance which can only be viewed or enjoyed. The meaning of participation in such spaces is measured not in terms of any neutral gauge such as objective changes in behavior, but only in terms of subjective pleasure. This is exactly what neoliberalism desires: a passive citizenry, citizens as consumers or voyeurs. To evoke a standard postmodern notion, who then has the agency? Cook has described how a citizen becomes a voyeur in postmodern reality.128 Being a spectator becomes the endgame. One of the best examples of seemingly being politically aware and engaged while being a passive spectator has been captured in the following song that SNL featured, projecting an everyday American and the extent of his activism: He couldn’t sit by and do nothing. He had to act before it was too late.

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He shared an article on Facebook, and then everything changed. Thank you, Scott. You solved a problem, Scott. You brought the struggle to an end, Scott. By sharing that article with eighty-four Facebook friends. Thank you, Scott.129

THE STRUCTURAL REALITY OF THE POSTMODERN MEDIA Political satire has always played an important role in American politics as a source of both entertainment and awareness. What began during the American Revolution as a device to expose the hypocrisy of the British monarchy has by now flourished into quite an industry in the twenty-first century. Late-night television hosts like Stewart and Colbert have succeeded in placing politics at the center of popular culture and making political conversation a key element of entertainment. Satire today includes its historic expressions contained in political cartoons, sketch comedy, and political humor columns, but, more importantly, the new territory of multimedia where it is being performed through videos and animation is available on our TV screens, laptops, tablets, and phones whenever we crave for laughter. Satire has become such an important part of the landscape that candidates reach out to their voters through these outlets. Americans, especially the millennial generation, look to satirical sources not only to laugh and escape from reality, but to gauge reality itself.130 The social and political materialities of a particular time are reflected in how the media is structured and the role it plays, not only as part of a methodical and deliberate process but also in a subliminal manner. Post–Second World War American society where mass media flourished was a very different society than the one inhabited by previous generations. Along with new innovations that promised more freedom and time, lives also became more regimented, and in that world parallel threads of development of a rampant consumer society and alternative lifestyles that questioned the essence of modernity evolved at the same time. Just as different movements demanding awareness of and solutions to the problems of social justice, race relations, and gender prejudices came into play, political life started revolving around the two major political parties and the extent to which they were willing to address those issues. The sweeping role of the media, not only in terms of criticism or satire but also in terms of defining what is political and how we engage in political discourse, had a tremendous impact on the prioritization of those issues.

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America had inherited a new enemy from the ashes of the Second World War—namely, communism—and it was in that larger climate that television emerged and became a household feature. When not engaged in foreign wars, the gaze of political and social judgment in the past would have turned inward, but the problems that American society faced now—the civil rights movement, the antiwar movement, and race riots—were considered to be too grave and contentious for political commentary, especially via humor. The Korean War and the Vietnam War instilled a patriotic fervor too, but the taboo of questioning the government during a national crisis was finally shattered by the protesters against the Vietnam War when it went on too long. The public takedown of government mostly played out on the streets, and was reflected only infrequently in digital media. In its early days, television functioned as more of an escape from than a window to political entanglement, allowing few exceptions to bring in political questions in an ideological fashion. The story of satire on television and in movies as it evolved around the time of the Second World War would be incomplete without mentioning the example of Charlie Chaplin, who filled the screens with poignant hilarity that nonetheless managed to evoke thoughtful questions about authoritarianism, capitalism, poverty, and similar dilemmas. The focus of late-nineteenthcentury humor was an idealized version of the American citizen, a virtuous urban denizen gently teased for his modest aspirations toward the good life. In the twentieth century, the little man emerged as someone who knew when and how to laugh at both the extent of political corruption and the zeal of reformers.131 It is no coincidence that Chaplin played his first role embodying the little man as tramp in 1914, in the same year that novelist Sinclair Lewis depicted the little man as a white-collar dreamer in his novel Our Mr. Wrenn: The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man.132 Hodgart identifies Chaplin as one of the foremost satirists in the genre of film.133 Many of his movies like The Great Dictator (1940) are explicitly political, while others like The Tramp (1915) or Modern Times (1936) are social commentaries. All his movies contain a strong ideological message, and while the comic acts of Chaplin evoke laughter, his empathy also sheds light on the imbalances of power, the plight of the common man, and the concealment of social injustices. We can aptly shower praise upon Chaplin for making satire funny and accessible and yet containing a powerful political message. While his own movies were later shown on the television screen, his general brand of satire was shunned on American television. The tradition of satire he followed—underpinned by ideology aiming to create serious discomfort through humor—continued in stand-up comedy that took place in theaters and public spaces but was barred from the television screen. Satirists like Lenny Bruce who questioned social and political mores were deemed to be too radical and allocated cultural space on the fringe, but were never embraced in the mainstream media.

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We need to be aware that just because the visual media are part of the broader culture, there is no guarantee that they will reflect the essential political and social issues of the day. The owners of networks who make key decisions, their calculations about prospective viewers, and their political convictions all play an important role in shaping the content displayed on television. A good example of such distortions which result from selective framing and ideological bias might be the 1960s, when American comedy kept its gaze away from social and political upheaval and focused on gentler and more palatable humor, leaving only a limited space for political appraisal in the mainstream media. We cannot forget that the decades of the 1960s and 1970s were filled with activism, social revolt, and participatory democracy: people not only marched in the streets, but believed that they could change the political system, and indeed they were victorious on many fronts, such as racial justice, transparency of government, and gender equality. Rather than striving to capture and reflect these volatile political and social changes, media executives settled for a safer route and cultivated mostly a non-controversial space for a general audience.134 It was during the Watergate debacle that it became permissible to criticize the government’s arrogation of excessive power. But the trend that developed during Watergate was that satire became individualized toward particular persons, a trend that remains the main thread of political satire even today. For example, it is much easier to hold President George W. Bush responsible for the botched Iraq War, rather than connect the war with America’s history of military adventures and its imperial presence. The 1980s and 1990s produced plenty of political satire, but much of it focused on the weaknesses of presidents (the sex scandals of Bill Clinton were a great gift to satirists). In the mainstream media, comedy followed this basic structure of targeting specific silly persons or behavior for laughter. Although a few serials like Roseanne (1988–97) or Grace Under Fire (1993–98) did infiltrate the comedy space with weighty issues like poverty, within a short span of time depoliticized shows like Everybody Loves Raymond (1996–2005), Friends (1994–2004), and the above-mentioned Seinfeld (1989–98) drowned the media with humor that was unproblematic, cosmopolitan, and apolitical. These trends in the 1990s were definitely related to changes that occurred in media ownership, global conglomeration, and target audiences, issues that I will address in detail later in this chapter. Even though television operates in the private marketplace, it started out with a reverence toward government and existing social conventions, as almost all technological innovations in this country are spearheaded by the government. The new media opened up a space for entertainment where social and political discussions were also taking place, but there emerged certain parameters about what would be allowed in those spaces and what would

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be shunned. For various reasons, mainly because of the high investment in the commercial structure, media executives retained more power over individual performers than publishers exercised over writers or cartoonists in previous eras. In this book I have focused on specific shows like SNL (1975–present) or specific satirists like Colbert or Maher, but one must not forget that it is not only the performers who are in charge of the presentations that we watch but also media executives with vast corporate responsibilities. Justman makes us further aware about the connection between the structure of our consumer society and the value it assigns to history. The new media based on consumer culture tends to be fixated on the present moment, and this tendency of shooting a quick glance without indulging in the luxury of absorbing the whole context has shaped the new mode of satire and might well be the distinguishing characteristic between literary and performative satire (as I will explain in the next chapter). The production of cultural memory that takes place in multimedia is very different than in the literary tradition.135 Satire, in the new context, loses memory of its historical sources, and without the larger frame of reference, the elements of creating shock and excess often become daily routines. Consumer society is typically not interested in looking back, but is focused instead on keeping its gaze on a neverending cycle of new consumer goods, even when it is in the form of cultural programming. The key element in consumer society is manufactured excess, and like everything else the effectiveness of satire is measured in relation to viewership, which can be directly translated into dollar amounts. Justman summarizes the tendencies of consumer culture in this way: Consumer culture spills over into ridicule of itself, its excess taking the form of a kind of continual exposè of its own productions. . . . This sort of advanced mockery seems the very note of a consumer economy that joins the production and destruction of value in a single act. . . . Consumer culture is satiric only in the sense that its cynicism, by ridiculing its own products, clears the way for new ones just as consumer goods per se are used up, discarded, and replenished.136

Along with consumer culture, wherein television is grounded, the new technologies that followed the innovations after the Second World War also had tremendous impact on all the performative arts, including satire. The connection between consumer culture and technology mirrors the interdependent relationship between technology and the structure of media presentation. As Day contends, “The manufactured quality of public life has made expressions of serious earnestness somewhat suspect. One could argue that new technologies have been central to provoking this situation by helping to turn public life into highly managed spectacle; however, these technologies are equally being mobilized as means of critiquing and deconstructing that spectacle.”137

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One of the first programs that can clearly be labeled as satire on American television was a news parody program, That Was the Week That Was (TWTWTW), which aired on NBC from 1964 through 1965. The program followed a British show with the same name which was not only popular but the first of its kind to present a format where cartoons, songs, stand-up performances, and sketches all meshed together, with the primary focus on parody having a strong political streak running through all its performances.138 In fact, TWTWTW is considered a precursor to SNL’s “Weekend Update” and The Daily Show, both in terms of spirit and format of presentation. The American version was also popular and dealt with social issues, as well as providing a controversial space for political accountability. The Republican presidential nomination evoked such parodies as the following: “That was the week that was / Rocky is in the race. / Barry may be displaced / but if Nelson tries flaking / Nixon may play his ace!”139 Although the combination of monologues, fake interviews, and sketches was entertaining, President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, occurring not long before the program started airing, dampened the harshness of the political utterances. Even though TWTWTW was short-lived, its impact on the ensuing iterations of Laugh-In and especially SNL left a permanent impression on American comedy. The program ended when the network did not dare to broadcast any episodes just before the 1964 election.140 As mentioned before, those were years of tremendous social disturbance, including the fight for civil rights, women’s rights, and an end to the Vietnam War, but humor on national TV remained mostly sanitized and civil until the Watergate scandal erupted. The first generation of comedic shows, such as TWTWTW (1964–65) and Laugh-In (1967–73), were careful not to offend their audiences too much, but The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (1967–69) did not shy away from attacking political practices and personas, including the figure of the president. The Smothers Brothers delivered vicious satire of police brutality against hippies, reporters, and pedestrians to depict the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. But as soon as the show started to slam the Vietnam War, it got canceled. It was their musical guest, Pete Seeger, and his song “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy,” that got the plug pulled for the show. Images of bloodied youth and cruel police beatings filled the screen, with Harry Belafonte’s cheery song “Don’t Stop the Carnival” being played in the background; this was considered inappropriate for family audiences.141 The most famous comedian of that era, Johnny Carson, also started cautiously, mainly keeping out of controversies and politics. But when Carson started making jokes about the Watergate scandal, it was deemed safe enough for popular television, and his jokes were understood as a signal that it was permissible to ridicule the president.142 Watergate was an abomination, but

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compared to the tragic events surrounding the Vietnam War, it easily offered itself for mockery. It was serious but it had all the elements of entertainment. It satisfied the criteria of political criticism while shifting the focus mainly to President Nixon and his associates who literally broke the law. The satire that emerged from Watergate was lively and piercing, but the target was an unpopular president rather than any aspect of the political establishment itself. Political satire, though deemed permissible in the aftermath of Watergate, chose to select targets that could be personalized and hence not perceived as condemnation of the overall political or social configuration. The show that has had the most lasting impact on television in this respect seems to be SNL, although it was not the first to feature political or even social commentary as part of its routine performance. Not only is SNL one of the most stable cultural artifacts associated with political analysis, but its role during presidential elections cannot be understated. It enjoys more acceptability than late-night comedy shows which are strictly linked with particular political positions or biases. SNL is open about the political principles the show is grounded in, but because it produces a variety of critiques of a wide range of social, cultural, and political phenomena, its appeal remains more universal to all audience groups. SNL was first broadcast on NBC in 1975, and soon emerged as an important voice of the counterculture, eventually establishing itself as an inherent part of American political conversation in the media. It was the first comedy-variety show that was explicit in its political orientation and direction, although its coverage of politics was much smaller in the beginning. At the time of its inception, the political humor was focused on the obvious, such as Gerald Ford’s physical coordination or Jimmy Carter’s Southern accent, and was therefore relatively bland. As with most of the late-night comedies, the George W. Bush presidency provided an immensely fertile landscape for comedy, and SNL definitely made the most of that opportunity. Politicians such as Sarah Palin are now forever intertwined in our memory with the portrayal of SNL’s Tina Fey, as is true of President Trump with the show’s Alec Baldwin. SNL deserves special mention not only for creating a fresh comedic space to analyze politics, but also other social issues and the media itself. The first five years of SNL were quite rocky, as the show expanded its scope by connecting with major Hollywood performers. An invitation to host SNL has become a sought-after emblem for people both in show business and politics. Some credit the move to focus on entertainment rather than controversy as the secret to the longevity and popularity of SNL.143 Even though the ideological bias of SNL is understood and accepted as liberal, it has escaped being pigeonholed as a stridently liberal voice, unlike its compatriot shows. Rather, SNL is deemed important enough for politicians

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of both political parties to make an appearance on or even to host the show. SNL was the first late-night entertainment show to be hosted by a public official, when President Ford’s White House press secretary Ron Nessen featured on the program in 1976. The satirical representation of Ford as a klutz not only made the nation laugh, but was deemed amusing by Ford himself. Ford took the parodies aimed at him graciously, even when his people were complaining about the damage being done; later, he actually held a conference called “Humor and the Presidency,” and in 1987 wrote a book with the same title.144 SNL went on to have a field day with Vice President Dan Quayle and his misstatements (“I have made good judgments in the past. I have made good judgments in the future”; “For NASA, space is still a high priority.”). The senior Bush with his gaffes was also an object of much humor.145 Satire in the Clinton era started with sharp jabs at leadership, character, and morality, but the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal drowned everything else. In the first SNL skit featuring him, President Clinton jogged to a McDonald’s, explaining foreign policy while stealing other people’s food. The projections of a flirty hippie became downright malicious in their assaults on both Clinton and Lewinsky.146 The contributions of SNL toward political satire are especially momentous when we consider the number of viable templates it has offered over the years in terms of how to effectively take on social and political behavior. One of the notable skits about the 2016 election came when Trump was pulling off an unexpected victory and most of the satirists as well as journalists were busy expressing disbelief. But SNL was one of the few shows where instead of emphasizing the unexpected demolition of the established order, attention was fixed on the systematic racism and naiveté of elite voters. One sketch shows friends watching the election results, where everyone (Vanessa Bayer, Aidy Bryant, Beck Bennett, Cecily Strong) is stunned, except two friends who are black (Dave Chappelle and Chris Rock), the only ones not surprised by Trump’s victory, and who keep referring to America’s racist history to make sense of the outcome.147 While there have been a lot of parodies on various shows about Trump voters—their hypocrisy, their overt racism, their preference for violence, and their unsubstantiated criticism of President Obama—a skit on SNL about Trump voters has been one of the few that projects a Trump voter as a person whom we might visualize as a neighbor, attempting to dissect the sociocultural background and leanings of such a voter. In the skit called “Black Jeopardy,” Tom Hanks plays the character of a contestant who is definitely a white working-class voter, sporting the Trump hat emblazoned with the slogan “Make America Great Again.” As the only white person among the black contestants and host (Sasheer Zamata, Leslie Jones, and Kenan Thompson), he is out of place racially, but his personal and cultural preferences blend remarkably well

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with those of the black contestants (“Question: They out here saying the new iPhone wants your thumbprint for your protection. Answer: What is, I don’t think so, that’s how they get you. . . . Question: They out here saying every vote counts. Answer: They already decided who wins even before it happens. . . . Question: Skinny women can do this for you. Answer: What is, not a damn thing!”). For a while the sociocultural similarity of the white and black working class captivates us, until the last question, which is about BLM. We don’t even need to hear the response from the Trump voter, we just know “it was good while it lasted.”148 SNL frequently parodies TV commercials, genre shows, and other TV programs along with offering social and political commentary. The structure of SNL, building around memories of popular sitcoms like I Love Lucy, or talk shows and game shows, offers familiarity to the audience and connects them with recent shows on television. By tapping into the audience’s cultural memory, SNL has created a strong bond with viewers that goes beyond common political ideology or beliefs.149 As mentioned earlier, SNL has squarely established itself as a major source of humor during each presidential election season. What Chevy Chase started with his impersonation of President Ford has reached a peak with Alec Baldwin’s impersonation of President Trump. While it was comical to witness various impersonations of past presidents, Baldwin has been credited with providing an outlet for the frustrations and anger of many Americans through his rather devious personification of Trump. In short, SNL has solidly constructed itself as a major political platform, so that during election season nominees from both political parties are not only characterized in sketches, but are often invited to use the show to display their humor and market themselves as likeable candidates who are able to laugh at themselves.150 The mix of mainstream comedy and political humor firmly anchored by SNL expanded gradually, so that by 1991 humor was significant enough for the rise of a whole new network, a new space breeding and rearing a new audience. Comedy Central emerged in 1991, dwarfing rival channels such as HBO and MTV which ran a few comedy programs. One of its first popular and successful features was a half-hour political talk show hosted by comedian Bill Maher, called Politically Incorrect (1993–2002). The Daily Show started in 1996, and though its most famous host, Jon Stewart, retired in 2015, the show remains on the air with its new host, Trevor Noah, and is considered a landmark in political comedy. Once cable channels began to dominate television, the room for comedy greatly expanded, and it was believed that a brand-new audience, recruited especially from the millennials, was available to an emerging group of satirists who remained politically savvy in the midst of the uncanny political events that started erupting during the Bush presidency. Now the different cable networks, as well as all digital media, are full to the brim with comedy and satire.151

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It is also important to understand why the television landscape expanded so much in the 1990s, and to comprehend the rationale and role of cable channels in the overall amplification of digital media. Television from its inception fell under the regulation of the FCC (Federal Communications Commission, evolving from the Federal Radio Commission), with the expectation that it would promote the public interest. But the commercial rationale always topped the public interest, as network television focused on profits, advertisements, and entertainment.152 The FCC (or to be precise, the FRC, or Federal Radio Commission) was formed in 1920 to provide licensing to for-profit broadcasters who would develop a commercial industry and market for the airwaves. Early radio broadcasting had a distinctly grassroots orientation as local stations dominated the frequencies. Without any provision for private financing, radio stations remained subsidized by government and mainly independent. As Cohen informs us, in 1925 less than 4 percent of the airwaves were owned by commercial broadcasting companies, while educational institutions and churches owned 28 percent of the 571 radio stations nationwide.153 But by the mid-1990s the era of local ownership of the media, comprised of newspapers, radio, and television, had come to a drastic end with pervasive deregulation in the global political economy.154 Television was added to the list of the media under the purview of the FCC, but the nature and reach of this particular medium proved to be very different than its predecessors. The structure of TV production until the 1970s mimicked that of radio, as only three major networks—ABC, NBC, and CBS— ruled the media. These networks competed with each other to attract more viewers by expanding their programming, yet did not dare to offer programs vastly different than their competitors for fear of losing market share.155 As television became more accessible, its audience grew within America as well as beyond national boundaries. It was in this context, and with the added impetus of improved technology, that the cable networks were born, catering to discrete audience groups and focused on finding ever-smaller niches as the nature of competition changed with many more participants in the media market. This process of narrowcasting, preoccupied with reaching specific audience groups rather than maximizing the total size of the audience, is a marked change from previous strategies and has impacted the structure and nature of satire on television. As I will discuss in the final chapter, this is the same technique that has been borrowed by President Trump to reach his supporters. By the time the 1980s came along, the mass media was already fragmented and cable television was firmly established. One of the key changes that reshaped the digital media at the time, and even more so in the 1990s, was thoroughgoing deregulation of the media. By 2003, the FCC approved new media ownership rules which allowed television broadcasters to reach a combined 45 percent of the national audience.156 One of the significant aims of the

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Reagan Revolution had been to shrink the government and allow the market to expand. Croteau and Hoynes succinctly summarize this trend: “The Fairness Doctrine was abolished in 1987; the 1970 FCC regulations concerning financial interest and syndication (‘fin-syn’ rules) that prevented television networks from owning their programming were lifted in 1993; policies limiting ownership of radio and television stations were relaxed in the 1980s and 1990s.”157 All this substantial deregulation paved the path to the dominance of media conglomerations, and allowed political ideology to play a much more important role along with commercial interests. Without getting rid of the Fairness Doctrine,158 news channels such as the Fox News Channel or media tycoons such as Ruport Murdoch would never have materialized.159 Another substantial change that went hand in hand with deregulation and mergers was the redefinition of the public interest. The media was defined like any other industry, ignoring its potential to influence people, as popularity became the only measurement of the public interest.160 The indifference on the government’s part to monitor, let alone play any role in regulating, the digital domain was certainly a departure from past policy and political ideology.161 While media conglomeration is not my topic per se, the shift in the means of delivering programs and measuring the success of such programs has had a huge bearing on all the media, including late-night comedy. It was in the 1990s that comedy started flourishing in the American media, as instead of attracting the broadest audience the attention shifted to creating audience bases which enjoyed particular niche programs. The space for comedy thus opened up as it did not have to compete with other modes of entertainment, but rather only needed to come up with evidence that there was a market for the particular kind of appeal each type of comedy represented. Comedians were encouraged to find their individual brand of humor and nurture the audience who would appreciate it. All these domestic changes in terms of programming also coincided with technological advancement and rapid globalization. In the Cold War era the U.S. government had encouraged the media to become global in order to expose as many people as possible to American culture and capitalism, a tactic of soft power. After the 1990s ushered in the era of neoliberalism or corporate globalism, the whole world became the market and the U.S. government lifted all barriers against the smooth transition of U.S. media throughout the world.162 If we measure the impact of the neoliberal economy by examining the investment in global advertisement, as McChesney has done, only a few companies seem to be in control.163 The U.S. media industry is now a global oligopoly, half of the companies having significant operations scattered across the globe and the other half based in the domestic market.164 Despite the phenomenal rise of Asian economies, and European participation in neoliberal globalization, American media companies continue to dominate the worldwide landscape even in 2018.

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Although the programs are still designed on the basis of the national audience, all networks, executives, and performers are acutely aware that their audience is worldwide. It was not only the deregulation of the media but also the rise and amalgamation of corporate power which enabled the media to grow without limits and to devote resources to specialized programs for particular audience groups. While the transition to the neoliberal economy allowed more media mergers and opened up more prospects for comedy, the Bush administration actually supplied much of the fieldnotes. The 2000 election was not only great fodder for comedy, but the first election in living memory where people had serious questions about fairness and legitimacy, which was very different than past political disagreements. Just as comedians explored the new amplitude for political comedy, viewers who were left out of their intended audience flocked to another group of commentators, who relied not on humor but anger, resonating with the group who could not relate to the political satire that was being directed at the president and, by extension, the country itself. It is not mere coincidence that in the same era that saw the rise of political satirists such as Maher, Stewart, and Colbert, with their elevated status as both comedians and political commentators, we also saw the accelerated prominence of right-wing political commentators such as Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. Robin defines conservatives as always being defensive and reactionary,165 and today’s right-wing punditry more than justifies this characterization. Conservative pundits or reporters offer messages that are unapologetically divisive, intending to provoke animosity rather than whimsy in their audience. Robin mentions two excellent examples of conservative thinkers whose ideology appears radical and contradictory to their belief system. Beck advised his listeners to leave their church if the church mentioned “economic justice” or “social justice” as ideals, essentially disparaging almost all the churches, with the exception of those espousing the New Age gospel of prosperity.166 The other example pertains to Antonin Scalia, the recently deceased Supreme Court justice. Apparently, this ultra-conservative judge who was always critical of state power in his opinions loved the popular television show 24, where the main character is a government agent who violates his legal authority by torturing, kidnapping, and killing, and is thereby hailed as a hero for fighting terrorism.167 When we look at the late-night TV comedians, we realize that a substantial portion of their jokes and parodies take aim at the regular media and rightwing punditry. The fact that Colbert conducted an entire show for years based on an alter ego that imitated a right-wing talk show host, mostly derived from Bill O’Reilly, is convincing evidence of how the new media has dissected its audience between liberal and conservative, funny and earnest, and cosmopolitan and self-declared patriot. Audiences on the right and left demand more as their role in real politics shrinks, and political satirists fill the void

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with both entertainment and information, to the point where it has become arduous to separate the two. Satirists, along with ideological right-wing commentators, have evolved as major celebrities in the dissected world of the overall audience pool. Let us look at a few satirists in terms of how their careers, popularity, and personas have evolved through the years. Bill Maher rose to the mantle of a cultural icon because his comedy routines presented him as a libertarian who could poke fun at both Democrats and Republicans. Maher may be the most important comedian to have linked politics with entertainment through his show Politically Incorrect, which assumed the format of a roundtable political discussion, with the notable difference that the discussants were a host of mainstream entertainers. Even when politicians were invited as guests, the idea was to have a dialogue that could be understood at the street level. Jones states that it was the very lack of expertise that added relatability and authenticity to Maher’s guests.168 Maher claimed that he wanted to air out controversial subjects, and so he did, but often he drowned out the voices of his guests with his own thoughts and antics. He invited guests with divergent political leanings and was proud of his ability to get along with politicians of different stripes. Although his quick wit and humor set the stage for good-natured banter, Maher often shocked his guests and his audience with his politically incorrect statements. This particular show started in 1993 on Comedy Central, and was popular enough to be picked up by ABC in 1997, until it was canceled in 2002. The cancellation of Politically Incorrect was yet another milestone in political satire, because it highlighted the limits to freedom for performers in the media and the power of precedents concerning what is acceptable and meets the tests of political sensitivity. Right after 9/11, Maher disagreed with the label “coward” for the terrorists, stating that firing off cruise missiles from a safe distance was actually an act of cowardice, while self-immolation in burning airplanes was not.169 While Maher had no sympathy for the terrorists, it seemed that he had violated an important taboo against comparing U.S. acts of war with the tactics of terrorism, putting them on the same moral plane. His show was quickly canceled, but then again he may have been punished for prefacing his show with the claim that he would never abdicate his right to criticize the government, even in a hyper-patriotic environment. Responding to then White House press secretary Ari Fleischer’s ominous warning that “people have to watch what they say and what they do,” Maher apologized for hurting people’s sensitivities and clarified that he was not targeting military personnel, yet held his ground that he was criticizing U.S. military policy. Maher started a new show in 2003 on HBO, Real Time with Bill Maher, where he retained the format of his earlier show but made room for more entertainment, with segments like “New Rules,” and more extensive one-on-one

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interviews. Maher’s positions regarding legalization of marijuana, same-sex marriage, and animal rights place him squarely with liberals, but at the same time he has little tolerance for political correctness, which most liberals espouse.170 Maher still considers himself a libertarian, but strongly sides with the Democratic Party and its candidates. He also has a very critical attitude toward religion, and in fact made a movie, Religulous (2008), where he spared no religion or sacred idol. His base may have the least overlap with people who believe in a different political ideology than he does. An even more admired comedian of the millennial generation is Jon Stewart, who started his career as a stand-up comedian and produced a few shows on MTV until he got his break as the host of The Daily Show in 1999. The Daily Show had started in 1996 with Craig Kilborn, and after Stewart’s retirement in 2015 continues with Trevor Noah, but in American political culture Stewart and The Daily Show remain synonymous, because he gave the impression of having successfully crossed over from being a comedian to a journalist. Stewart focused on politics and the media, highlighting hypocrisy amid fake news, but often his segments revealed more information than what was covered by the journalistic media. By critiquing the media and its framing of politics, Stewart came up with a sharper, wittier, and more understandable style of dissecting the news. By hosting the Academy Awards, winning prime-time Emmy awards, writing political books, being treated as a real journalist, and engaging with news media personalities, Stewart elevated the stature of comedy as a source of truthful social and political commentary. Almost all the correspondents from his show have ended up with their own shows, their career trajectories owing a great deal to his patronage at The Daily Show. Comedians who are ethnic minorities, such as Aasif Mandvi and Hasan Minhaj, or female comedians such as Samantha Bee, got their break on his show. Although Stewart was involved in public scuffles with Fox News commentators, he was more of an open-minded liberal comedian who got people of different political ideologies to come on his show. Compared to many journalistic outlets, Stewart showed pluck in being willing to criticize Bush administration policies from early on, especially when it came to the Iraq War. I have already mentioned Colbert’s great success in roping in even conservative audiences with his persona of an egotistical right-wing pundit, but his prominence is reflected in the fact that he turned out to be one of the most notable speakers in the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner’s history. In 2006 when he was invited to be the keynote speaker at the event during the Bush presidency, he directly took on the political leadership he had been so tartly criticizing on his show. He used the platform to speak truth to power face to face,171 and was shunned by both the political and media elites for violating the implicit norm of being polite and not stirring inordinate controversy in the presence of the president. His success eventually led to the much-coveted position of hosting the hour-long Late Show with Stephen

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Colbert on CBS, with an expanded and more mainstream audience base. In the new iteration he appears as himself, a comedian, and not as his previous persona, but continues many of his earlier practices such as the sharp-witted monologue and interviews, and providing a platform for comedians who happen to be ethnic minorities. John Oliver, the British comedian, also started his career on The Daily Show, and hosted it for several months when Stewart took time off to direct a movie. Oliver got his big break in 2014 on HBO with his show Last Night Tonight with John Oliver. Instead of sticking to a format with an amalgamation of different presentations, he offers in-depth analysis for thirty minutes, perched ferociously behind the podium. His style of combining and contrasting political news with absurdity prevails, but his topics (municipal fines, infrastructure, special districts, vaccines, lead poisoning, gerrymandering) are more varied and, at first glance, may even seem apolitical. Oliver often shifts his piercing glance from political figures and offers instead a systematic dissection of problems, providing a surprisingly broad political context and analysis in the end. Even with candidate and then President Trump, he opted for the old-school journalistic technique of interviewing actual students of Trump University rather than blindly imitating the lacerations that were common throughout the media. His interpretation of liberalism seems to be rooted in greater expectations from the state and the political apparatus, rather than supporting or opposing particular political parties and candidates. His piece on the Sinclair Group and the concentration of media ownership remains an exceptional effort not only in the realm of political satire but in the overall media because of the general silence regarding the impact of deregulation and mergers on television programs.172 Oliver has won five Emmy awards, a Peabody award, and two Writers Guild awards. Samantha Bee is another rising star in the world of political satire, who also came up through the ranks of The Daily Show. After being its longest-serving regular correspondent, she started her own show on TBS in 2015, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. Much like Oliver, she is the only one featured on her show but her parody of political events and personalities is imbued with the kind of gender consciousness and sensitivity which is often missing from the mainstream media. For that reason, her audience is probably smaller, but she has certainly tapped into a certain segment of viewers who need to hear things from a woman’s perspective without being afraid of pointing out the patriarchal structure and gender biases which seem even more entrenched in politics than in society in general. The rise of the Republicans, the Tea Party, and the far right has been a boon to her parody, and she does not let any of their hypocrisies or duplicities escape her acidic repartee. Along with these major players, we have also recently seen the rise of Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel, and Jimmy Fallon, who offer political insight as part of their shows but whose shows are not entirely based on political

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satire. Meyers deserves special mention for his segment “A Closer Look,” a short ten-minute section that carries all the sarcasm and jostling Meyers can muster. Then there is The President Show (launched on Comedy Central in 2017), the crudest available caricature of the president as reality TV show host, with Anthony Atamanuik as Trump, the forty-fifth and last president of the United States, along with representations of some key people from his administration. The impersonator interviews or is engaged with real political and cultural celebrities, and the outrageous banter between the characters appears to be not too far off from current reality. It is important to note that all of these shows are not only available on TV, but also accessible on the Internet to be viewed on demand and according to the convenience of the spectator. The new modes of accessibility and the altered nature of viewing have had a significant impact on the design and presentation of political satire. The performers often attempt to make a personal connection with their like-minded viewers without fear of losing particular segments of the audience. The purpose is to build a base by tapping into new niches, not to compete with each other for a limited number of total viewers. In fact, it is the plethora of new media that makes it possible for each of these shows to find their audiences. Now the comedians have to strive to create sharper differences with their compatriots, who are not their competitors but who each fill the void of ever-increasing sections of the population seeking different depths and angles to their political humor. All of these characters, their personas, and their performances reflect not only their own skills and beliefs, but also the metamorphoses that have occurred in the media, the political culture, and the global economy in the last few decades. The room for political ideology in the media is inherently shaped by the ambiguous categories of liberals and conservatives and the two political parties aligned with the amorphous classification, while satire operates within that environment, mostly accepting the basic premises about the political order and pointing out the disconnects between the ideal and the reality, while very rarely questioning the assumptions underlying the political establishment and its favored policies. This is not to say that satire does not affect us politically in terms of our expectations from and about government; our role and limitations in society have been impacted tremendously in recent decades due to the political examination that has taken place in the media—entertaining us, informing us, horrifying us, and pacifying us, all at the same time. WHAT IS POLITICAL IN THE POSTMODERN WORLD? When John Edwards announced his presidential run on The Daily Show in 2003, Stewart had to warn him that it was a fake news show and that Edwards

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might have to announce his candidacy on another forum to be taken seriously. But whichever way Stewart defined his own show’s political significance, by 2003, after only a handful of years of Stewart’s being at the helm, The Daily Show already functioned not only as entertaining political satire but more significantly as a valid political platform. Stewart and his show were taken quite seriously by politicians, as scores of political candidates and even foreign heads of state were eager to appear on the show. Bill Moyers has credited Stewart with practicing a “new form of journalism.”173 Through The Daily Show, the Democrats could reach out to their base, and Republicans could reach out to uncommitted young voters. Politicians in general are very much aware of such a useful pulpit to signal their likeability and their capacity to laugh at themselves, both of which traits are now badges of honor in politics (or at least they were before President Trump gave a new twist to that as well). Political leaders have always understood the power of the media and utilized its capabilities, particularly with the advent of television (John F. Kennedy went to The Tonight Show in 1960, and even Richard Nixon appeared on Laugh-In in 1968, as McClennen and Maisel remind us), but late-night TV shows, along with SNL, are now part of formal political campaigning.174 Tina Fey on SNL relentlessly mocked Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, and yet Palin appeared on SNL and wanted to convey the image of a good sport.175 When satire formally becomes part of official political strategy and discourse, how does it impact the meanings and processes of politics? While we complain about the mainstream media’s biases—partisan or corporate— satirists on late-night TV in the post-9/11 era have mostly been performing as serious critics, taking on problems such as political action committees or large corporations like Halliburton or Enron and their power over U.S. government policy. The kinds of political absurdities once addressed in small segments on The Daily Show or The Colbert Report are now often thoroughly being investigated by Oliver. Bee adds the much needed gender dimension in her bitter salvos. Nevertheless, I would argue that satirists themselves devalue the political implications of their performance by normalizing absurdities right after pointing out their unsavory nature. Stewart is an excellent example of simultaneously challenging and legitimizing reigning political principles. He is generally regarded as one of the first voices to challenge the policies of the Bush administration. Yet when he invited and interviewed people who worked for or supported that regime, he was amicable enough with them to make sure that his message of how we can forget our differences and come together was seldom tarnished. As Day chronicles, in an interview with Christopher Hitchens early in the Iraq War, Stewart began by questioning Hitchens why he had been wrong about Iraq.

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He disputed Hitchens’s opposition to the view that U.S. foreign policy created terrorism, and justified his own disdain of Bush. However, his strong argument was undercut by his body language, when he grabbed Hitchens playfully, making light of the gravity of the issues. The difference between their positions felt temporary and superficial, as the interview ended on a cheerful note, with information about Hitchens’s new book and fulsome applause.176 Stewart was quite capable of journalistic tenacity, but was reluctant to apply it to all his guests. At the same time, his willingness to question and to have a civil engagement with those from the opposite camp should be appreciated. Here is an example of how he approached New York Times reporter Judith Miller: “I believe that you helped the administration take us to the most devastating mistake in foreign policy that we made in a hundred years, but you are lovely!”177 In that interview he was much less cordial with Miller, who had quoted biased government sources as justification for the Iraq War, than he was with Hitchens, who was one of the early enthusiastic supporters of the war. Stewart, in both instances, was targeting the false information or mistake, which can be connected to individuals, not the systemic pattern that underlies most of our foreign wars. The larger point of these examples is to show that Stewart was simply following the pattern of treating the decision about the Iraq War as a tragic mistake, not a violation of international law, and its proponents as erroneous forecasters, not illegal aggressors. Stewart himself may have been one of the lead voices challenging the Bush administration over the Iraq War, but his criticism was rooted in pragmatic calculation (the war was failing to achieve its prescribed goals) rather than ideological commitment (a sovereign nation cannot be attacked on false pretenses), or he may have simply framed his satire based on the logic prevalent among practicing journalists on television and accepted by most Americans, including those protesting against the war. The logic sets the parameters of what failings can be criticized and to what extent. As soon as the Iraq war became damaging and expensive, it became acceptable to question its faulty basis (the search for WMD), or miscalculation (Americans would be hailed as liberators), or mismanagement (the disappearance of billions of dollars in Iraq, anywhere from eight to eighteen billion), or abuse of power (the Abu Ghraib prison scandal), but it was seldom connected to the larger landscape of American foreign policy where it perfectly fit with a myriad of other wars, especially the Vietnam War. Jimmy Kimmel has recently been credited for speaking up in support of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), especially after his newborn son underwent life-saving surgery, possible only because of provisions in the healthcare program. Kimmel interviewed former President Bush and former Trump press secretary Sean Spicer; with Bush he is amicable to a fault and never opts to ask pressing questions, thereby normalizing the problematic aspects

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of the Bush presidency, while with Spicer, Kimmel operates in a questioning mode, demonstrating that he can be persuasive, polite, and funny, all at the same time. Kimmel starts the first interview with questions about Vice President Dick Cheney’s accidental shooting of a friend. Then he talks about President Bush living in L.A. as a little kid. Kimmel insinuates that President George H. W. Bush faked illness to avoid the inauguration of President Trump. President Bush reminisces about dating Tricia Nixon and brings out his self-deprecating humor: “Want to hear something terrible? I had dinner with Lorne Michaels, head of Saturday Night Live. He said I have a great speechwriter on you, and he came up with strategery. I said wait a minute, I said strategery. . . . He said, no, you didn’t say strategery. I said I damn sure said strategery. . . . I said let me ask you this, did he come up with misunderestimate?” Bush refers to the Academy Awards faux pas where Kimmel was the host, and the two bantered good-naturedly. Even when “Mission Accomplished” is mentioned, it is referred to as a faux pas, not as a misguided policy of war or as an attempt to portray a bungled war as a stellar accomplishment. The rest of the interview is about Bush’s paintings included in his book Profiles of Courage, so that the tone of the whole interview is set in adoration and nostalgia for the good old days.178 With Spicer, Kimmel starts the interview on a friendly note and Spicer reciprocates with a mix of humor and seriousness. Kimmel allows Spicer to have his say but interjects with his take on the claims Spicer has been making. The interview never becomes tense or loses its humor. Spicer is treated with respect but is countered by Kimmel every time he makes an outrageous claim: Kimmel: Right off the bat, your first-ever press conference, you get in there, the day after the inauguration and you are charged with the job of going out in front of the press and saying that the inauguration crowd was the biggest crowd ever, the biggest audience. Spicer: Yes, I am aware of it. I appreciate the reminder. Kimmel: If it was up to you, would this even be a topic? Spicer: If it was up to me, I would have probably worn a different suit. I thought I was going in on Saturday morning to set my office up, set my computer, make sure that the emails went out. . . . The president wanted to make sure that the record got set straight. Kimmel: Why is he so concerned with size? Did you ever see the President naked? Spicer: Sometimes we can disagree with the facts. Kimmel: Can we disagree with the facts though?

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Spicer: To get up there and question my integrity on day one was not something that I anticipated. Kimmel: I am sure, although when you brought the crowd size thing out, you opened a terrible Pandora’s Box. You think that’s what got you off to a bad start with the press corps? Spicer: A lot of journalists have crossed the line . . . [as] they go on Twitter or other social media and start to perpetuate myths— Kimmel: Wait a minute! Journalists go on Twitter to perpetuate myths? What about the president?179

Colbert invited Spicer to the sixty-ninth Emmy Awards which he was hosting in September 2017 and made a joke about the size of the audience.180 He laments, “Unfortunately, at this point, we have no way of knowing how big our audience is. Is there anyone who could say how big the audience is?” At this point, Spicer zooms in and asserts, “This will be the largest audience to witness the Emmys. Period! Both in person and around the world.” Colbert retorts, “Wow! This really soothes my fragile ego. I can understand why you’d want one of these guys around. Melissa McCarthy, everybody, give it up!” This slap against Spicer, by referring to him as Melissa McCarthy, seems to have sufficed to pay back for Spicer’s abject performance as press secretary, offering misstatements, fighting with the press, and vastly lowering the stature of the press secretary in the American government. It was rumored that President Trump was displeased that a female actor, Melissa McCarthy, was playing Spicer on SNL, and therefore bruising the ego of the president (along with Spicer) by rubbing it in seems to have been the limit Colbert set for himself. We seem ready to forgive President Bush for two fumbled wars and a number of failed domestic policies whose impact is still being felt. Political personalities are generally treated in the media as divorced from their agendas, such that an apparently wholesome person with an overtly decent value system cannot be questioned, and within a short span the policies or actions they were being criticized for are deleted from public view. What is problematic is not so much the presentation of politics in satire, but the definition of politics as separate from ideology, divorced from the personality who embodies it, and granted only a short lifespan even when the impact of the policies continues to be felt through generations. While Bee has recently reminded us of the long-term horrific impact of the Iraq War,181 and showed us our myopia in forgiving Bush, she also demonstrates a partisan bias when she starts holding past presidents accountable. She is so incensed about the Trump immigration policy of separating undocumented people or legitimate asylum seekers from their children that when Ivanka Trump tweeted a picture of herself and her son,

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Bee lashed out at the double standard evident in the moral hypocrisy and called Ivanka Trump a feckless c___.182 This generated a huge backlash, leading Bee to apologize for crossing a line, as the issue of immigration became drowned in arguments about what is permissible to say on television. Bee seems sincere in her outrage, as she has repeatedly covered immigration and issues relating to undocumented migrants on her shows. At the same time, it has to be pointed out that Bee barely had any follow-up questions for President Obama when she had the opportunity to interview him, even though in the same segment she was covering DACA, the broader problem of undocumented migrants, and sanctuary cities, issues that were enlarged because of Obama’s inaction, ineffectiveness, and missed opportunities.183 Thus what is not covered by contemporary political satire may reveal how our political discourse takes place in the media. Much of the praise lavished upon the two landmark programs, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, stems from the perception that they have engaged chronically disinterested young people in the political process. But Baumgartner and Morris refute that notion. Using survey data collected from the 2008 presidential election, they argue that exposure to The Daily Show does not correlate with increased political knowledge or activity among young adults. These researchers actually suggest that exposure to The Daily Show may have potential negative effects on heavy viewers. As Stewart relentlessly lampoons the political system, his approach may turn off people from politics, making them cynical about democracy.184 Based on their data, Baumgartner and Morris find that in terms of political knowledge and participation, regular viewers of the show do not differ significantly from non-viewers. They also find The Daily Show viewers to be more pessimistic about public officials and the democratic system as a whole.185 This argument is, in essence, contradictory to McClennen’s claim that political satire makes us more engaged as citizens. I believe that political satire mirrors the lack of substantive politics in the mainstream media (and arguably our real lives) and that is why it is able to usurp the space designated for political discourse so effortlessly. Even when political satire arms us with new insights, that information cannot be utilized in an environment where politics has been taken over by big money and the voters’ role in the political process keeps shrinking in the neoliberal economy. Historically, satirists may have enjoyed popularity, but seldom institutional support. Lenny Bruce got charged with obscenity and was imprisoned time and again when he evoked social controversies involving free speech in the 1960s. It was not only his choice of language, but his selection of topics like sex and religion that got him arrested over obscenity charges.186 Here are a few of his widely known quotes which were deemed not only offensive but radical in his day:

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If Jesus had been killed twenty years ago, Catholic school children would be wearing little electric chairs around their necks instead of crosses. You can’t do anything with anybody’s body to make it dirty to me. Six people, eight people, one person—you can do only one thing to make it dirty: kill it. Hiroshima was dirty.187 The American Constitution was not written to protect criminals; it was written to protect the government from becoming criminals. There’s a lot of money in wars, except in the war on poverty. Can’t make any bread helping the poor. You got a million drug laws now because the bosses figured there was more money in putting people in jail than taxing something anyone can grow on a windowsill.188 You know there’s no crooked politicians. There’s never a lie because there’s never any truth. Children ought to watch pornographic movies: it’s healthier than learning about sex from Hollywood.189

The statement I earlier mentioned by Maher that got his show Politically Incorrect canceled seems an apt comparison point to gauge how our level of tolerance has changed over the years. Here are Maher’s exact words: “We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it’s not cowardly.”190 Maher in fact was agreeing with his guest, conservative political commentator Dinesh D’Souza, that terrorists should be viewed as warriors. In his whole show, he did not profess any sympathy toward terrorists; rather, he condemned their acts as barbaric. After the backlash, instigated by a right-wing radio show, he apologized for hurting people’s sentiments and clarified that he had no intention of attacking the American military or comparing it to terrorists. Within months, his program was canned. This particular example is a perfect barometer of the post-9/11 environment where patriotism was defined in rigid language and gestures, and any shift that allowed any nuance, let alone challenge the paradigm, was not permitted. In an era where television was the main avenue for satirists, not agreeing with the nationalist vision spelled invisibility and hence loss of career. As it happened, Maher, luckily, was offered a show on HBO after a few months, and now his show is far more political than the earlier one. Compared to him, Bruce suffered much harsher punishment, ranging from continuously being arrested over obscenity charges

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to drug possession, and even having to confront police presence at his shows to monitor his language, all of which led to bankruptcy and the drug abuse which claimed his life at the age of forty. Satire has a natural tendency to thrive on the edge not only structurally but also ideologically,191 but the distinction of being radical can only be awarded to someone who is not mainstream. Bruce remains an emblem of the challenge to conventional notions of free speech and levels of tolerance, as well as a warning of the ramifications of such a challenge. The current generation of satirists seems to have opted for a safer route that raises questions about the political experience but also normalizes its unwanted by-products, treading carefully not to wound the political apparatus at its fragile core. Even today Maher continues to remain an interesting study in terms of what is allowed, what can be tolerated, and what remains taboo in American media and politics. His anti-Muslim stance and his position against political correctness are often overlooked, and after experiencing mild censure from time to time he keeps coming back as a major political sharpshooter. He is clear about his ideological orientation (a self-proclaimed libertarian who votes for Democrats), but some of his positions are treated with seriousness while others are given a pass. He famously donated a million dollars to the Obama campaign, which he thought was sufficient as his political contribution as a citizen. Within his program he initiated a segment called “Flip a District,”192 where there was a series of mock competitions for the most freakish representatives, the idea being to reveal the candidates’ positions in order to provoke electoral defeat. Most of the contenders were Tea Party candidates whose radical statements or acts were exposed to the audience, who would then vote for America’s craziest congressman.193 After almost a year of delightful humor and plenty of information with serious political implications, none of the politicians Maher discussed lost their seats.194 We seem to have entered a circular phase where entertainment replicates politics and politics mimics entertainment. In this circle of give and take, what remains as political? As is clear from the Maher example and others discussed in this book, it would seem that while disapproval of political events or personalities is allowed, it generally has little to no impact in terms of meaningful policy changes. Does the audience react then to the reality part or the hyperreality part? Is there any path from reality to hyperreality and the other way round? Or is it hyperreality that smoothly processes the anger and frustration in order to depoliticize and normalize the new reality? We cannot lose sight of the importance of the image in the media and as a condition of postmodernity. But how are these images cultivated and circulated? When Maher made fun of the Tea Party politicians he was consciously

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trying to reach out to the voters supporting those politicians, pleading to their better sense, asking them not to elect such candidates. But what if the voters deciphered another cultural code, making the targeted candidates more rather than less electable because they were being criticized by the liberal media? Why is so much of the political discussion about identity rather than policy? If our focus becomes identity, then how do we analyze movements like BLM? In the backdrop of multiple police shootings and the killings of unarmed black men, the BLM movement was born. BLM has been widely discussed in U.S. politics, but as an identity-based group, not as a group which is demanding specific forms of legal and procedural justice. This is not a failure of their strategy, but is a reflection of the only political arena available to them. The problem to confront is how postmodernism has divided political action from policy. BLM functions in a visible realm, because they are being covered in the media, where their presence is being defined as political engagement, while policy with regard to the treatment of minorities is squarely controlled by corporate donors to both political parties. Although police brutality and mass incarceration are acknowledged as systemic failures, the coverage of such issues more often than not focuses on micro elements rather than being considered in their totality—as part of the explicit political bargain, not an aberration. Let us consider Maher and Noah on BLM and Antifa.195 Maher easily dismisses the connection between systemic racism and Hillary Clinton’s neoliberal preferences, by looking at it through the lens of personal character and totally ignoring the policy aspects of mass incarceration. Likewise, Noah focuses on the alleged offbeat activities of Antifa members, and even when he is trying to define Antifa or what it stands for, he is infantilizing the movement through his definition, or as he claims, the lack of any clear definition. These denigrations are articulated in the absence of a larger background, as the mainstream media have not fulfilled their role in analyzing these recent political movements in a true political manner by situating them in their historicities and connecting them with political, economic, and cultural power structures: Maher: A Black Lives Matter protester interrupted Hillary at a fundraiser and said, “Hillary Clinton, can you apologize to black people for mass incarceration?” Of the thousands of things I can complain about Hillary Clinton, being a racist does not rise to the top of it.196

Noah: Who are these black-clad mystery fighters coming for the alt-right? . . . Anti-Fascists. Antifa. First of all, that is a great name. It is short, it is punchy, excuse the pun. And most importantly, you don’t have to know how to spell fascist. . . . Antifa has no defined leadership. There is no clear way to know what they are actually meant to do.”

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Cut to an activist on a news clip. Noah: This guy is doing for society what women do for their best friends: “Girl, I know that he seems normal but there is something you should know. He is a Nazi who never calls back when he says he will.” So that’s what some members of Antifa do, expose Nazis and racists. Basically it is Internet shaming, you know the thing that people thought they would do to Kim Kardashian and she became a superstar. . . . [But] here is the real problem. It does not matter what your noble goal may be, doesn’t matter what you say you are fighting for. When people see that (violence), all they think is it is vegan ISIS.197

Again, we must ask why it is so much easier to contextualize problems with personality but not with policy or history. Meyers has a funny segment called “Jokes Seth Can’t Tell.” These jokes have to be told by his black or gay contributor, both of them women. Why can’t Meyers tell these jokes? Who defines the role of the satirist in terms of scope of language and degree of outrage? Why are contemporary satirists themselves so intent on accepting a limited role? What makes some judgments more valid than others? Why do we occlude the policy positions of political personalities? Policy or ideological questions are often treated in a myopic manner, not connected with larger issues either by the mainstream media or by satirists. Satirists, as this book has shown throughout, often do attempt to provide more substance to their coverage. In this larger context, when Oliver explains the complex legislative and judicial implications of President Trump’s pardon of renegade Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio in layman’s terms, he comes off as more informative and trustworthy than real news’s handling of the same objectionable pardon.198 It is important to point out too that the straight reportage of politics in the world of satire occupies extensive space. After the Democratic Party won governor’s seats in Virginia and New Jersey in 2017, and a number of state legislative seats as well, most of the satirists such as Maher hailed the victories of the Democratic Party: “Democrats finally won some elections. The resistance showed up at the polls.”199 It was up to SNL (Michael Che) to point out some hard truths: “Democrats swept Tuesday’s elections in Virginia, New Jersey, and New York, which are already blue states, so it is a small victory for liberals, but a victory nevertheless. Kind of like when you get into an Uber and the driver is white and you are like, Oh, that’s nice!”200 Bee was recently criticized for her questionable assertion that “identity politics is the dismissive term for what we used to call civil rights.”201 Mark Lilla, in his book The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics (2017), identifies himself as a frustrated liberal facing a crisis of imagination where the liberals have trapped themselves in a discourse of identity politics, defining identity in a binary manner while ignoring any nuances or even important

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values such as individualism or privacy rights. Cognizant of the significance of images, he evokes those employed by the supporters of the Republican and Democratic parties, as Joe Sixpack and Jessica Yogamat respectively. His book is an effort by an erudite political scientist to make sense of postTrump America, and he attempts to do just that by distinguishing between anti-politics, pseudo-politics, and politics.202 The point Lilla is making through formal scholarship was performed in front of our eyes during the 2008 election. Joe the Plumber was an unforgettable character, one of the resonant images from that election. During the 2008 election campaign in Ohio, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher got an opportunity to pose a question directly to then candidate Obama, identifying himself as a small-business owner (a plumber), expressing concern about taxes, and worrying about whether or not they would increase for him under Obama’s proposed tax plan. Obama engaged in a detailed response explaining the logic of his tax scheme, how it was helpful for start-up businesses but also expected more from successful people, and how it would compensate for increased taxes by keeping capital gains tax free.203 Obama’s opponent Senator John McCain referred to “Joe the Plumber” as the embodiment of what was wrong with Obama’s tax proposal, painting him as a true representative of smallbusiness owners and inviting him to his campaign rallies. One of McCain’s campaign tours was in fact named the “Joe the Plumber Tour,”204 occurring along the I-4 corridor of Florida (Orlando to Sarasota), as the Republican nominee attempted to connect with middle-class voters in that crucial swing state. Joe the Plumber became an overnight celebrity, and when he endorsed McCain it was televised as an important victory for the campaign.205 Maher laughed at the obsession of the McCain campaign over Joe the Plumber and retorted: “Joe the Plumber, turns out, really isn’t a licensed plumber, he’s in trouble for not paying the taxes that he does owe, he isn’t close to buying any sort of plumbing company, and his name isn’t Joe.”206 Although Joe the Plumber was harshly slammed by satirists, and network news also probed the construction of this character who dominated the presidential contest in the final months and debunked it as more fictitious than real, the image of Joe the Plumber lingers on and continues to impact our political memory and sensibilities. He was interviewed in July 2017 on Fox News about his opinions on President Trump and the accusations concerning the Russian collusion.207 Lilla might find this an apt example of identity politics which celebrates pseudo-politics by personalizing larger issues and shifts our attention and energy away from them by focusing on the specific characteristics of the plight of the people who are affected, while ignoring the political and policy aspects of the issue under discussion. A segment done by Aasif Mandvi on The Daily Show deserves special mention, proving that there is some overlap between satirical attention and

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real impact, some porousness between political reality and the postmodern reality where the media mostly operates. Also notice the connection and play between identities, political correctness, and actual violation of political rules. Aasif Mandvi interviewed North Carolina Buncom County GOP activist Don Yelton about the introduction of the photo ID for voting, which had been criticized for restricting voting rights, especially for minorities: Yelton: If it hurts a bunch of college kids too lazy to get off their bohunkers and go get a photo ID, so be it. If it hurts the whites, so be it. If it hurts the lazy blacks who want the government to give them everything, so be it. . . . The law is going to kick the Democrats in the butt. The bottom line is the law is not racist. Mandvi: Of course the law is not racist! And you are not racist! Yelton: Well, I have been called a bigot before! . . . When I was a young man, you didn’t call a black a black, you called him a Negro. I had a picture at one time of Obama sittin’ on a stump as a witch doctor and I posted that on Facebook. I was making fun of the white half of Obama, not the black half, and now you have a black person using the term nigger this and nigger that and it is okay for them to do that. Mandvi: You know that we can hear you, right?208

The Republican Party and the county chair asked for his resignation after the interview was aired, which he did but also asserted that he did not understand which parts of his statements were offensive. It should also be noted that the ethnicity-centered definitions dominating identity have opened the door to satirists who are minorities or women. It is fitting that Stewart started to hire satirists like Minhaj, Mandvi, Bee, Noah, and Wilmore, and that Colbert is now keeping up the tradition by showcasing various little-known satirists on his show. At the same time, we should remember that postmodern sensibility allows for and even celebrates their visibility, but often neglects the issues they are bringing forth, especially if the issues make us uncomfortable. Minhaj was the featured speaker at the 2017 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, which President Trump did not attend, but he was told to keep his tone civil. He did not abide by that decorum, but in an era where the liberal establishment itself is against Trump, his political tone was treated as a badge of honor, very different from how Colbert was treated by the press in the earlier incident I mentioned.209 While Minhaj was allowed to express his agony as a Muslim in 2017 in the immediate months following the start of the Trump presidency, it seems that the lines of civility and tolerance had already been redrawn by the succeeding year after we became used to Trump. At

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the 2018 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, comedian Michelle Wolf’s speech was deemed much too controversial and her harshest critics, including many liberals in the media, were quite upset at the way she made fun of press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders’s makeup,210 ignoring her larger criticism of the press secretary’s habitation in a world of alternative facts. If the media has come up with a language and performance style in its presentation of political humor that is inherently postmodern, is it reflecting the same postmodern characteristics that exist in the political world? Or has it created a system of analysis and communication patterns that are so different from the real political world that they fail to make any dent in practice? The answer to this question is obviously not a clear either/or choice, but rather an amalgamation of both processes which are nuanced, complicated, and often ambivalent and evasive. One way to explore the answers is to look at the real world, and I intend to pursue that by considering the evolution and impact of two contemporary movements, the Tea Party and OWS. My emphasis is not on the movements themselves, but on some of their strategies, their communication styles, and, most importantly, their portrayal in the media for consumption by the general public. The Tea Party movement started as a conservative backlash against the Obama presidency’s huge government spending. President Obama was inaugurated during a financial crisis and after taking office he continued the previous government’s policies by offering massive financial packages to bail out the decrepit banking and auto industries. At a time when the military budget and the expansion of U.S. military presence in foreign lands had reached a peak, there emerged groups who were concerned about the national debt and the budget deficit arising from domestic expenditures and taxation policies. At the onset of the Obama presidency, once the Democrats in power unveiled their plan for the ACA (or “Obamacare” as it was termed by its opponents), the Tea Party erupted in opposition against such a “socialist” program (healthcare in America remains a market-based program, and the ACA never intended to change that basic structure).211 People marched in the streets, carrying placards and wearing dated costumes to evoke the original Tea Party movement that spurred the American Revolution. As expected on the divided media channels, the Tea Party got deference on Fox News,212 while the rest of the media covered it with skepticism, pointing to their low numbers, their ideological blind spots, and the logical inconsistencies of their messaging. The Tea Party movement appeared to be a God-given gift to the satire channels. Their dressing up and parading as American colonists, their spectacularly confused signs (the most famous being “Keep your government hands off my Medicare”),213 and a number of their illogical positions which seemed to be driven more by animus against President Obama than any

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consistent policy posture were all veritably a treasure chest for late-night comedy. The costumes from the 1770s era and the references to taxation without representation were a curious juxtaposition at a time when taxes were historically low. Comedians like Stewart pointed out the double meaning of tea-bagging (the name of a gay sexual act) and gleefully declared the onset of “hours of scrotum-based humor.”214 Stewart in fact got into an argument with Bill O’Reilly over whether the Tea Party supporters were representatives of the silent majority or the disgruntled supporters of the Republican Party itself: Here is the truth about the Tea Party. Karl Rove and a lot of the Republican establishment thought they could ride that bull, they could ride that intensity and that energy of religious conservatives, and all the people that really believed all the things that Karl Rove and those guys promised them but were never going to deliver on, and now the tables have turned [on them]. He is just another schmuck, wearing a red bandanna, running down the streets of Pamplona, and the bulls are chasing him.215

As for Maher, he called them a cult, but later took to calling the Republican Party the Tea Party: If you look at any cult . . . you’ll find some common elements, the primary one being that cult members are taught to quickly withdraw into the group and distrust the outside world. Teabaggers distrust everything. They think everyone is coming for their guns and they shouldn’t pay taxes. . . . Cults are also driven by some ridiculous unattainable goals like a fiery apocalypse ringing in paradise or deficit reductions by way of tax cuts. You know someone has fallen into a cult if you see these signs. One, cults have their own vocabulary; I don’t speak shitkicker but I know that freedom in their world means guns, diplomacy means weakness, elitist means reader, and socialist means black. Two, cults tend to populate from within, encouraging members to have huge broods of children and give them strange names like Moonbeam and Trig. Three, cult members always attribute all their problems to one simple explanation. [At this point, Maher shows a picture of Obama in a Hitler mustache.]216

Springs has argued that the analysis of the Tea Party by satirists, and even the mainstream media, is rooted in our inability to see anything that does not make sense in a rational way. The message of the Tea Party may have been incoherent, but it reached the right people and enabled the movement to carve out a political slot for their particular message and voice. Stanley Fish proposed to treat them with seriousness, and, of course, within a few years when the Tea Party candidates have already captured much of the power in the Republican Party, and as an extension, in the U.S. government, there is no option left but to take them seriously.217

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The Tea Party burst onto the American political landscape in 2009 when the cultural divide of the country became more pronounced with the electoral victory of the first African American president, and the movement provided a potent avenue to channel the anguish by repackaging the backlash in economic terms around the perceived increase in taxes. As McClennen and Maisel note, the Tea Party was launched in an environment of fear and xenophobia, ignited by the war on terror. The ongoing Afghanistan and Iraq wars were not only considered justifications of military might, but also of the victory of American values, which meshed cultural superiority and freemarket principles while redefining core American values as exerting power globally but being anti-government domestically.218 This was the nature of the conflict, the image of two different sets of core values, one supporting a powerful government in the global arena and the other challenging the legitimacy of government’s authority when it came to domestic policy (such as healthcare), that the Tea Party was struggling with and it took them a few years to smooth over this conceptual breach. The Tea Party was wise in its selection of candidates (with a healthy splattering of delicious blunders) who were not necessarily career politicians but were certainly enthusiastic performers for the creed. Their message, however hollow and superficial and bereft of substance, resonated with those Republican voters who wanted to rebel against certain policies in the Bush era but also supported some of those policies, especially those perceived to be removed from economic realities. The Tea Party created a new field where people could be conservative and Republican while not having to vote for Republicans already in office. These voters wanted an end to neoliberal policies, but neither the Republican nor the Democratic Party seemed interested in leading that transition. Within a few years they would find their ideal candidate in Donald Trump, who would deliver the right cultural message, but unfortunately along with the same economic package they were rebelling against. McClennen and Maisel note that politicians like Sarah Palin, Ted Cruz, and Michelle Bachman became rising national stars as their vocabulary and mannerisms reflected those of average voters and the small-town outlook, but they were also hugely aided by a series of legislative policies and judicial interpretations that unleashed the power of big donors moving the political game out of the purview of the mass of voters (in particular the aforementioned 2010 Citizens United decision allowing unlimited campaign donations with which individual citizens could not compete), strengthened the state apparatus at the cost of federal power (the 2013 Supreme Court verdict weakening the Voting Rights Act by shifting power back to state governments, which are harder to fight against), and enabled politicians to manipulate the formation of their districts (creative redistricting has rendered a huge number of districts entirely safe districts, mostly in favor of Republicans).219 The

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Supreme Court is consistently circumventing the cases on gerrymandering, keeping it alive as a partisan and political issue.220 While audiences enjoyed the takedown of the Tea Party on the comedy channels, the actual Tea Party did not stop with its rants and protests on the streets. It started running candidates in Republican Party primaries, and, after a few missteps with quite unprepared candidates, within less than a decade they are now dominating the Republican Party at the national level. Politicians who belong to the Tea Party Caucus have been able to shut down the government (as has been the inclination of Texas senator Ted Cruz) and derail major bills. The Tea Party has used the mainstream power nodes to greatly influence American politics. Tapping into the dissatisfaction of Republican voters, it has actually found a language to reach out to them. However illogical that language appeared to both mainstream media and the creators and consumers of satire, audiences failed to understand the depth of the anger and anxiety, and now our political system is paralyzed because of widespread Tea Party infiltration. After almost a decade, there needs to be the recognition that the media vastly underestimated the Tea Party (as it did the candidacy of Trump). Compared to OWS and BLM, the Tea Party is the only group that has been successful in pursuing political change. They are now kingmakers within the Republican Party, and, because of the majority position of the Republican Party, throughout national politics as well. Often they are denigrated as they have been less successful in pushing forward enforceable policies, but their influence in changing political and policy discourse cannot be taken lightly. The failure to recognize the potential of the Tea Party by the media is a failure of its worldview of how politics works. The rise of the Tea Party and its success is a symptomatic change in American politics that rides on both neoliberalism and identity politics. Identity politics is often perceived as a tool of the left, but it is an ideology that can be utilized in any form, and when it does produce results, the overall political process is undermined because we can only participate in politics if we occupy a particular consumerist cubbyhole—not as citizens, not with overlapping concerns, not with ideological commitments. Satirists, along with the mainstream media, were slow to recognize the significance, message, and strategy of the Tea Party. The ridicule the Tea Party endured from the media was shrewdly turned by it to its own benefit, and every piece of disparagement actually emboldened it. Neither the media nor satirists had much sympathy toward those who had a very different kind of ideological challenge to the American political system, namely the group who started under the banner OWS, and who are now connected with a number of other groups making specific political demands, such as BLM. The OWS movement began in 2011 as an outburst against social and economic inequality and the unwillingness of the political system to confront it.

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OWS supporters are regarded as the radical left in American politics, just as Tea Partiers are considered ultra-right-wing ideologues. Both were protesting government spending, but unlike the Tea Party, the OWS had in mind the kind of government spending that aids elite business and campaign donors, namely Wall Street, and as a corollary government regulations and policies that aid this particular segment of the population while ignoring everyone else’s plight. Supporters, mainly young college students, gathered in Zuccotti Park, near New York’s financial district, and for weeks the OWS people took over the park, camped there, and protested against various financial shenanigans, which had come to the limelight following the recession. They made demands about reforming campaign finance laws, student loan indebtedness, the pro-Wall Street repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, and so on. Their protest started on the streets and remained on the streets. Unlike the Tea Party, they did not try to penetrate the Democratic Party through the regular mechanism of elections, though recently, after the enthusiastic but ultimately disappointing primary of Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, there have been multiple candidates who have identified themselves as democratic socialists following Sanders and inspired by OWS. What Occupy has achieved is to bring the issue of economic inequality to the center of politics, revealing the moral and political dimensions of economic life. But their effort was swept away by another populist movement which brought us the Trump presidency. In fact, the Trump presidency can be said to be the direct result of the success of the Tea Party, which really highlights the question whether the Occupy movement can ever be politically effective by renouncing formal political processes and institutions. One can argue that their message vibrated loud and clear, and that Sanders ran as a nominee for the Democratic Party riding on the lasting enthusiasm and anger created by OWS. The intention of the original movement, however, was to distance itself from electoral politics, because they questioned the legitimacy of the political system itself. The tactics that were used by OWS were undoubtedly influenced by postmodernism. The decentralized format, the participative decision-making by consensual processes, the non-use of microphones, and the circles and drums and chanting, all challenged the very structure and values of the dominant political practice. It can be argued that they succeeded in adding inequality to the political lexicon, but they never had enough political capacity to adequately explain or promote their positions. Their positions were fragmented at best, and remained quite ambiguous. It was mostly their style and theatrics which got attention, rather than the articulation of new norms of political solidarity. Even when such groups actually come up with substantive assessments or deliver viable policy alternatives, they are largely neglected in the media. Haugerud mentions the example of one such group, Occupy the

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Securities and Exchange Commission (OSEC), formed in 2012 by former Wall Street professionals who fought to restore the Glass-Steagall Act and prepared a detailed argument (325 pages), but neither the government entities (the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the Federal Reserve Board) nor the media acknowledged their existence in spite of their prominent status in elite economic circles.221 In short, OWS may be perceived as a true postmodern revolution: decentralized, leaderless, and spontaneous. We have to give them credit for elevating the issue of economic injustice as part of the political discourse. All of the slogans of the culture jamming and political street theater groups Yes Men222 and Billionaires for Bush223 are succinctly contained in OWS’s catchy label of the “one percent” versus the “ninety-nine percent,” which they have indelibly inserted into political discussion with hugely amplified meanings than at any time in the recent past.224 However, their rational explanation of why the political system does not work anymore for the vast majority of Americans was buried underneath coverage of their colorful tactics. And yet, though these tactics led nowhere, their message did reverberate with a huge bloc of voters. The comparison between the political success of the Tea Party and the failure of OWS is a reflection of whether or not the political process is permeable by anything other than solid institutional mechanisms. The ascent of the Trump presidency further proves that the prospects for manipulating the existing institutional system remain much easier than dismantling it or reimagining a new political reality. If OWS represented liberal fury, satire projected that message mostly as melodramatic, neglecting to contextualize the rationale with supporting stories like in-depth analysis of the evolution of student debt and its impact. OWS became either a theatrical or an offensive diatribe through the enchanted lenses of political satire. Let’s have a look at how OWS was portrayed by Maher: Now that summer is upon us, the Occupy Wall Street movement must think of a more effective form of protest than camping. To be considered a real movement it has to start moving asses off the streets and into the voting booth. Occupy’s motto is, The only solution is world revolution. OK . . . but what about setting our sights a little lower, like taking back Wisconsin? Strangely enough it turns out that having a sleepover in the parks for four months didn’t cause Wall Street to crumble and that’s not because Occupy did not have the right message—it did. America’s wealth is increasingly in the hands of a tiny kleptocratic priesthood of finance cowboys and the politicians they buy, protected by free-fire zones of rules they wrote themselves, feeding on the republic from within, like a transcontinental tapeworm the size of route 66. . . . No offense but we tried to sit outside until we got our way and it went over like Paris Hilton’s music career.225

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Sanders’s failed campaign for the 2016 Democratic party nomination, in particular the role of the Democratic party in suppressing his candidacy, is a good example of the resilient power of mainstream politics and political institutions in framing the discourse. Though Sanders was often interviewed by satirists, the question of the manipulation of the primary was not seized as an issue by them226—although Meyers did, much later, mildly rebuke Hillary Clinton in response to her blaming Sanders for her electoral defeat in his segment “Hey!”227 which on the whole contained an empathetic and uplifting message for Clinton. We need to decode cues from the maze of popular culture as the connection between the postmodern media and the real world of politics occurs in that realm. Popular culture, whether it is acknowledged or not, has always been a contested political zone. Consider the transition of jazz in American popular culture from a threatening form of music that was said to encourage miscegenation to its evolving status as an all-American musical genre. Hardes asserts that the arrival and acceptance of jazz embodies a history parallel with that of race relations and the black renaissance in America. According to him, “The nineteenth-century dances were predominantly cautious and adult-sanctioned steps, until the waltz, the gig, and other dances, often referred to as animal dances, emerged in popular culture, reflecting the change of pace, gender relations, and social changes that were being undergone at the turn of the century.”228 Along with social change, technology also plays a huge role in defining the parameters of popular culture and the permeability of counterculture. Exotic music flowed into the living rooms of Americans en masse via radio.229 In late-twentieth-century America the civil rights movement stands out as an effective example of wide-scale citizen participation that initiated serious policy changes. But the degree of commitment and risk the participants were ready to undertake were authentic and courageous, and for that reason difficult to replicate.230 Popular culture was deeply influenced by the movement, and yet much of the civil rights movement’s energies and achievements were celebrated in the realm of counterculture and leftist political philosophy, which didn’t necessarily translate into political agency in real political interactions. While some contemporary progressive preoccupations such as gender sensitivity and political correctness (though this concept has evolved with many problematic outcomes) have recently made their way to mainstream culture, the bulk of leftist themes has always remained absent from popular culture. Assorted vital movements of the 1960s—the Black Power movement, the anti-war and student movements, second-wave feminism, gay liberation, and broadly speaking the New Left in general—were mostly deemed radical and outside the mainstream, and only the civil rights movement has been accorded its rightful place in historical and political memory.231

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The changes that have taken place in the mediascape closely mirror the transition experienced by public spaces in the real world. Television began to permeate our lives as early as the 1950s, but it is only now that available technology has replicated the omnipresent space of entertainment and information with such devices as laptops and cellphones, making digital media a part of our lives in a much more intimate manner than we ever thought possible.232 Cultural associations are reflected in digital media in a way that feels as important as real-life experiences;233 these are then reproduced and multiplied through free-floating platforms such as YouTube, where they are watched individually and become singular experiences, allowing multiple ways to interpret cultural meaning without disrupting the commercial model of television programming.234 Homer Simpson, an iconic character in contemporary popular culture, acclaims television as not only “the teacher,” but also “the mother and the secret lover,”235 which captures the power digital media have over our social relations. As Keyes claims, TV now defines a “phantasmagoric public sphere as a realistic dreamscape that regulates ideologies.”236 Giroux reminds us that along with changes in media programming and technology, the systematic persuasion toward commercialization and militarization has always been present. The process of depoliticization may have started with a commercial motive, but it has been significantly strengthened by available technological tools. Giroux laments the extent of military glorification in popular culture in movie franchises such as Star Wars, which promote hyper-masculinity and pseudo-patriotism by influencing the younger generation to follow orders and not ask problematic questions. As he states, “A pedagogy of historical, social, and racial amnesia is constructed and circulated through a highly popular celebrity culture, which masks real issues with corporate-driven news and mass entertainment in visual media.”237 War is portrayed as heroic through news and movies; slogans such as “Support Our Troops” are regarded not only as patriotic but unproblematic; the values of militarism fuse with movies and sports and are understood as patriotism, via digital screens, and internalized by different generations among the audience. These signals and signifiers are not contained to the sphere of entertainment; they are now part of the whole process of governmentality.238 The portrayal of war as entertainment is a precursor to the portrayal of politics as entertainment. McClennen and Maisel point toward another important transformation in the media, namely the portrayal of the audience. They find that when market values are elevated, citizens are regarded only as customers. While we may quibble with popular culture’s representation of millennials—there is evidence both ways in terms of their romantic ideals translating into political activism and commitment—from the point of view of this book it is important to note that one synchronous image that persists in popular culture is that

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the millennial generation is the primary consumer of contemporary satire, more so than the Boomer generation or Generation X, and to the extent that a critique of the millennial generation is embodied within satire’s conception of them as lazy, passive, and consumerist, to that extent the content of satire is also bound to be affected by this perception of the satirists’ presumed primary audience. In other words, if the primary audience is presumed to be politically passive (many sketches from Stewart and Colbert’s early career, at the peak of the Bush presidency, made fun of precisely this aspect of the millennial generation), then the content that is offered to them is likely to be influenced by a wink and a nod toward this passivity, even when a satirist such as Colbert encourages specific forms of political participation. This is a fine example of postmodern circularity, where the audience is simultaneously appraised and devalued, written in and out of the script, so that what may appear to be an overt appeal to take political action is diluted, with strong doses of irony, by the breakage of the connection between information and awareness on the one hand and voting and action on the other. Participatory democracy tends to be undermined by postmodernism, as postmodernism is generally skeptical of such movements. Symbolic movements have a much easier route to being visible in the postmodern media landscape, and are valued as important signifiers. The Women’s March the day after Trump’s inauguration has been regarded with much esteem, but it was a march that focused on purging grievances, whereas political movements like OWS or BLM have a more difficult time being treated with respect. This difficulty is enhanced by the fact that the space for politics in the postmodern era often operates in replication. We now have Blue Lives Matter239 (with their slogan All Lives Matter) to counter BLM, completely ignoring the demand for economic and social justice which underpins the BLM movement. On the other hand, true to the postmodern spirit, spontaneity does seem to achieve some results, even if in the short run. The large numbers of people who showed up at airports around the country without coordination or leadership to protest against Trump’s immigration ban certainly emboldened federal judges to challenge the constitutionality of the travel ban and halt it time and again. The Supreme Court finally resolved this issue involving presidential power by siding with the president.240 At one point in history what was emphasized in censorship was suppression, but now the strategy to be followed is lack of visibility. In the 1950s, McCarthyism suppressed political dissension, putting pressure on commercial publishers not to publish books derived from leftist ideology.241 The depoliticization of citizens now takes place in a different manner, by changing the nature, content, and meaning of engagement, so that engagement merely signifies presence, not necessarily the power to make any changes. In that context, it is important to ask if satire performs the essential task of making the invisible visible.

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In one instance The Daily Show treated access to safe water as a widespread problem and sent their correspondent Hasan Minhaj to Texas. Minhaj did an effective field report on water quality in Texas, a sort of follow-up to the Flint debacle, an issue which has mostly disappeared from the mainstream media though the crisis hasn’t been resolved.242 Minhaj examined the issue of safe water in the larger setting of the insolvency of small towns, a problem which often does not get enough attention in the mainstream media, because the storyline of racism is the one that falls squarely within the norms of television discourse. It is revealing that continuing exposure—about towns like Ranger, Texas, and similar problems with Flint, Michigan—was provided by satirical shows, when the real media took their eyes off the ball after the initial outbreak of the news. Michael Moore brought up the reasons for the grievance and apathy of poor voters to explain the Democrats’ loss of their traditional stronghold of Michigan in the 2016 presidential election, where seventy-five thousand people came to the polling booth and voted, yet left the presidential category empty, when the margin of defeat was only ten thousand votes. Such a significant connection seems to be lost on the media, so the Flint water crisis cannot be presented in a way that violates the available storyline. In this instance The Daily Show and Minhaj confronted the preferred narrative and connected the structural and systemic problems with apparently random events such as the water crisis. One of the Daily Show’s most influential moments was when Stewart dedicated an episode to the plight of the 9/11 first responders, whose financial and medical future lay in the hands of the one hundred and eleventh Congress. Stewart used his platform to shame the legislators (forty-two Republican senators) who were not supporting the bill to provide health benefits to first responders who got sick from working at ground zero in the aftermath of September 11. Stewart has been accorded a lot of praise not only for taking up this cause, but relentlessly pursuing it with empathetic zeal and expressing loathing for the politics surrounding it.243 The Daily Show, for that particular segment, was arranged like a serious discussion, with the first responders occupying the roundtable. Later Stewart came out of retirement to lobby for the bill when it expired after five years and it looked like it was not going to be renewed.244 In this case, was taunting the powerful enough as a strategy? Stewart claimed that shaming the legislators was the only way to force them to vote for the bill. He maximized his fame and the platforms still available to him (Colbert and Noah’s shows) to showcase his lobbying and shaming techniques. As with the Tea Party, the only strategy that worked for legislative change was old-fashioned lobbying exerting leverage on existing institutions. Late-night satire on the television screen is commonly deemed political, regardless of the lack of ideology or any real intention to generate political dialogue beyond partisan politics. The questions regarding the extent to which satire is political, or which particular shows or satirists are political, are interesting but trivial. The more significant element is the broader context of

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media where satire operates and even the larger political environment where partisan politics has overshadowed ideology to such an extent that third parties, or even candidates like Sanders who challenge Democratic Party institutions, are framed simply as “spoilers.” In the postmodern worldview, conflicts are framed as games, while the focus shifts to the winners and losers from any policy initiative. The losers are expected to be good sports if they are to maintain their ability to return to the arena. The inclination of satirists to embrace partisan positions over ideological tenets, to personalize their targets rather than uncovering systemic failures, and to normalize the unacceptable with valiant humor and a shrug is merely a reflection of how our real political interactions, analyses, and systems of accountability operate.

NOTES 1. Kevin Hart, Postmodernism: A Beginner’s Guide (Oxford: Oneworld, 2004): 2. 2. Ibid., 17. 3. Ibid., 15. 4. Zygmunt Bauman, Globalization: The Human Consequences (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998): 59. 5. Zygmunt Bauman, Postmodern Ethics (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1993): 37–42. 6. Kyle Munzenreider, “Samantha Bee Turns to the Avant-garde to Explain How Trump Destroyed the Normal.” June 22, 2017. https​://ww​w.wma​gazin​e.com​ /stor​y/sam​antha​-bee-​donal​d-tru​mp-de​stroy​ed-th​e-nor​mal; “Fantastic Words and Where Not to Find Them.” Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. YouTube video, 7:49, June 21, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=y6B​nevx7​vco. 7. Kevin Hart, Postmodernism: A Beginner’s Guide (Oxford: Oneworld, 2004): 28. 8. Linda Hutcheon, The Politics of Postmodernism (London: Routledge, 1989): 34. 9. Sophia A. McClennen, America According to Colbert: Satire as Public Pedagogy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011): 95. 10. Chris Cillizza, “How Liberal is Stephen Colbert?” The Washington Post. September 8, 2015. https​://ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​t.com​/news​/the-​fix/w​p/201​4/04/​10/th​econ​serva​tism-​of-st​ephen​-colb​ert/?​utm_t​erm=.​54567​fe7b5​e1. 11. Russell L. Peterson, Strange Bedfellows: How Late-Night Comedy Turns Democracy Into a Joke (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008): 19–20. 12. “Who Is Stephen Colbert?” The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, YouTube video, 11:03, September 29, 2015. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=r36​wnaSq​Jtw. 13. “Werd: The Lesser of Evil?” The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, YouTube video, 6:45, July 27, 2016. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=Lvk​FkzpV​YJ4.

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14. The hilarious take of Colbert on Jones with Colbert trying to mimic Jones can be seen here: “Alex Jones Calls Out Stephen Colbert in Court Testimony.” The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, YouTube video, 7:08, April 22, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​ tube.​com/w​atch?​v=ebh​NRF5r​4Ts. 15. “Jordan Klepper Riled His Alt-Right Inspiration Alex Jones with The Opposition.” Late Night with Seth Meyers, YouTube video, 5:48, September 23, 2017. https​:// ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=_y4​QKncb​3D0. 16. “Opposing the Resistance in Phoenix.” The Opposition with Jordan Klepper, YouTube video, 3:10, September 12, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=QQV​ WMp_x​gGg. 17. Jordan Peterson, “Why You Have to Fight Postmodernism.” RealClear Politics. June 5, 2017. https​://ww​w.rea​lclea​rpoli​tics.​com/v​ideo/​2017/​06/05​/jord​an_ pe​terso​n_why​_you_​have_​to_fi​ght_p​ostmo​derni​sm.ht​ml. 18. Eli Clifton, “Gorka Blames ‘Multicultural Postmodernism’ for Media Focus on White Supremacists.” Lobe Log. August 10, 2017. https​://lo​belog​.com/​gorka​-blam​ es-mu​lticu​ltura​l-pos​tmode​rnism​-for-​media​-focu​s-on-​white​-supr​emaci​sts. 19. Another connotation of globalism in right-wing lingo is deeply anti-Semitic which adds yet another complication to the multiplicity of meanings and manipulation of the notion of globalization. 20. “Steve Bannon Interview on Europe’s Far-Right and Cambridge Analytica.” Channel 4 News, YouTube video, 3:44, May 24, 2018. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/ w​atch?​v=0EX​GmsXX​DJk. 21. Wayne Gabardi, Negotiating Postmodernism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001): 4. 22. Ibid., 5. 23. Ibid., 100–1. 24. Jean Baudrillard, The Intelligence of Evil: or, the Lucidity Pact (London: Bloomsbury Revelations, 2013): 17–19. 25. Madison Malone Kircher, “Sean Spicer Retweets Onion Video Saying He Provides ‘Robust Misinformation’: ‘You Nailed It.’” New York Magazine. January 29, 2017. http:​//nym​ag.co​m/sel​ectal​l/201​7/01/​sean-​spice​r-ret​weets​-the-​onion​-call​ingj​ob-mi​sinfo​rmati​on.ht​ml. 26. Kevin Hart, Postmodernism: A Beginner’s Guide (Oxford: Oneworld, 2004): 130. 27. Mike Featherstone, Consumer Culture and Postmodernism (Los Angeles: Sage, 2007): 7. 28. Wayne Gabardi, Negotiating Postmodernism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001): 9. 29. Ibid., 7. 30. Ibid., 43. 31. Ibid., 19. 32. Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000): 32. 33. Steven Best and Douglas Kellner, The Postmodern Adventure: Science, Technology, and Cultural Studies at the Third Millennium (New York: The Guilford Press, 2001): 210. In recent years, this process of merger and consolidation has only intensified manifold.

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34. “Adbusters Buy Nothing Day Commercial.” https​ ://ww​ w.you​ tube.​ com/ w​atch?​v=DQm​dBiD0​m2g. 35. Wayne Gabardi, Negotiating Postmodernism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001): 100. Today that number is down to six media giants controlling ninety percent of everything we watch, read, and hear. 36. “Corporate Consolidation.” Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), YouTube video, 15:09, September 24, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=00w​QYmvf​hn4. 37. “Sinclair Broadcast Group.” Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), YouTube video, 18:59, July 2, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=Gvt​NyOzG​ogc. 38. Cristopher Payne, The Consumer, Credit, and Neoliberalism: Governing the Modern Economy (London: Routledge, 2012): 4–5. 39. Facebook owns more than fifty companies including other prominent social media platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp. https​://en​.wiki​pedia​.org/​wiki/​List_​ of_me​rgers​_and_​acqui​sitio​ns_by​_Face​book.​ 40. Farhad Manjoo, “The Upside of Being Ruled by the Five Tech Giants.” The New York Times. November 1, 2017. https​://ww​w.nyt​imes.​com/2​017/1​1/01/​techn​ ology​/five​-tech​-gian​ts-up​side.​html?​_r=0.​ While Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg did appear for hearings before Congress in 2018, as a result of the fallout from the 2016 election, both data leaks and porousness to shady political influencers remain persistent problems. 41. Jeffrey P. Jones, “Fox News and the Performance of Ideology,” Cinema Journal 51, no. 4 (Summer 2012): 180. 42. Ibid., 182. 43. Wayne Gabardi, Negotiating Postmodernism (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2001): 102. 44. Ibid., 103. 45. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=YT6​Zbbds​1tM. 46. “Saudi Arabia’s Political Purge.” The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, YouTube video, 5:11, November 7, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=7Ck​mLsyv​utg. 47. “Violent Buddhists Target Muslims in Myanmar.” The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, YouTube video, 6:07, September 13, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/ w​atch?​v=J2Q​q-RPY​b_I&t​=35s. 48. “Canada and Brazil.” Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), YouTube video, 30:26, July 21, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=o-4​Ps-PW​kWo. 49. “John Oliver Describes Countries.” Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO). YouTube video, 5:39, June 22, 2016. https​ ://ww​ w.you​ tube.​ com/w​ atch?​ v=wdl​bMt-X​Zds. 50. Wayne Gabardi, Negotiating Postmodernism (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2001): 102. 51. Ibid., 99–100. 52. Ibid., 100. 53. Zygmunt Bauman, Globalization: The Human Consequences (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998): 49–50. 54. “Alex Jones.” Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), YouTube video, 22:21, July 30, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=WyG​q6cjc​c3Q.

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55. “All Lives Friday: Serious Deals for Serious Threats.” The Opposition with Jordan Klepper, YouTube video, 6:11, November 14, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​ com/w​atch?​v=Cy_​7t1nX​HY8. 56. Charles A Knight, The Literature of Satire (London: Cambridge University Press, 2004): 5. 57. Ted Gournelos and Viveca S. Greene, “Introduction: Popular Culture and Post-9/11 Politics,” in A Decade of Dark Humor: How Comedy, Irony, and Satire Shaped Post-9/11 America, edited by Ted Gournelos and Viveca S. Greene (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2011): xi–xii. 58. http:​//www​.cnn.​com/2​003/U​S/05/​01/bu​sh.tr​anscr​ipt. 59. “Mission Accomplished Didn’t Mean ‘Mission Accomplished.’” YouTube video, 2:12, May 25, 2007. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=tm9​-cZ2s​7i4. 60. https​://ma​shabl​e.com​/2014​/05/0​9/cnn​-obse​ssed-​malay​sia-m​h370-​zucke​r. 61. Alexandra Petri, “It Was the Cheese That Let John Kelly Down.” The Washington Post. July 11, 2018. https​://ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​t.com​/blog​s/com​ post/​wp/20​18/07​/11/i​t-was​-the-​chees​e-tha​t-let​-john​-kell​y-dow​n/?ut​m_ter​m=.15​ cd523​2e019​. 62. “Man Controlled by Russia Says Germany Is Controlled by Russia.” The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, YouTube video, 5:48, July 11, 2018. https​://ww​w.you​ tube.​com/w​atch?​v=gQQ​wOQLE​rDU. 63. “Lawrence O’Donnell Has Never Seen a Hearing as Bad as Strzok’s.” The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, YouTube video, 8:20, July 13, 2018. https​://ww​w. you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=t2S​Zu2gm​_GQ. 64. Amber Day, Satire and Dissent: Interventions in Contemporary Political Debate (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2011): 73. 65. Angelique Haugerud, No Billionaire Left Behind (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013): 190. 66. Comedian Bill Maher lost his job and his show, Politically Incorrect, when he uttered that the 9/11 terrorists were not cowards, even though he was deeply critical of the terrorists and terrorism in general. http:​//www​.snow​spotm​edia.​com/2​010/0​ 9/11/​the-c​ommen​ts-ab​out-9​11-th​at-co​st-bi​ll-ma​her-h​is-jo​b-vid​eo. 67. David Denby, Snark: A Polemic in Seven Fits (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2009): 4. 68. Ibid., 58–89. 69. David Holloway, “Republican Decline and the Culture Wars in 9/11 Humor,” in A Decade of Dark Humor: How Comedy, Irony, and Satire Shaped Post-9/11 America, edited by Ted Gournelos and Viveca Greene (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2011): 102–4. 70. Amber Day, Satire and Dissent: Interventions in Contemporary Political Debate (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2011): 100. 71. For a detailed description of his accolades, see Sophia A. McClennen, America According to Colbert: Satire as Public Pedagogy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011): 3–4. 72. Ted Gournelos and Viveca S. Greene, “Introduction: Popular Culture and Post-9/11 Politics,” in A Decade of Dark Humor: How Comedy, Irony, and Satire

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Shaped Post-9/11 America, edited by Ted Gournelos and Viveca S. Greene (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2011): xxvii. 73. Ibid., xxvii. 74. Jamie Warner, “Humor, Terror, and Dissent: The Onion after 9/11,” in A Decade of Dark Humor: How Comedy, Irony, and Satire Shaped Post-9/11 America, edited by Ted Gournelos and Viveca S. Greene (Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2011): 68. 75. https​://ww​w.the​onion​.com/​bill-​of-ri​ghts-​pared​-down​-to-a​-mana​geabl​e-six​1819​56669​1. 76. “Now That’s What I Call Being Completely F—ing Wrong About Iraq.” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, YouTube video, 8:39, June 17, 2014. https​://ww​w.you​ tube.​com/w​atch?​v=aqz​zWr32​srk&t​=159s​. 77. “All the President’s Word.” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, YouTube video, 4:11, December 2, 2009. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=CXu​cOGfz​t2o. 78. “The Mooch Will Set Trump Free.” Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, YouTube video, 7:12, July 26, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=kY6​aUo2P​kaM. 79. “A Closer Look.” Late Night with Seth Meyers, YouTube video, 8:30, September 13, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=Wgy​dZwHE​3yA&a​pp=de​sktop​. 80. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=8Ux​3DKxx​FoM. 81. http:​//tim​e.com​/4658​012/d​onald​-trum​p-nat​ional​-pray​er-br​eakfa​st-tr​anscr​ipt. 82. Roseanne was revived in 2018 for one season where the main character Roseanne appeared as a staunch Trump supporter like her real-life persona. The show garnered huge ratings but was canceled after a few episodes when Roseanne tweeted racist slurs against Valerie Jarret, a former Obama adviser. 83. “Seinfeld: The Nothing Pitch.” YouTube video, 2:24, May 12, 2010. https​:// ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=EQn​aRtNM​GMI. 84. https​://ww​w.huf​fingt​onpos​t.com​/entr​y/sei​nfeld​-taug​ht-me​-twit​ter-t​rend_​ us_59​fc4fe​6e4b0​1b474​049b0​40. 85. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=uxJ​yPsmE​ask. 86. “Witches Cast Monthly Spell on Trump.” Tucker Carlson Tonight, YouTube video, 5:03, September 19, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=x2W​ 3uyE1​3Ww. 87. “Puerto Rico.” Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), YouTube video, 21:21, April 24, 2016. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=Tt-​mpuR_​QHQ. 88. “The Check In: Robert and Rebekah Mercer.” Late Night with Seth Meyers, YouTube video, 6:36, October 24, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=NQB​ PNs58​4LY. 89. “Bill Cassidy’s Health Care Bill.” Jimmy Kimmel Live, YouTube video, 6:57, September 19, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=cOl​ibbx5​sx0. 90. Sophia A. McClennen, America According to Colbert: Satire as Public Pedagogy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011): 95. 91. Robert T. Tally, Jr., “I Am the Mainstream Media (and So Can You!),” in The Stewart/Colbert Effect: Essays on the Real Impacts of Fake News, edited by Amarnath Amarasingam (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2011): 151. 92. “We Can’t Breathe.” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, YouTube video, 8:52, December 5, 2014. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=w8K​qDIPd​COg.

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93. “Baltimore on Fire.” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, YouTube video, 7:33, April 29, 2015. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=Wwy​7pWvO​3p0. 94. “Philando Castile and the Black Experience in America.” The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, YouTube video, 5:39, June 20, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​ atch?​v=auf​MdURb​itU&i​ndex=​2&lis​t=RDw​qgz7k​RGVxg​. 95. “John Oliver on Emmy Win, ‘Gift’ of Politics and Satire.” CBS This Morning, YouTube video, 7:30, September 22, 2016. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​ v=5PL​MVr9r​FeY. 96. Sophia A. McClennen, America According to Colbert: Satire as Public Pedagogy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011): 1. 97. The landmark case in 2010 where the U.S. Supreme Court held corporations as having the same freedom of speech as individuals and therefore considered that limiting their financial impact on elections was tantamount to obstruction of free speech. This ruling is commonly perceived to have paved the way for unlimited campaign contributions by corporations and their unrestricted role in the electoral process. 98. John Scott Gray, “The Senior Black Correspondent: Saying What Needs to Be Said,” in The Ultimate Daily Show and Philosophy: More Moments of Zen, More Indecision Theory, edited by Jason Holt (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2013): 160. 99. Ibid., 160. 100. “State of the Black Protest.” The Nightly Show, YouTube video, 7:32, January 20, 2015. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=MTI​sw9VD​bZU&l​ist=R​DMTIs​ w9VDb​ZU&t=​94. 101. “Jordan Klepper on Politics and Satire in the Age of President Donald Trump.” MSNBC, YouTube video, 6:20, January 18, 2018. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​ com/w​atch?​v=4Mv​6vd00​XUc. 102. “Tom Hanks: America’s Dad Monologue.” SNL, YouTube video, 4:33, October 23, 2016. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=vcw​FeyrH​2ww. 103. Amber Day, Satire and Dissent: Interventions in Contemporary Political Debate (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2011): 43–4. 104. “What Would a Dick Do?” Real Time with Bill Maher, YouTube video, 5:23, April 7, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=P2Q​XMGYl​uzo&t​=8s. 105. Horace Newcomb, “The Opening of America: Meaningful Differences in 1950s Television,” in The Other Fifties: Interrogating Midcentury American Icons, edited by Joel Foreman (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1997): 106. 106. Russell L. Peterson, Strange Bedfellows: How Late-Night Comedy Turns Democracy Into a Joke (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008): 32. 107. Ibid., 31–2. 108. Heather L. LaMarre, Kristen D. Landreville, and Michael A. Beam, “The Irony of Satire: Political Ideology and the Motivation to See What You Want to See in The Colbert Report.” International Journal of Press/Politics 14, no. 2 (April 2009): 212–231. 109. Mark K. McBeth and Randy S. Clemons, “Is Fake News the Real News? The Significance of Stewart and Colbert for Democratic Discourse, Politics, and Policy,” in The Stewart/Colbert Effect: Essays on the Real Impacts of Fake News, edited by Amarnath Amarasingam (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2011): 83–4.

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110. Ibid., 83–4. 111. Julie Webber, The Cultural Set Up of Comedy: Affective Politics in the United States Post 9/11 (Bristol: Intellect, 2013): 4. 112. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=DLo​lHhan​yyo. 113. “‘Post-truth’ Is Just a Rip-off of ‘Truthiness.’” The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. YouTube video, 7:09, November 28, 2016. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​ atch?​v=Ck0​yqUoB​Y7M. 114. Angelique Haugerud, No Billionaire Left Behind (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013): 188. 115. Wayne Gabardi, Negotiating Postmodernism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001): 25. 116. Jim McGuigan, Cultural Populism (New York: Routledge, 1992): 126. 117. Mike Featherstone, Consumer Culture and Postmodernism (Los Angeles: Sage, 2007): 124. 118. Wayne Gabardi, Negotiating Postmodernism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001): 20. 119. Mike Featherstone, Consumer Culture and Postmodernism (Los Angeles: Sage, 2007): 54. 120. Marshall W. Fishwick, Popular Culture in a New Age (New York: The Haworth Press, 2002): 35. 121. Jeffrey P. Jones, Entertaining Politics: Satiric Television and Political Engagement (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010): 14. 122. Mark K. McBeth and Randy S. Clemons, “Is Fake News the Real News? The Significance of Stewart and Colbert for Democratic Discourse, Politics, and Policy,” in The Stewart/Colbert Effect: Essays on the Real Impacts of Fake News, edited by Amarnath Amarasingam (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2011): 80. 123. Jeffrey P. Jones, Entertaining Politics: Satiric Television and Political Engagement (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010): 29. 124. Jim McGuigan, Cultural Populism (New York: Routledge, 1992): 146. As part of the audience of American TV serials in Bangladesh, Dallas was the first TV show I saw simultaneously with the American audience. Almost all the other TV serials from America were shown on Bangladesh TV later than when they were broadcast originally. 125. Marshall W. Fishwick, Probing Popular Culture On and Off the Internet (New York: The Haworth Press, 2004): 49–50. 126. Kevin Hart, Postmodernism: A Beginner’s Guide (Oxford: Oneworld, 2004): 58. 127. Ibid., 59. 128. For theoretical insight on the relationship between liberalism and postmodernism, see David Cook, “The Last Days of Liberalism,” in Postmodernism: A Reader, edited by Thomas Docherty (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993): 120–7. 129. “Thank you, Scott.” SNL, YouTube video, 3:04, April 8, 2017. https​://ww​ w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=QDy​dKwmr​HFo&f​eatur​e=you​tu.be​.

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130. Alison Dagnes, A Conservative Walks Into A Bar: The Politics of Political Humor (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012): 2–3. 131. Norris W. Yates, The American Humorist: Conscience of the Twentieth Century (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1964): 24–8. 132. Ibid., 224. 133. Matthew Hodgart, Satire (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969): 242–3. 134. Stephen E. Kercher, Revel With A Cause: Liberal Satire in Postwar America (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006): 444. 135. Stewart Justman, The Springs of Liberty: The Satiric Tradition and Freedom of Speech (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1999): 17. 136. Ibid., 13. 137. Amber Day, Satire and Dissent: Interventions in Contemporary Debate (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2011): 24. 138. Matthew Hodgart, Satire (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969): 241. 139. http:​//spl​itsid​er.co​m/201​2/05/​that-​was-t​he-we​ek-th​at-wa​s-bri​ngs-p​oliti​cals​atire​-to-a​meric​a 140. Russell L. Peterson, Strange Bedfellows: How Late-Night Comedy Turns Democracy Into a Joke (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008): 32–3. 141. Gerald Gardner, The Mocking of the President: A History of Campaign Humor from Ike to Ronnie (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1988): 135–7. 142. Ibid., 33–5. 143. Doyle Greene, Politics and American Television Comedy: A Critical Survey from I Love Lucy through South Park (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 2008): 195–8. 144. Alison Dagnes, A Conservative Walks Into A Bar: The Politics of Political Humor (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012): 115. 145. Ibid., 120–1. 146. Ibid., 123–6. 147. “Election Night.” SNL, November 13, 2016. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/ w​atch?​v=SHG​0ezLi​VGc. 148. “Black Jeopardy with Tom Hanks.” SNL, October 23, 2016. https​://ww​w.you​ tube.​com/w​atch?​v=O7V​aXlMv​Avk. 149. Jim Whalley, Saturday Night Live, Hollywood Comedy, American Culture: From Chevy Chase to Tina Fey (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010): 29. 150. Jeffrey P. Jones, “Politics and the Brand: Saturday Night Live’s Campaign Season Humor,” in Saturday Night Live & American TV, edited by Nick Marx, Matt Sienkiewicz, and Ron Becker (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2013): 77, 77–92. 151. Alison Dagnes, A Conservative Walks Into A Bar: The Politics of Political Humor (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012): 119. 152. David Croteau and William Hoynes, The Business of Media: Corporate Media and Public Interest (Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 2001): 52–4. 153. Lizabeth Cohen, “Encountering Mass Culture at the Grassroots: The Experience of Chicago Workers in the 1920s,” in Popular Culture and Political Change in Modern America, edited by Ronald Edsforth and Larry Bennett (New York: State University of New York Press, 1991): 91.

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154. Robert W. McChesney, “The Political Economy of International Communications,” in Who Owns the Media: Global Trend and Local Resistances, edited by Pradip N. Thomas and Zaharon Nain (London: Zed Books, 2004): 8, 3–22. 155. David Croteau and William Hoynes, The Business of Media: Corporate Media and Public Interest (Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 2001): 53–5. 156. As of November 2017, the Republican-led FCC has voted to eliminate all obstructions to media consolidation and paved the way to kill net neutrality. https​ ://ww​w.huf​fingt​onpos​t.com​/entr​y/fcc​-vote​s-to-​undo-​key-r​oadbl​ocks-​to-me​dia-c​ ompan​y-con​solid​ation​_us_5​a0de0​60e4b​0c0b2​f2f8b​d3b?n​cid=i​nblnk​ushpm​g0000​ 0009.​It remains to be seen if there will be effective resistance to the end of net neutrality. 157. David Croteau and William Hoynes, The Business of Media: Corporate Media and Public Interest (Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 2001): 67–8. 158. The FCC adopted the Fairness Doctrine in 1949 demanding the presentation of controversial issues of public significance in a balanced manner which would include contrasting views. The FCC eliminated this policy in 1987 when the Supreme Court ruled that the FCC need not enforce this ruling as the broadcasters are expected to voluntarily comply with the spirit of the fairness doctrine. 159. See Jennifer Holt, Empires of Entertainment: Media Industries and the Politics of Deregulation, 1980-1996 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2011) for extensive analysis of deregulation. 160. David Croteau and William Hoynes, The Business of Media: Corporate Media and Public Interest (Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 2001): 67–8. 161. See C. Edwin Baker, Media Concentration and Democracy: Why Ownership Matters (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007) for an excellent analysis of the effect of media monopolies on democratic practices. 162. Robert W. McChesney, “The Political Economy of International Communications,” in Who Owns the Media: Global Trend and Local Resistances, edited by Pradip N. Thomas and Zaharon Nain (London: Zed Books, 2004): 7–8, 3–22. 163. Ibid., 12. 164. Ibid., 8–9. 165. Corey Robin, The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011): 24–25. 166. Ibid., 94. 167. Ibid., 130. 168. Jeffrey P. Jones, Entertaining Politics: Satiric Television and Political Engagement (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010): 7. 169. Ibid., 73. 170. Bill Maher has been called a racist and a bigot over his criticisms of African Americans and Muslims. Senator Al Franken (himself an SNL alumnus) canceled his appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher in 2017 after one such remark, though later he relented. To many people, Maher is an insightful but crass comedian. 171. “Stephen Colbert Roasts Bush at 2006 White House Correspondents’ Dinner.” April 28, 2012. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=2X9​3u3an​Tco.

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172. Margaret Harding McGill and John Hendell, “How Trump’s FCC Aided Sinclair’s Expansion.” Politico. August 6, 2017. http:​//www​.poli​tico.​com/s​tory/​2017/​ 08/06​/trum​p-fcc​-sinc​lair-​broad​cast-​expan​sion-​24133​7?lo=​ap_d1​. 173. Jody C. Baumgartner and Jonathan S. Morris. “Stoned Slackers or Super Citizens? The Daily Show Viewing and Political Engagement of Young Adults,” in The Stewart/Colbert Effect: Essays on the Real Impacts of Fake News, edited by Amarnath Amarasingam (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2011): 65–6. 174. Sophia A. McClennen and Remy M. Maisel, Is Satire Saving Our Nation? Mockery and American Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014): 14. 175. Geoffrey Baym and Jeffrey P. Jones, “News Parody in Global Perspective: Politics, Power, and Resistance,” in News Parody and Political Satire Across the Globe, edited by Geoffrey Baym and Jeffrey P. Jones (New York: Routledge, 2013): 11. 176. Amber Day, Satire and Dissent: Interventions in Contemporary Political Debate (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2011): 66–7. 177. “Jon Stewart Grills Miller on Iraq War Reporting.” CNN, YouTube video, 3:10, April 30, 2015. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=924​DT22t​SWE. 178. “Jimmy Kimmel Full Interview with George W. Bush.” Jimmy Kimmel Live, YouTube video, 19:16, March 4, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=5ir​ 1hhpk​wbo. 179. “Jimmy Kimmel Full Interview with Sean Spicer.” Jimmy Kimmel Live, YouTube video, 20:20, September 13, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=bZJ​ pwidi​Mco. 180. “Sean Spicer Surprises Emmy Audience.” NBC News, YouTube video, 1:06, September 18, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=EJG​quUcC​v14. 181. “Iraq War: 15 Years Later.” Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, YouTube video, 6:30, March 21, 2018. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=ekq​24bjT​SY4. 182. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=k4Q​gdZ3e​Iis. http:​//tim​e.com​/5297​645/ s​amant​ha-be​e-apo​logiz​es-iv​anka.​ 183. “Presidential Interviews: Barack Obama.” Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, YouTube video, 5:44, October 31, 2016. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=b0y​ ONlMj​xjs. 184. Jody C. Baumgartner and Jonathan S. Morris, “Stoned Slackers or Super Citizens? The Daily Show Viewing and Political Engagement of Young Adults,” in The Stewart/Colbert Effect: Essays on the Real Impacts of Fake News, edited by Amarnath Amarasingam (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2011): 64. 185. Ibid., 75. 186. Ralph M. Rosen, “Efficacy and Meaning in Ancient and Modern Political Satire: Aristophanes, Lenny Bruce, and Jon Stewart,” Social Research 79, no. 1 (Spring 2012): 18. 187. https​://ww​w.ins​pirin​gquot​es.us​/auth​or/71​77-le​nny-b​ruce.​ 188. http:​//www​.azqu​otes.​com/a​uthor​/2063​-Lenn​y_Bru​ce. 189. http:​//sco​medy.​com/q​uotes​/Lenn​y-Bru​ce?se​arch=​&page​=1. 190. Dinesh D’Souza, “Bill Maher and Dinesh D’Souza.” Politically Incorrect. YouTube video, 0:32, May 8, 2014. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=JhZ​NqtJV​By0.

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191. Ralph M. Rosen, “Efficacy and Meaning in Ancient and Modern Political Satire: Aristophanes, Lenny Bruce, and Jon Stewart,” Social Research 79, no. 1 (Spring 2012): 2. 192. http://flipadistrict.com. 193. “The Craziest Congressman.” Real Time with Bill Maher. YouTube video, 4:06, May 12, 2013. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=Acg​wkLNc​Zt0. 194. Lucy McCalmont, “Bill Maher Does Not Flip a District.” Politico. November 5, 1014. https​://ww​w.pol​itico​.com/​story​/2014​/11/b​ill-m​aher-​does-​not-f​l ip-a​-dist​rict-​11255​5. 195. Antifa is a composite of a number of far-left and anti-capitalist groups who stand against fascism, racism, and right-wing extremists with their direct action tactics, which include both conventional protests and militant strategies such as property damage and open confrontation with the enemy. 196. “Bill Maher Calls ‘Black Lives Matter’ Activists F—ing Idiots for Going After Hillary.” Real Time with Bill Maher. YouTube video, 1:54, February 27, 2016. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=u0i​EjACP​zVo. 197. “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Antagonists of the Alt-Right.” The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, YouTube video, 7:08, August 31, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​ atch?​v=kmp​qnxpY​UqA. 198. “Joe Arpaio.” Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), YouTube video, 14:17, September 11, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=1ZN​ ZY-gd​3K0. 199. “Year of the Dog.” Real Time with Bill Maher. YouTube video, 7:26, November 10, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=b1R​mllmx​DtM. 200. “Weekend Update.” SNL, YouTube video, 6:53, November 11, 2017. https​:// ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=-y4​4hPaZ​qUM. 201. https​://be​njami​nstud​ebake​r.com​/2016​/12/1​6/sam​antha​-bee-​doesn​t-und​ersta​ nd-th​e-lef​ts-ob​jecti​on-to​-iden​tity-​polit​ics. 202. For an excellent analysis of the evolution and meaning of identity politics, read Mark Lilla, The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics (New York: HaperCollins, 2017). 203. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=BRP​bCSSX​yp0&t​=56s.​ 204. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=5ZE​BK21J​Qow. 205. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=rL9​7vWgS​p7U. 206. “John ‘Joe the Plumber’ McCain.” Real Time with Bill Maher. YouTube video, 2:51, October 18, 2008. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=RrK​8m7er​sYg. 207. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=Cxm​RVDfl​VV0. 208. The most extensive coverage and discussion of the interview was by Sam Seder on The Majority Report. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=6mL​fExo8​UOE. 209. “Daily Show’s Hasan Minhaj’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner Full Monologue.” Global News. YouTube video, 25:49, April 29, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​ tube.​com/w​atch?​v=Of6​PLJbM​nxE. 210. Emily Yahr and Abby Ohlheiser, “White House Correspondents’ Dinner 2018: A Complete Recap Including Michelle Wolf’s Controversial Speech.” The Washington Post. April 28, 2018. https​://ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​t.com​/news​/reli​able-​ sourc​e/wp/​2018/​04/28​/the-​2018-​white​-hous​e-cor​respo​ndent​s-din​ner-i​s-sti​ll-a-​hot-t​ icket​-even​-with​out-t​rump/​?utm_​term=​.fdd4​cca21​00e.

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211. Senator Bernie Sanders proposed a bill for universal health care in September 2017. He was able to get a few of his democratic colleagues as co-sponsors of the bill, but his party leadership’s support for such a policy was missing. 212. Rick Santelli’s famous rant against high government expenditures supported the argument of the Tea Party: https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=bEZ​B 4taS​EoA. 213. For laughable details, see Chris Good, “Signs of the Times: Slogans and Images from the Tea Party Rally,” The Atlantic, September 13, 2010. https​://ww​ w.the​atlan​tic.c​om/po​litic​s/arc​hive/​2010/​09/si​gns-o​f-the​-time​s-slo​gans-​and-i​mages ​ -from​-the-​tea-p​arty-​rally​/6288​5/#sl​ide3.​ For the most offensive signs, see http:​//www​ .huff​i ngto​npost​.com/​2009/​04/16​/10-m​ost-o​ffens​ive-t​ea-pa​r_n_1​87554​.html​. Here are some samples of messages that were shared on Twitter: http:​//rig​hts.c​om/20​09/04​/15/ t​ea-pa​rty-s​logan​s. 214. Greg Littman, “Seriously Funny: Mockery as a Political Weapon,” in The Ultimate Daily Show and Philosophy: More Moments of Zen, More Indecision Theory, edited by Jason Holt (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2013): 60. 215. “Jon Stewart Chides Bill O’Reilly for Calling the Tea Party the American Taliban.” The O’Reilly Factor, YouTube video, 1:42, September 23, 2010. https​:// ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=tpr​UU3Zo​QCs. 216. “Tea Party Cult.” Real Time with Bill Maher. YouTube video, 3:33, March 26, 2014. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=i7z​pNF2L​oqg. 217. Springs, Jason A. “NEXT TIME, TRY LOOKING IT UP IN YOUR GUT!!: Tolerance, Civility, and Healthy Conflict in a Tea Party Era,” Soundings: An Interdisciplinary Journal 94, no. 3/4 (Fall/Winter 2011): 325–58, 341–2. 218. Sophia A. McClennen and Remy M. Maisel, Is Satire Saving Our Nation? Mockery and American Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014): 15. 219. Ibid., 15–16. 220. Robert Barnes, “Efforts to Limit Partisan Gerrymandering Falter at Supreme Court.” The Washington Post. June 18, 2018. https​://ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​t.com​ /poli​tics/​court​s_law​/supr​eme-c​ourt-​sides​teps-​decis​ion-o​n-par​tisan​-gerr​ymand​ering​ /2018​/06/1​8/c90​9bf26​-7303​-11e8​-805c​-4b67​019fc​fe4_s​tory.​html?​utm_t​erm=.​4edfb​ cd5e6​1b. 221. Angelique Haugerud, No Billionaire Left Behind (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013): 12. 222. The Yes Men are an activist group providing social and political critique through what they call “culture jamming” to reveal the dehumanizing acts of corporations and the government. They spoof important personalities by creating false websites, putting up false interviews, and even making movies impersonating characters, all based on the premise that their lies actually expose the truth. 223. Billionaires for Bush is a political street theater organization which pretended to support President Bush as a satirical and culture jamming technique. 224. Sophia A. McClennen and Remy M. Maisel, Is Satire Saving Our Nation? Mockery and American Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014): 14. 225. “New Rules.” Real Time with Bill Maher, YouTube video, 5:09, June 9, 2012. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=ixu​VvYNF​IW8.

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226. “Hillary Rodham Clinton Is Worried About Trump’s Government.” Late Night with Seth Meyers, YouTube video, 6:21, November 9, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​ tube.​com/w​atch?​v=zZM​USby8​GHg. 227. “Hey! Hillary Clinton’s Bernie Sanders Comments.” Late Night with Seth Meyers, YouTube video, 3:20, September 6, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​ v=TRE​jEuf5​2FU. 228. Jacob Hardes, “Learning To Listen: Conflicts between Youth and Adults Regarding the Phonograph in the Early-Twentieth Century,” in Learning the Left: Popular Culture, Liberal Politics, and Informal Education from 1900 to the Present, edited by Paul J. Ramsey (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2015): 2. 229. Ibid., 7. 230. Marianne Dekoven, Utopia Limited: The Sixties and the Emergence of the Postmodern (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004): 124. 231. Ibid., 3. 232. Watch the episode “Nosebleed” from Black Mirror on Netflix. 233. Daniel Keyes, “Television: The Extraliterary Device,” in From Text to Txting: New Media in the Classroom, edited by Paul Budra and Clint Burnham (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2012): 76. 234. Ibid., 80–1. 235. “Television! Teacher, Mother, Secret Lover.” The Simpsons. YouTube video, 0:22, October 2, 2016. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=Dum​CuR4m​dpQ. 236. Daniel Keyes, “Television: The Extraliterary Device,” in From Text to Txting: New Media in the Classroom, edited by Paul Budra and Clint Burnham (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2012): 75. 237. Henry A. Giroux, America at War with Itself (San Francisco: City Light Books, 2017): 10–11. 238. Ibid., 13–14. 239. Blue Lives Matter was formed as a reaction to Black Lives Matter to speak on behalf of law enforcement officers who have been targeted. Their NYC chapter is a non-profit organization created to help police officers and their families during their time of need. 240. Robert Barnes and Ann E. Marimow, “Supreme Court Upholds Trump Travel Ban.” The Washington Post. June 26, 2018. https​://ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​t.com​ /poli​tics/​court​s_law​/supr​eme-c​ourt-​uphol​ds-tr​ump-t​ravel​-ban/​2018/​06/26​/b79c​b09a-​ 7943-​11e8-​80be-​6d32e​182a3​bc_st​ory.h​tml?u​tm_te​rm=.2​25c78​f5fd1​1. 241. Paul J. Ramsey, “Learning the Political Left Through Popular Novels: Howard Fast, Historical Fiction, and the Cold War,” in Learning the Left: Popular Culture, Liberal Politics, and Informal Education from 1900 to the Present, edited by Paul J. Ramsey (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2015): 71–2. 242. “Brown in Town: A West Texas Water Crisis.” The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Comedy Central video, 7:15, April 19, 2017. http:​ //www​ .cc.c​ om/vi​ deo-c​

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lips/​85lgi​d/the​-dail​y-sho​w-wit​h-tre​vor-n​oah-b​rown-​in-to​wn—a-​west-​texas​-wate​r-cri​ sis?x​rs=sy​nd_fa​ceboo​k_042​017_t​ds_91​. 243. Sophia A. McClennen and Remy M. Maisel, Is Satire Saving Our Nation? Mockery and American Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014): 32. 244. “Jon Stewart Returns to Shame Congress.” The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, YouTube video, 8:26, December 8, 2015. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​ v=-L1​1Bxol​o44&t​=43s.​

Part II

Satire as Political Performance

WHAT IS SATIRE? Satire makes us laugh, as the common understanding goes. But immediately the question arises: Must it always evoke laughter? Is it only laughter that satire should produce? Or are there any other functions of satire? Should it make us uncomfortable? Or should it comfort us by producing new meanings? Does it rationalize absurdity? Does it emphasize the ridiculous in order to compel us to take some action to redress it? Do we have a common understanding of what satire is? Is there a list of characteristics that satire aspires to contain? Or is the yardstick simply the reaction it generates? Can we agree on what makes a particular work of satire effective? Can we even agree on a definition of satire? In the previous chapter I considered the role of postmodernism in setting up a framework for contemporary political satire, but now I want to take a step back and look at the historical evolution of satire, particularly in America, to shed more light on how we got here. We are familiar with current political satire on late-night television, but its roots in literary writing and cartoons, and its departure from written and engraved forms to performance, are also worthy of consideration. The contrasts with fiction and animation will further illustrate the definitive characteristics of contemporary satire and how it became consistent with the neoliberal economy and postmodern sensibility, where it is currently situated. I want to begin by asking if satire can be considered a genre by itself, or (as Justman suggests) if it is a tool available to all genres?1 Regardless of how we define it in the present setting, we should pay attention to its genealogical origins and be conscious of how the structure, purpose, and audience of satire changes from print to performance. The question I am most interested 93

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in is not what satire means or should mean, but rather how and why its meaning has changed over the years. In America at the beginning of the twenty-first century, satire has emerged as one of the most visible means of political dialectics, and many credit late-night satire for imparting political knowledge, generating interest, and even encouraging engagement among the viewing audiences. I want, however, to trace the function of satire as a tool for political participation by looking at the relevant literary history—where satire originated in literary forms and how it evolved once it relocated to cartoon strips—to uncover the factors that have shaped its current form and role. The task of satire—ridiculing the powerful to unmask hypocrisies in society—may remain the same, but the transitions in format, that is, from literary to popular culture, and in scale, that is, from fringe to mainstream, have certainly impacted many of its dynamics. One of the most important changes that occurred in the realm of satire when it shifted in large part from its printed character to its presence in the visual media was a difference in the level of engagement with audiences and their role in interpreting what the satire was alluding to. In the early days of television, viewers watched a handful of shows at a time, and the meaning of any show was derived not only from the intended focus of the writer or the performer, but also from the invariable discussions among viewers during or after the show. While the options to watch were limited, it was a more communal activity, although television gradually did become more of a solitary activity. We seem to have arrived at the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of how we watch the media, as we are now entitled to our own private channels—in fact, we each have access to multiple private modes, such as television, laptops, tablets, and even smartphones, all of which can be programmed according to our individual tastes. Reading has always been a more solitary act, but watching a performance is a more active form of engagement regardless of how we watch satire or who we watch or discuss it with. When we are reading political satire in print, we may enjoy more time and space to internalize it in our own way. When satire emerged in the written form, did it appeal to people socially and politically in a different way? What have we gained or lost in the literary to digital transition? A voyage back to the history of political satire takes us to its origin in poems, cartoons, and stand-up acts, the forms which still endure, though these have been somewhat eclipsed by satire on the television screen, which is more readily accessible in many digital formats and has come to occupy a central stage in political news and analysis. Tracing the lineage of political satire is essential because not only has satire moved from the page to the screen, but, more importantly, it has become part of mainstream discourse rather than a tool employed by radical outliers who wielded it against the established order. The locale of the satirist plays a significant role in shaping the content

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of satire and what is deemed permissible to satirize. The movement between the center and the periphery takes place in phases, as satire often becomes part of the broader culture but at other times it is rejected and can bloom only on the fringes of the counterculture. While I want to analyze the role of satire in the present situation, historical hindsight seems essential in helping us to understand what makes satire effective or whether it has any purpose beyond entertainment value. I will use some examples of satire that have stood the test of time to compare them with our present models, and let the readers decide whether or how we have modified our definition and expectations of satire and how the shape and role of satire have evolved over time. I am starting with the premise that, at a minimum, satire should make people laugh. Graham explains that humor theories identify three rationales for why people laugh: feeling superiority, experiencing relief or release, and reacting to incongruity. Superiority theory focuses on the flaws of people or their misadventures, the audience deriving pleasure as they feel distant and superior to the target. Relief or release theory focuses on our need to process real distress by demoting a serious topic to a mere joke, allowing a response but also keeping the audience safe from the wrath of the powerful. Incongruity theory is based on the premise of juxtaposition and incompatibility in order to highlight the absurd, so that the contrast between two images or two different versions of the news or two different interpretations of reality triggers laughter.2 Billig has filled out the picture by focusing on the style of these three classifications, arguing that superiority theory encompasses a rowdy humor filled with snark and scorn,3 relief or release theory satisfies a biological impulse,4 and incongruity theory is comprised of gentlemanly wit.5 He also categorizes humor in terms of its function as either disciplinary or rebellious: disciplinary humor scorns those who break social rules and therefore idealizes conformity to those rules, while rebellious humor derides those very social rules.6 Morreall brings our attention to another central concept of humor, the act of distancing that is created through chastising personalities or events. Laughter that erupts following the superiority theory has a feel-good aspect to it, as we can claim the right to laugh because we are not engaged in the acts we are laughing at.7 Humor that arises from the superiority mode offers a moral higher ground to both satirists and audiences. Morreall asserts that even when people laugh at themselves, they separate themselves from the part they are laughing at.8 The incongruity brand of humor also builds on the distance between the audience and the object of jest. We feel powerless in absurd situations and opt to focus on the funnier side of the story as opposed to its heavier implications.9 The relief theory, in this light, is perhaps the least distancing, breaking taboos as it does and making it possible to utter the forbidden. It is not a coincidence that this is the type of humor we find most

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prevalent in overtly repressive regimes.10 It almost embodies a healing quality and connects people in their collective recognition of a situation. Where does satire fit into this categorization? American political satire of the present era shines the spotlight on political figures engaged in misconduct, and makes us feel superior to the never-ending list of corrupt and hypocritical politicians. Who can forget the recent jokes about such scandal-scarred characters as Anthony Wiener or Eliot Spitzer or Bill Clinton?11 Sexual scandals often provide more fodder for wit and have a longer shelf life than corruption involving money or power. When a political figure reveals a hypocritical element, such as upholding family values or denigrating homosexuality and yet engaging in extramarital or gay conduct as we have seen with Larry Craig, David Vitter, Mark Sanford,12 and a host of other politicians recently, our laughter turns bitter and sardonic. The improper sexual liaisons of politicians13 are an age-old tradition, and have been the butt of jokes in whatever media has been available at any given time. In the second category of relief, American satire functions as an outlet for anxieties or fears, and at the very least provides a channel to process hostilities. I would argue that in the present phase of escalating misogyny, Samantha Bee has emerged as one of the voices who most vociferously hammers away at aspects of prejudice against women which are inscribed in various policies or proudly evoked by certain politicians. Republican representative Todd Akin, who served Missouri’s second congressional district from 2001 to 2013, claimed that a woman could not get pregnant from legitimate rape.14 One of Bee’s pieces (when she was still working for The Daily Show) on sharing custody rights with a rapist against the woman’s wishes shed light on this issue, and the frustration regarding the bill that failed to stop this horrifying practice.15 It is apt to point out here that in more totalitarian cultures, satire emerges as the only medium to express angst and panic. Later in this section, I have included a discussion of the role of humor in the Soviet Union and a few other authoritarian regimes. As for the last category, the application of incongruity to American political satire is inescapable.16 If we look at popular satirists like Stephen Colbert or Seth Meyers, the juxtaposition of real news with absurd parallels is their main mode of getting laughs. When President Trump threatened North Korea with “fire and fury,” Meyers compared a hormonal teenager’s emotional venting and a mesmerized monkey’s new toy with the president’s habit of impulsive tweeting.17 Bee’s critique of Trump administration officials in charge of making war policies comes alive with juxtaposition of eccentric factual stories about those characters which seem too weird to be true.18 Billig’s classification of disciplinary and rebellious humor is even more useful in the analysis of current political satire. Following his central logic, I argue that satire can be thought of as either normalizing or questioning, both

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of which tendencies are prevalent in our cultural scene. Whether satirists opt to use their art for normalizing or questioning may not depend solely on their personal aptitude. While being on the fringes seems to call for satire that is questioning, being part of the mainstream forces satire to become normalizing. The normalizing role of satire may be the one scholars such as Hutcheon refer to as conservative, underlining as it does a trust in the existing system,19 while its questioning role is celebrated by scholars such as McClennen as being a form of political activism. These classifications, however, are not mutually exclusive. Satire often exploits the gap between what is acceptable and what is not, altering the zone of tolerance by including the impermissible through laughter. In this process, without intending to do so, satire can also act to normalize the abuses or excesses of political power, and contribute to identity formation—of self, other, and nation—in a number of dimensions that are rarely examined. Carroll points to an important function of satire, connected with cultural identity formation. Satire often laughs at the present by relating or juxtaposing it with a past occurrence and thereby appropriating shared cultural memory. The construction of shared memory is a reflection of the continuous definition and redefinition of “us” and “them,” situated in “cultural norms.”20 The role of political satire is generally accepted as a means of speaking truth to power and challenging the power structure or establishment, especially in cultures where confronting political leaders through customary outlets is difficult. Webber asserts that the paucity of channels for legitimate political dissent opens the avenue for satire as a valid mode of taking on the power structure.21 Mikhail Saltykov-Schedrin, the famous Russian satirist, was able to criticize the government by spotlighting specific personalities and leaving the larger criticism to the bland details of political settings with such dexterity that his stories passed the rigorous censorship that was prevalent in late-nineteenth-century Russia.22 Ryan makes us aware of the role satire performed in the cultural de-Stalinization of Russia by presenting Stalin as a madman or animal or by feminizing Stalin.23 By acting like this, satire creates a particular kind of cultural memory which preserves selective aspects of the past that are easy to connect with the present and that seep into the production of nationalism.24 Both these examples highlight the cultural knowledge and artistic skill of satirists who figured out the permeable space residing between the offensive and the ridiculous.25 There is overwhelming agreement that political satire in America has become more pointed and caustic as our political mechanisms have become more divided along party lines and ideological orientation. Satire typically contains a diabolical core as it attempts to strike at its intended target with precision. However, the character of its sting depends on whom it wants to reach and what reaction it aspires to generate. Late-night comedians abound

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in contemporary America, but not all political commentary is equally piercing. Jimmy Fallon has been referred to as a butter knife while Colbert has been compared to a steak knife in terms of how they both make fun of President Trump.26 American political satire on late-night television started out in the post-9/11 era in a way that might best be explained by relief or release theory, allowing for controversial topics to rise to the surface in the garb of humor; then, during the ensuing course of the Bush administration, we might say that superiority theory enabled us to focus derisively on that particular regime without addressing the inherent contradictions of American foreign policy or imperialism; and now finally, in the Trump era, incongruity theory might best explain why satire remains a rarefied means to make sense of the exploding irrationalities in the political system. Irony, where the suggested meaning is contrary to the actual words that are used, continues to function as one of the dominant modes to discuss politics, but what is tricky about this is that the role of satire is often to express frustration and disdain, rather than to nurture the audience for real political change. The more satire acts as a tool of normalization by focusing on personalities rather than systemic problems, the more it succeeds in creating a false distance between the target of lampooning and its audience, thereby shifting the responsibility to a handful of powerful politicians rather than the ethical framework of statecraft and the role of citizens in accepting that worldview. It would be helpful at this point to turn the pages of history even farther back in time to explore the distant roots of satire. Satire originated in ancient Rome, and Horace was the first well-acclaimed satirist.27 The two chief forms of satire are monologue and parody: the former is the satirist’s rhetorical interpretation of an event while the latter is more of an exaggerated and often absurd enactment of the event, letting the audience draw its own conclusions.28 There are two main ways the satirist chooses to convey his point: one tells the truth to make the audience laugh, as the audience lacks information and the role of the satirist is to uphold the true picture; the other style is based on a cynical view of mankind, where the satirist’s aim is not to help the audience to learn but rather to help it acknowledge and appreciate the level of debasement. The first group of satirists aims to create pleasant laughter, while the second group tries to create shock by questioning the system under scrutiny.29 This classification contains a parallel with the normalization versus the questioning mode of satire. As with all art forms making comparable choices, satire has to address whether or not it should have a specific purpose other than the minimum of generating laughter. We can look at literary history to find out what scholars expect from satire. According to The Glossary of Literary Terms, satire is “the literary art of diminishing or derogating a subject by making it ridiculous and evoking toward it attitudes of amusement, contempt, scorn, or indignation.”30 Hannay

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defines a true satirist as one who not only brings joy but contributes to the dissemination of truth. While his art is influenced by other literary traditions, it is not enough to have a satirist take his cues from novels, essays, or journalism. Satire has to flourish on its own, with a synergy of wit, hilarity, and scorn, having the intention to reveal a tacit layer of meaning which often escapes our attention. The role of the satirist is much broader than that of the jester who can succeed just with creating laughter, whereas a satirist has to stoke the intellect, tug at our hearts, and bring the issue at hand to a public reckoning.31 Griffin documents how theorists are not in agreement over why satire surfaces, particularly when it comes to the question of whether a stable and comfortable society leaves the space open for mockery or whether it is instability and ambiguity that provide the opportunity to question social and political mores, shielded by laughter. There seems to be consensus that a little resistance kick-starts satire. Satire may be energized by the possibility of risk and the elevated moral position of speaking truth to power.32 But is the moral position of the satirist only the commitment to truth (as is true of a journalist) or is it based on any particular ideology? Most political satirists whom we see on late-night television are open about their ideological orientation, though most of them go to great lengths to create space for alternate voices (by inviting people whose political philosophy they might disagree with). For Griffin, however, “If satirists for the most part are not committed to a set of political principles . . . their work [cannot] be said to have had much effect on the world of practical politics, either to support tradition or to subvert it.”33 These political principles can be defined in terms of ideology such as liberalism, privacy concerns, or a stand against American empire, or in partisan terms such as supporting or opposing the Democratic or Republican parties and their respective candidates. In American media, political discussion and analysis have embraced the partisan position and contemporary satire follows the cue. A number of scholars push the idea that the victory of satire is more of a moral triumph than a real one. It establishes a separate language to rebuke the enemy. The success of satire should not be measured by the degree of persuasion but whether it disseminates a consciousness of moral superiority.34 I don’t agree with this outlook as it only generates warm feelings and mutual bonding, without any real analysis and understanding of concrete problems. For me, political satire has to have a humorous tone, along with a political message or principle, so that when we laugh we are aware of how we are being fooled and what is not working in our political order. The inconsistencies or duplicities may be expressed best with laughter but it cannot begin and end with laughter, without making a point. Whether satire evokes anger or laughter, it has to be based on an independent narrative that can disrupt the storyline and at least hint at the implicit theme, thereby opening up another avenue to make sense of the world. Philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer

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counted on satire to shatter our worldview by unsettling the logical order and reasonable expectations.35 Webber mentions the parody of Sacha Baron Cohen as the Libyan ruler Gaddafi in his movie The Dictator (2012), where he lists all the advantages of being a dictator, namely tax cuts for the rich, abysmal health care, rigged elections, unfair media, torture of foreign prisoners, wiretapping citizens, consolidation of wealth, and so forth.36 When the audience realizes that we can check all these categories for America, that is the thunderbolt Schopenhauer means. When we glance at literary satire to learn how writers envisioned their function and purpose, it seems that they concurred with the idea that effective satire should be unsettling. One of the most commonly read satires in literary history is Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels; there is overwhelming agreement regarding this text as one of the ultimate satires, and it is often taught as the archetype of the genre in literary studies. Swift, an Irish writer who was one of the most eminent satirists of his day, started a four-part pseudo-travelogue called Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World in 1726. Lemuel Gulliver, the narrator of this series, is a surgeon on a ship, and shipwrecks take him to the lands of Lilliput (with six-inch-tall people), Brobdingnag (with giants), Laputa and surrounding islands (where the purpose of the arts and sciences is lost), and the land of the Houyhnhnms (with superrational talking horses). Each of these voyages takes place in mythical locales where the rituals and rules ignite horror at first glance, but in the next instance we become aware of our own logical inconsistencies and dissemblances when it comes to our social and political standards. Gulliver’s Travels was widely understood as an anti-Whig37 satire with complex themes such as criticizing the existing form of government, questioning enlightened modernity, and asking onerous questions about the ethical make-up of human beings. While there is no dearth of analysis as to what makes Gulliver’s Travels an ideal satire, let me turn to another major voice who also had the ability to shatter the realities we take for granted, who could articulate horror through humor, and who possessed an uncanny power of prediction. George Orwell, analyzing Swift, summarizes the function of satire and the characteristics of a good satirist in these words: “Swift did not possess ordinary wisdom, but he did possess a terrible intensity of vision, capable of picking out a single hidden truth and then magnifying it and distorting it. The durability of Gulliver’s Travels goes to show that, if the force of belief is behind it, a worldview that only just passes the test of sanity is sufficient to produce a great work of art.”38 Orwell’s own Animal Farm is regarded as one of the most effective caricatures of a totalitarian system where the pattern of domination among different breeds of creatures is explored with both surgical precision and exultant humor. One characteristic that seems to stand out among these classic satires is that not only were they funny and rooted in strong political ideology, but they also

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did not allow the reader to distance himself from the perpetrators. In other words, we laugh while we read only to realize that we are guilty of similar crimes that are part of the plotline. A satire that is accepted as effective seems to work like a mirror. It may tell a mythical story but it contains a strong component of self-reflection. We cannot just laugh at or be scornful toward the events or characters; it is also true that our gaze has to return to ourselves, our societies, and our beliefs. In literary history, most of the standout satires that are overwhelmingly admired contain this mirror appeal, where the story brings one back to the present, exposing more than is being told in the story. With the focus on this mirror feature, I would argue that The Dolphin People by Torsten Krol is a recent example of a very effective satire. Set in the post-Second World War unsettled world, a family of four flees Germany to escape the Nazi trials to take refuge in Venezuela, but their plane is wrecked in the Amazon. The family is stranded with the Yayomi tribe who take them for dolphins manifesting in human form according to the prophesy they believe in. They adapt quickly, aided by the presence of the Jewish German anthropologist who on the one hand translates and helps them survive, but on the other hand is the very target of Nazi hatred. The esoteric rituals of the Yayomi tribe, their practice of roaming around naked, and their assorted myths all magnify the absurdity of our own civilization, particularly our racebased hatred, gender-based anxiety, and constant quest for domination. Eric, the narrator—the sixteen-year-old boy who finds love among the Yayomi and can decipher the extent of evil and cruelty in his uncle as much as his stepfather’s anti-Semitism and homophobia—ends up as the only survivor, leaving open the question whether Western civilization itself can survive after its repugnant expressions.39 It is not only its structure, language, and humor that make The Dolphin People a powerful read, but also its ability to hold the mirror to aspects of our own society only superficially different than the tribal drama, and to magnify the absent in a way that raises questions about our accepted premises. In that sense, Krol continues the tradition of Daniel Defoe and Swift while filling a wide gap in contemporary literature where we don’t often come across literary works that effectively challenge the mannerisms we are comfortable with. Krol’s earlier work Callisto (2007) blasts the basic premise of terrorism, featuring a slow-witted young man from Middle America who is labeled a terrorist and has to undergo “close questioning” and other scary tactics of the “war on terror,” which provides us with the opportunity to perceive terrorism from the point of view of one of the victims that the security-industrial complex relentlessly keeps producing.40 Entertainment might be at the heart of satire, but in the process there is always rebuke by way of exaggeration. The effective employment of absurdity and hyperbole is a matter of art. A true artist knows not only how

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to capture attention but also how to employ nuances to suggest the variant meanings of an event. If the art limits the meaning to itself and is unable to stir any other reaction detached from itself, then the art might be pleasant enough but its impact is short-lived. True satire evokes multiple inferences which should last after the laughter ends. At this point we should ask if the definition of satire that originated for the literary genre suffices when we talk about modern media. While humor remains the staple in satire, compared to the print media the digital realm thrives on viewership and instant feedback. Can our understanding of satire from the literary world be seamlessly translated and integrated when we step into the nonliterary medium? Justman distinguishes between literary and nonliterary satire, arguing that journalism and political argument invariably draw from the literary tradition, with satire often emerging as a cultural mechanism and a symbol of freedom of expression.41 Roman satire embodied biting censure that might not even be tolerated in the present culture. As journalism reached more people, satire lost its privileged status as the instrument of condemnation once the focus shifted from only the powerful to the day-to-day events of life. Justman blames the incorporation of civility as the reason why satire became tame in the nonliterary genres.42 American television producers started with an exaggerated definition of civility, and the bar for tolerance was set rather low, which kept most controversial issues like race, gender, or questioning the political foundation out of the living room. We are still in disagreement over what constitutes civility and whether satirists should even be concerned with it, as we have seen with the outrage over Michelle Wolf’s performance at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner where she bashed President Trump and his press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.43 While there can be an argument over the definition of civility,44 there is no doubt that even scathing political satire can be subject to political correctness and often demonstrates a partisan bias that shapes its subject and content. Sutherland makes the distinction between aesthetic satire and political satire, arguing that they differ in terms of the effects they create. Political satire is based on ideology and its purpose is to create a contrast with a given moral system. The great satires contrast specific situations with essential human values, and that is the reason their appeal lies beyond a specific culture and time.45 Granger argues that political satire is addressed to the people as a whole, as a community, but social satire is addressed to the personal aspects of individuals. Social satirists appeal to a particular audience while political satirists seek a larger audience.46 Reaching the national audience also has a very different meaning when we consider how the media today not only caters to a national viewership but in many instances a global audience. While satire in literature expects the reader to understand its context, when performed in the media the satirist assumes some responsibility for providing

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enough of a backstory that the satire becomes evocative and pertinent. By actively setting the stage for satire, the satirist often enjoys more narrative power compared to his or her literary predecessor. Satire in the literary form is more of an instrument in the hands of the reader, to interpret and explore meaning, and to understand the relevant social and political argument. But satire on late-night television is more of an instrument for the performer, to play it out and give meaning to it, and to interpret and connect it to reality. The role of the audience becomes minimal and conforms to the common understanding of the argument being advanced. A complex text such as Gulliver’s Travels can be interpreted in many different ways by different readers and scholars, but a Maher or Stewart or Colbert punch line can only be repeated for further laughs among friends and peers, seldom generating divergent meanings. The inherent connection between political commentary and satire seems to be strong across time and cultures. In Britain, Donald explains that wars have instigated graphic social and political satire. The polemics generated by the seventeenth-century wars evolved into political satire in the writings of Swift, John Gay, and Henry Fielding.47 In the eighteenth century, we find famous poets, such as Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron, engaging in satire in Britain. Shelley lampooned princes and queens in Peter Bell the Third (1839) and Swellfoot the Tyrant (1820), while Byron established Don Juan (1824) who mercilessly mocked the state and statesmen. These two literary giants did not limit their work to one genre; rather, they chose the mode that best fit their message.48 Satire emerged as a primary weapon against unpopular public figures when the periodic press, newspapers, and pamphlets became the mode of reaching the public. It is also interesting to note that political conditions were not the only factor that spurred the growth of graphic satire, but also the emergence of national schools in visual arts, which allowed English artists to use their skills to provide caricatures which complemented the moral allegories.49 One can also discern parallels between the evolution of satire and the state of technological advancement at different periods in time. One of the key questions that needs to be addressed is whether the role of satire and expectations from satire changed once satire started inhabiting contemporary media and appeared in televisual form after transitioning from its literary origin. To look for answers we have to understand how satire is produced in the media, whom it targets, and what goals it subscribes to, as well as to appraise political satire across different cultures and the role of political culture in U.S. history. If different kinds of politics generate different kinds of satire, then we need to take a look at oppressive regimes and examine what kind of satire finds it possible to flourish even when the state is humorless and determined to monitor all expressions of joy by the people. One useful comparison would

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be to look at the Soviet Union, where any jokes against the government were tantamount to treason. The Russian anekdoty50 or jokes come with the connotation of breaking taboos, hence political anekdoty have always been credited with heroism, by having put up a symbolic challenge to Soviet ideology.51 Clandestine exchanges among Soviet citizens regarding the government produced immense psychological and moral pleasure and were often called “tiny revolutions.” The significance of such jokes needs no further emphasis in the face of the claim that about two hundred thousand people served time in the Soviet gulag for telling jokes in the Stalin era. Although this number is difficult to verify, it is true that article fifty-eight in the Stalinist penal code was about oral or written reproduction of anekdoty which were criminalized as anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda.52 While short comic narratives and dialogues or even televised humor were allowed in the post-Stalin era, anekdoty were vehemently prohibited. Pithy phrases that could easily be remembered and shared between friends and strangers in various private and public settings made the jokes popular, portable, and accessible to a variety of people whose paths only occasionally crossed with each other. Their short and rhythmic format made them easy to blend into conversation in places of work, transport, or leisure. As popular oral satire, they refused to reconcile with official Soviet positions. The incongruities and ironies of Soviet life were not only seamlessly captured in the anekdoty but it was also possible to reproduce them outside the mass media. The mode itself was a threat to the authorities as it defied the cultural production of the state.53 It seems that it was the oral tradition that played a significant role in the political transition and character of Russian anti-government satire. The impact of anekdoty also has to be examined in the broader context of mass urbanization that took place from the mid-eighteenth to the early nineteenth century when migration from rural to urban areas allowed the commingling of popular cultures, literacy rates grew exponentially, and the oral anekdoty overpowered the folktale tradition. While folk anekdoty had been about fictional stereotypical characters, political anekdoty depicted real people—monarchs, politicians, writers, and artists—while using the structures and motifs of traditional folk narrative.54 These examples from a totalitarian culture reinforce the role of satire in finding that slippery space between political domination and cultural fluidity where humor can be used to question and delegitimize power. Satire in authoritarian societies always takes place at the periphery as there is no space left for authentic criticism within the political formation. The appeal of this kind of satire was not only the humor, but also to be part of the process of opposing the strongholds of power. If we pursue the role of political humor seriously, at some point we are bound to delve into humor during the Holocaust, which is often credited with

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sustaining the victims by providing them with the moral upper hand and an escape from the reality of the horror they were steeped in. Anti-Nazi humor worked like therapy, allowing as it did a form of resistance, a bond between the hapless victims, an outlet to purge their fears. It was one of the only tools available to the oppressed for their emotional and even spiritual salvation.55 The discussion of anti-Nazi humor feels relevant in an environment where our present government continually discredits the media by labeling it “fake news.” At a number of rallies, Trump supporters have held up the sign “Lügenpresse,” meaning lying press, a term used by Hitler to challenge his detractors. The accusation that the media is anti-Trump is being hurled at American journalists by the president himself.56 This new trend in American politics—where the presidency and journalists are viewed as inhabiting opposite camps, not holding each other accountable for the greater purpose of providing the public with the truth about statecraft and policy—has provided more impetus to the already burgeoning mediascape of political satire. One of the first dissents against the Nazi government was launched through an exhibition of anti-Nazi cartoons in 1934, which took place in Prague. Many Czech cartoonists and German artists, those who were exiled from their homeland and had suffered imprisonment and other debilities, displayed work bringing out the ruthless treatment of Jews under Hitler’s regime. Unsurprisingly, Hitler was rattled and forced the Czech government to prohibit such exhibitions and the Czech government agreed to do so. As a result, by 1938 the Czech press itself faced preventive censorship. In occupied Czechoslovakia, the anti-Nazi jokes again became popular when the occupation became harsher.57 The Nazi regime enacted laws designating jokes as treachery and prosecuted those who dared to show their discontent. The secret police collected and filed political jokes, as witnessed by a newspaper editor who was taken to the Gestapo headquarters for the crime of publishing political jokes in Germany in 1938.58 Satirists like Kurt Tucholsky, who dared to chastise the German government and its Nazi schemes, paid a high price for their nonconformity. Tucholsky was a Jewish writer and satirist who was a staunch critic of his government and who actually predicted many of its shameful strategies such as the yellow armband for Jews and even the takeover of Austria and Poland. In one of his famous works, Mr. Wendriner under the Dictatorship (Herr Wendriner steht unter der Diktatur), the central character is a middle-class Jewish businessman going through his daily life under National Socialism. Goebbels himself labeled Tucholsky’s writing as humorless and soulless and gave orders first to ban and then to burn his books. His German citizenship was revoked and he had to escape to Sweden, even though he had converted to Protestantism. Tucholsky committed suicide in 1935, choosing to end his fight with the Reich.59

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Humor has a different role in dictatorial versus democratic states; it takes much greater courage to assail the government in a tyranny, and often political jokes remain the only acts of defiance that are possible in such circumstances.60 Graphic artists and cartoonists, especially those who were able to emigrate to safer parts of Europe and America, contributed to mounting a campaign against Hitler through their work, which needed no translation.61 Lipman has painstakingly documented the humor that was prevalent among the Jewish people during the Holocaust. He quotes Emil Frachenheim, an Auschwitz survivor, who claims that they “kept their morale through humor.”62 Wit did not stop the Nazi bullets, but humor constituted a moral victory of sorts. The Nazis fir`ed the last shot, but the victims had the last word, as one woman, waiting in the gallows, responded to the ridicule heaped upon them by claiming, “Today you laugh, tomorrow you will be laughed at.”63 While I don’t expect satire to inherently result in some form of political engagement, at the very least it should, along with a dose of humor, provide fodder for contemplation. It should not only shine the spotlight on the wrong and the absurd, but also show us how and where we stand in the process, and then leave it to us whether we want to get out of the situation or not. If satire only provides a secure distance from which to jeer, and only lets us experience the warm feeling of superiority in relation to those we are laughing at, then it amounts to no more than a source of entertainment. Effective satire is like a clear mirror: we can certainly laugh at people or situations crying out for such treatment, but we are also able to discern the larger picture of why and how such absurdities are produced, and our own roles in accepting them. Whether or not it is informed by any particular ideology, satire should at least be a transparent surface, showing the blameworthy in others and in ourselves, and forcing us to confront the reality. Satire should not just be a safe space to feel good about ourselves; it should lead us to an anxious state of mind with new insights and revelations. I have been investigating all along precisely how political satire on late-night television measures against this definition. Do satirists editorialize about the government in a way that we become used to excesses and abuses of power as part of our social compact? Do satirists focus only on external flaws or do they evoke an inward gaze that demands rethinking the political architecture that produces persistent failings? How does personalization of failures shift our gaze from systemic deficiencies to opprobrium directed against personalities from whom we can remove ourselves? When we look at our own rich history of satire, with the exception of literary satire we find only a thin strand focused on relief or release, because America has experienced very rare phases of authoritarianism. Literature may well be the platform best suited to shine a light on the subtle, to discern the hidden, and to dramatize a methodical exposition. The appeal of cartoons,

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stand-up comedy, and skits on the television screen has been to draw out a particular moment rather than to provoke prolonged reflection. Although artists performing in front of live audiences, like those drawing cartoons, do employ relief or release to connect with the gallery, the faster pace of television demands immediate gratification rather than introspection. The relief or release aspect in such a format when it does occur is noteworthy, partly when it is expressed through the voices of minorities, from African Americans to Hispanics to Muslims, who usually witness and experience the worst perversions of state power. On the other hand, the inherent problem with superiority and incongruity is that attention becomes diverted to personalities, as distancing ourselves from the transgressor is made easier. Instead of questioning what produces abhorrent behavior which should be scorned until it ceases, we superficially associate such behavior with a protagonist as indicative of their political career (President Bush as inefficient) or in extreme circumstances as reflective of their personality (Vice President Cheney as warmonger), as we move on to the next aberrant issue without much contemplation. This is the act of normalizing, where we accept the paradigm but highlight its lapses, which in turn strengthens our belief in the soundness of the paradigm. In the next section, when we review the history of political cartoons in newspapers and magazines, we will see the attacks on both political personalities and the political system, which served a normalizing as well as a questioning function. We have had satirists like Charlie Chaplin who used their art to masterfully question everything from dictators to economic systems,64 whereas satire on television, even when it promulgates ferocious attack, usually ends up normalizing because it fails to challenge the commonly accepted narrative. Satirists on television may challenge particular falsehoods and expose individual hypocrisies, but their skills generally produce bitter laughter and helpless anger, seldom leading to sweeping analysis of the broader situation consistently producing the same political fallout. POLITICAL SATIRE IN CARTOONS The history of satire in the United States, especially in the print form, is largely political. The American Revolution, or the political history leading to the Revolution, serves as a good starting point to explore the evolution of satire in America. American political satire may have started in a literary form, but flourished in newspapers in the form of cartoons. Looking at satire in this particular form—which is neither literary nor performative, but shares some inclinations with both the erudite genre and the parodies that have recently been appearing in the multiple frames of the digital screen—helps

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us come to a better understanding of satire today. Although cartoons never went out of fashion, I only discuss cartoons before the advent of television when they played a major role in the formation of heterodox opinion through print journalism, the main media hosting political discourse. Eventually, television swept away or sidelined many mediums of communication such as newspapers, its sophisticated technology overshadowing cartoons as the most accessible satiric form. Cartoons in America started out as more of a conventional mode of political contention, with cartoonists revered as political adjudicators and their expansive art form occupying a large swath of political discourse. If we look at cartoons that might be considered canonical, we can discern two clear trends: first, this art form mocked political personalities with a brutal sting from the very beginning; and second, it continuously took swings at the larger system—that is, Uncle Sam—to mount an ideological reproach that went beyond personalities and parties. The style and content of cartoons were substantially impacted by technological change. The availability of a cheaper printing process resulted in the accessibility of the common people to cartoons appearing regularly in newspapers and magazines. The style of depiction and the target of derision altered with the new technology and reached more readers, but being part of the mainstream robbed cartoonists of their esteemed status in political dialogue. In the end, television further eclipsed the significance of prominent editorial cartoonists such as Herblock, Garry Trudeau, or Pat Oliphant. However, the role cartoonists play in framing political discourse may not be trivial as is suggested by the recent firing of Rob Rogers,65 the editorial cartoonist of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, for drawing anti-Trump cartoons— especially his depiction of children fleeing from Trump’s menacing grasp at the border, in light of the repulsive policy of separating children from their parents and putting them in makeshift prisons.66 My broader argument is about the ongoing trend of becoming mainstream and losing the edge, a phenomenon which occurred on television as well. Political satire gained a large new audience in another mass medium, and yet was unable to advance serious challenges to the prevalent political philosophy, becoming trapped in the mainstream worldview (which I discussed in the previous chapter). The journey into the evolution of cartoons follows the same pattern, yet also reveals something about the seriousness of the challenge, which was embraced by the stand-up comedians. I suggest that on American television politics and entertainment merged in such a way that satire became personalized and pseudo-political, providing avenues for contempt that was externalized rather than internalized as a form of selfevaluation. After a brief analysis of cartoons, I will describe the current state of political satire and the postmodern fusion of politics and entertainment that has shaped this particular drift.

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In pre-Revolutionary America, periodic essays and letters to the press were the two most popular prose forms available to satirists.67 Political satire in the American colonies was published in almanacs, pamphlets, and newspapers, occurring in the form of lampoons, parodies, and satiric ballads using allegory and symbolism to convey the message. Granger notes that in spite of the lack of availability of a suitable medium, the political turmoil in the Revolutionary era seems to have encouraged more diversity and experimentation in satire than in England during the same period.68 The beginnings of a native school of American graphic satire can be traced back to the work of Paul Revere, who was not only a rebel but also an engraver and a silversmith who used his skills to publish literature supporting the American cause and distribute it in the colonies. The British king was caricatured as a despot or a skinflint or farmer George. A 1776 cartoon showed a goose that laid the golden egg, depicting America, which was about to be slaughtered.69 Holliday identifies Nathaniel Ward as America’s first satirist, and his book, The Simple Cobbler of Aggawam in America (1647), as the foremost publication in American humor. The central character, the simple cobbler, was sarcastic toward social practices; in particular, the fashion choices of the ladies were the aim of his bitter humor, and his work therefore belonged to the genre of social satire, not political satire.70 In the same vein, Benjamin Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanack provided astute criticism of social mores for twenty-five years, starting from 1732, and resulted in tremendous financial success and ever-expanding readership.71 Franklin’s Poor Richard is the only character in the narrative who undergoes a wild transformation, starting as a fool in the earliest Almanac versions and evolving into a revered wise man.72 The subsequent satirical works of Franklin, An Edict by the King of Prussia (1773) and The Sale of the Hessians: From the Count de Schaumburg to the Baron Hohendorf (1777), are political and bitter in nature.73 The employment of the harsh language of satire in the political arena did not go unchallenged. We must go back to 1734 to look at the first lawsuit to restrict the power of satire, namely the famous libel lawsuit against Zenger, to understand the importance of satire in political discourse. In the early days of the colonies, political attack relying on satire was commonplace, following the British tradition of literary writers like Swift, Gay, and Alexander Pope. It was Governor William Cosby of New York who accused John Peter Zenger, the publisher of New York Weekly Journal, for publishing what he termed seditious libel. The Zenger trial emerged as an important milestone testing the limits of the freedom of the press as well as the limits of tolerance and civility in Anglo-American society. The trial itself became a sort of performance when the defending lawyer borrowed from the tone and tenor of satire to interrogate witnesses in order to demonstrate how farcical the whole

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trial was. It was a great example of “Show, don’t tell,” a sacred rule of literary writing. Just as Zenger allowed space in his pages to berate politicians, the trial opened up another space to ridicule those who could not deal with honest assessments. The governor was thoroughly harassed a second time with jeers, only this time for having a thin skin and no sense of humor. More than the issue that was being tried, the Zenger trial is remembered for the spectacle it created. That trial firmly established satire at the center of political discourse.74 The 1735 Zenger case led to a freer press, and by 1765 the American press utilized that freedom to unanimously oppose the Stamp Act.75 A substantial portion of the literature of the American Revolution, while the event was unfolding, was written as satire. The newspapers in the colonies satirized each event leading to the Revolution. The First Book of the American Chronicles of the Times, issued in 1774 and 1775, published sarcastic sketches on tea.76 As the war deepened, so did the sarcasm and satire against the British: In seventeen hundred and seventy-seven General Burgoyne set out for Heaven; But as the Yankees would rebel, He missed his route, and went to Hell!77

On the other side, Tom Paine, along with the American generals, was the target of the loyalists’ attack: In pity tell by what exalted name Thou would’st be damned to an eternal fame; Shall Common Sense, or Comus greet thine ear, A piddling poet, or puffed pamphleteer!

And By daily slanders earn thy daily food. Exalt the wicked, and depress the good; And having spent a lengthy life in EVIL, Return again unto thy parent DEVIL!78

After the Revolution, each and every instance of new political turmoil— such as the struggle over the ratification of the Constitution, bitterly fought out among the states, or the removal of the national capital from New York to Philadelphia—triggered copious amounts of cartoons.79 Benjamin Franklin’s “Join, or Die,” published in 1754, is credited for being the first political cartoon in America, portraying the thirteen states as thirteen divided parts of a snake which were doomed to perish unless they came together.80 Image 2.1 is another early example of satire, drawn by the famous Amos Doolittle just

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before the ratification of the Constitution, titled, “The looking glass for 1787: A house divided against itself cannot stand.” The Revolution established the perfect backdrop for fusing political passion with artistic zeal. One of the first examples of satire emerged in the form of a pamphlet in 1754, mocking the alcohol excise tax as a monster of monsters.81 After the Revolution, different types of humor continued to remain in circulation in newspaper articles and poems for educated readers, as well as in the more accessible form of songs and plays. Satire evolved as a cherished outlet to nurture the revolutionary spirit of free expression in the early years of the republic.82 Even George Washington, who was widely revered, was not spared criticism of his kingly habits by the press. Tower discusses how the clashes between the Federalists and the anti-Federalists provided perfect prospects for caricature. John Adams was called a madman by the Federalists, and they further accused the Jeffersonian Republicans of establishing a military dictatorship. The Republicans, in retaliation, called the Federalists monarchists who were loyal to the English.83 The tendency of political criticism that first surfaced during the uprising against the British found new energy and acceptance as an important tool to hold politicians accountable in the newly independent country.

Image 2.1  The Looking Glass for 1787. Doolittle, Amos, “The Looking Glass for 1787: A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand, Mat. chap 13 verse 26,” 1787, engraving, New Haven, Connecticut. Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2008661778/.

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Some of the political issues that we still fight over have long roots in history. The Republican legislature in Massachusetts in 1812 divided the state into new voting districts which looked like a salamander. Cartoonist Elkanah Tisdale targeted Republican governor Eldridge Gerry by drawing a map of the voting districts as an animal-like figure with wings and claws and calling it “The GerryMander” (Image 2.2). This cartoon was credited with swaying voters to cast their votes against the governor. Regardless of its immediate impact, this cartoon, first published in the Boston Gazette in March of 1812, is still used as one of the best depictions of gerrymandering. Both the name and practice of gerrymandering have lived on and have been perfected as a major technique to draw a district gathering supportive voters regardless of geographic disharmony.84 The War of 1812 put cartoons on the political landscape squarely, with the rise of eminent cartoonists such as William Charles, James Akin, Amos

Image 2.2  Gerrymandering. Tisdale, Elkinah, “The Gerry-Mander,” the Boston Centinel, 1812, cartoon, Wikimedia Commons, October 29, 2016. https://commons.wikimedia. org/w/index.php?title=File:The_Gerry-Mander_Edit.png&oldid=211180878.

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Doolittle, Alexander Anderson, and the aforementioned Tisdale. The typical cartoon was sketched in ink, often rooted in some allegory, and conveyed its message in folksy tones accessible to the masses of readers.85 Image 2.3 is one such example, “Columbia Teaching John Bull His New Lesson,” which highlights a key issue of the day, namely, the relationship between the British, French, and Americans during the War of 1812. The significance of these cartoons for political engagement and their contribution toward developing a distinct political culture cannot be underestimated. One of Amos Doolittle’s cartoon figures evolved into Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam’s predecessor Brother Jonathan86 was a sturdy fisherman or farmer, simple but shrewd. The latter caricature of Uncle Sam has withstood the challenge of time and still represents the American nation. As Tower informs us about the origins of the name and character of Uncle Sam, “Most agree that it stems from the initials ‘U.S.’ stamped on the containers of government supplies by Samuel Wilson of Troy, New York, who was locally known as ‘Uncle Sam.’”87 The first election cartoon in the United States was created by David Claypoole Johnson, and was produced for the 1824 election, a landmark moment which further connected elections with the common man. Before 1830, cartoons were laborintensive and expensive, because they had to be engraved, or etched on materials

Image 2.3  Columbia Teaching John Bull His New Lesson. Kennedy, Samuel and William Charles, “Columbia Teaching John Bull His New Lesson,” 1813, cartoon, Philadelphia. Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2002708984/.

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such as steel, copper, or wood. Because of the investment of time and skill, cartoons were mainly regarded as art. But with the lithographic process graphic reproduction emerged as an easy and inexpensive technique, and portraits, cartoons, and social caricatures all became commonplace. By 1841, cartoons were being featured in Punch and its weaker replicas (Punchinello, American Punch, Southern Punch), along with a number of other humor magazines.88 Each technological innovation led to greater readership and appreciation for the art of satire. Image 2.4 is a print featuring Whig candidate Zachary Taylor, “Old Zach Taylor Is the Man!” getting support from Uncle Sam.

Image 2.4  Old Zack Taylor Is the Man! Horton, Tudor, “Old Zack Taylor Is the Man!”, 1848, wood engraving with letterpress on wove paper, 25.4 x 18.8 cm., T. Horton & Co., New York. Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2008661479/.

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The availability of new technology that cut down costs along with the proliferation of many controversial issues spurred political as well social commentary through these comic strips. Caricaturing politicians as animals was quite popular, with President Van Buren being portrayed as an opossum (SNL has recently been portraying Attorney General Jeff Sessions as a family member of the opossum). Women’s suffrage became one of the targets of harsh sneering, which was reflected in the covers of Punch magazine. Here is a caricature of British activist Frances “Fanny” Wright, who supported women’s suffrage and opposed slavery. In Image 2.5 she is being taunted as a “gabbler” after her successful lectures in America in 1829. Dyer sheds light on transitions in literary satire across the Atlantic, and the impact politics had in rejuvenating satire. According to him, British satire was fired up by the Reform Act of 1832 along with the lasting impact of the French Revolution. The Romantic period in literature was challenged as a whole through the mode of satire. Popular discontent was articulated by means of humor, illustration, and verse, so that satire had a central and common currency in the sociopolitical sphere. The eventual decline of satire in

Image 2.5  A Downright Gabbler. Akin, James, “A Downright Gabbler, or a Goose That Deserves to be Hissed,” 1829, hand-colored lithograph, 20 x 19.9 cm., Philadelphia. Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2002708975/.

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Britain paralleled a transition that took place in the literary world, when the publishing industry started prioritizing prose over poetry.89 Satire was slowly being absorbed into the novel, while verse, the traditional mode of satire, became less attractive to writers and publishers. Therefore, market considerations and other factors forced satire to find other homes, often to form an uneasy alliance with comedy.90 What stands out from this analysis is how literary satire was accessible to a wide spectrum of the audience since they were familiar with popular forms of ridicule.91 The alliance of chaotic political events with satire, as well as that of satire with the available media, has always been a factor and has shaped the role of satire as a political instrument. Slavery, another pertinent issue of the day, elicited clever caricatures both supporting and opposing it, pointing toward pressing questions that needed to be answered, as was true with the issue of women’s suffrage. One such example from antebellum America is Image 2.6, “Congressional Scales: A True Balance,” which shows President Zachary Taylor’s attempts to balance Southern and Northern interests on the question of slavery in 1850. These cartoons serve today not only as historical markers of political opinion, but also as comparison points about how political personalities have been ridiculed over the years. One of the most colorful and controversial eras in American politics was ushered in with the Jackson presidency (the current Trump presidency has been compared to that regime) and the cartoonists exploited that opportunity to the maximum (mirroring the prolific late-night satire on TV). Jackson was rather different from his predecessors (again an interesting synchronicity with our current president), lacking social prestige or a political career to boast of. He eloped with a married woman, and his marriage was labeled a bigamy. Rachel Donelson was under the impression that her husband had divorced her when she and Andrew Jackson got married, but the marriage was rendered illegal as she was not officially divorced. The president had to remarry her three years later after her first marriage was legally dissolved. She died just days after his election, never serving as the First Lady. Much like Trump, Jackson had charisma that appealed to the masses. Scandal after scandal—involving corruption or issues of federal versus state power or the powers of the federal bank—clouded the Jackson presidency, leading to the exploitation of all of these topics for excellent cartoons. On the one hand, Jackson was depicted as a dictator and a tyrant, bent on destroying the nation, but on the other hand, he was presented as a defender of the common man rising up against privileges.92 The most famous cartoon of the Jacksonian era was the lampoon of the Democratic Party employing the symbol of a donkey. While the cartoonists intended the “jackass” symbol to be a protest against Jackson, he took pride in his mule-like dedication and stubbornness, thus appropriating his most severe taunt and propping it up like a badge of honor.93 He may have been the first but he was certainly not the last president to use the

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Image 2.6  Congressional Scales. Currier, N., “Congressional Scales. A True Balance,” 1850, lithograph, 41.9 x 30.4 cm., Currier & Ives, New York. Library of Congress, https:// www.loc.gov/item/90716208/.

barbs aimed at him to his own best advantage. The analogies between the two scandal-prone presidencies (Jackson and Trump), their dictatorial tendencies, their scornful attitude toward minorities, and the way these two presidents

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have been depicted by cartoonists and satirists, all seem to be unfolding along parallel patterns. An example of a clever and cruel cartoon of the Jacksonian era is Image 2.7, “King Andrew the First,” critiquing the President’s power grab and authoritarian urges. The city of New York with its reputation for corruption was also a source of inspiration for cartoonists. Actually, the role of cartoonists in challenging the leadership of Tammany Hall is an important milestone in the latent power of cartoonists. Thomas Nast has been hailed as one of the cartoonists who applied his considerable skills toward political and ideological commitment. His most courageous work was arguably against the mighty “Boss” Tweed and his corrupt

Image 2.7  King Andrew the First. Unknown, “King Andrew the First,” 1833, lithograph on wove paper, 31.7 x 21.4 cm., New York. Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/ item/2008661753/.

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Tweed Ring, who were running New York City at the time. Nast started a campaign in Harper’s Weekly in the form of unflattering and searing cartoons exposing the level of corruption and power exercised by William M. Tweed. Although Nast was threatened and also offered huge sums to stop his cartoons, he carried on with his impressive political cartoons until the Tweed Ring was ousted by voters who had been provoked by his audacity.94 Nast has been credited with bringing down the political boss with some fifty cartoons in all, a feat that is difficult to achieve in any era using any medium. Here is one typical cartoon portraying “The Real Boss of Tammany Hall” (Image 2.8). By the late nineteenth century, Nast had become famous for his battlefield illustrations during the Civil War. President Lincoln was an avid fan of Nast and Harper’s Weekly, where his art appeared regularly, crediting him with being a recruiter for the Union’s cause. Nast continued to fight for the union after the assassination of Lincoln by drawing attention to the failures of Reconstruction, and portraying President Andrew Johnson as a weak and spiteful character who looked the other way when Southerners were oppressing African Americans.95 Lincoln obviously was another controversial

Image 2.8  The Boss of the Ring. Currier & Ives, “The Boss of the Ring,” 1869, lithograph, New York. Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/90712009/.

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personality, inspiring many of the cartoons with the issue of slavery at the center. There is no question that after Jackson the next big mark of the cartoonists was Lincoln himself. Lincoln’s physical appearance was derided as that of a “baboon” and a “political rail splitter,” and these caricatures refused to fade from mainstream culture even after the Civil War and Lincoln’s assassination. Lincoln resurfaced as an American tragic hero much later in history and only then did it become insensitive to use the language of irony and satire against such a historic character.96 Cartoons not only flourish during times of crisis or great controversy, but also set the parameters of tolerance in terms of what is allowed to be caricatured. Images 2.9 and 2.10 represent two cartoons on Lincoln: “Running the ‘Machine’” and “‘The Nigger’ in the Woodpile.” After the Civil War, one of the most important sources of political cartoons was the magazine Puck (1871–1918). It became a national sensation for its colorful cartoons and its searing irony that seemed to spare no one. While the powerful were wary of becoming its target, Puck quickly rose in popularity and was considered one of the most influential magazines in America. Before

Image 2.9  Running the “Machine.” Cameron, John, “Running the ‘Machine,’” 1864, lithograph, 27 x 35 cm., Currier & Ives, New York. Library of Congress, https://www.loc. gov/item/2003689257/.

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Image 2.10  “The Nigger” in the Woodpile. Louis Maurer, “‘The Nigger’ in the Woodpile,” 1860, lithograph, 26 x 38 cm., Currier & Ives, New York. Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2003674571/.

Puck, magazines rarely printed color pictures, which were expensive and time-consuming. Puck was the first magazine which printed its front covers in multicolor and initiated a vibrant comic section that inspired other American newspapers and magazines.97 Puck also claimed the mantle of rationality and secularism, hence religion invariably became its target. The Roman Catholic Church along with the Pope suffered greatly from the ire and mirth of Puck. The magazine proclaimed that it was nonpartisan and had a moral commitment only toward American constitutional ideals. Indeed, it spared no one and kept its focus on machine politicians all throughout its existence. The peak performance of the weekly Puck occurred during the Gilded Age, when many controversial topics like the gap between the rich and the poor became magnified and politicized.98 These magazines also housed anti-imperial political messages through cartoons, as depicted in the examples represented by Images 2.11 and 2.12. With the advent of the presidential election of 1884, Puck established a series of twenty-one cartoons called The Tattooed Man, depicting the offenses of Republican candidate James Blaine. Puck favored Grover Cleveland who

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Image 2.11  Puck Cover of McKinley: Declined with Thanks. Pughe, John S., “Declined with Thanks,” Sept. 5, 1900, chromolithograph, Puck v. 48, no. 1226, centerfold, J. Ottmann Lithographing Co., New York. Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/ppmsca.25453/.

was running against Blaine. That was the first U.S. election where political cartoons played a major role. Already a narrow election, these cartoons influenced voters and helped Cleveland win the presidency. Regardless of the extent to which these cartoons impacted the presidential election results, satire asserted its significance in American political discourse throughout the 1884 political campaign.99 Once in office, however, President Cleveland was ridiculed in Puck over his illegitimate child. From the end of the Civil War to the end of the nineteenth century, cartoonists thrived on pointing out the conflicts, hypocrisies, and ambiguities defining the polity. Cartoonists became fearless, graphic, and more influential than ever, as they operated in the questioning mode, constantly drawing attention to the imperial pursuits of the nation. James L. Lord noted at the time that the cartoonists of Puck “shot folly as it flew, punctured shams and dealt with politics and other matters of serious import fearlessly, seriously, and, on the whole, truthfully.” Humor and parody were not contained to politics, but were utilized to focus on social issues as well. Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) is one of the most powerful examples of social satire. Writing retrospectively in the 1880s about the antebellum generation, Twain challenged the myth of the happy Southern society, which was in fact built on slave labor.100 One wonders to what extent his role of being a performer,

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Image 2.12  Puck Cover of Uncle Sam: No Limit. Glackens, Louis M., “No Limit,” Sept. 21, 1909, photomechanical print, Puck v. 66, no. 1699, cover, Keppler & Schwarzmann, New York. Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2011647506/.

a stand-up comedian in today’s vernacular, impacted his writing. One of the most humorous writers of all time, Twain frequently expressed his political ideology openly, such as when he spoke out vehemently against

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Image 2.13  Judge Cover: Another Voice for Cleveland. Beard, Frank, “Another Voice for Cleveland,” September 27, 1884, chromolithograph, Judge, v. 6, no. 154, cover, Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/95522869/.

the Spanish-American War; on other occasions, his stature and writing style allowed him to scathingly appraise social and political ills. Twain remains a voice that never hesitated to speak truth to power and never lost his wit in the most serious of situations.

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History tells us that the most acute fault-finding has flourished during national disasters such as the Civil War or the chaos of the Jacksonian period, while the objectivity and perspective of the cartoonists have shrunk during times of war with external enemies. For example, Ambrose Bierce rose to prominence as a political satirist after the Civil War. He fought in the Civil War himself on the side of the Union. He did not shy away from criticizing the fundamentals of the American political and social system, including the efficacy of democracy, universal suffrage, and the legal system. The ideal form of the political system, for him, was self-government. While there can be many criticisms of his tearing down the system without providing an alternate vision, the fact that he was questioning even the juror system was a healthy sign that everything could be questioned and ridiculed. It should also be noted that Ambrose’s take on the death penalty was rather callous and problematic.101 By the end of the nineteenth century, satire was firmly established in popular and political culture. Entire magazines dedicated sections to social and political satire catering to public demand. Political humor became part of journalism and the wider culture, as more and more people understood and appreciated its role in political reckoning. Technological advancements such as cheaper printing mechanisms also influenced the plethora of cartoons in the growing number of magazines.102 Along with the growth and accessibility of print culture, a new set of magazines emerged, more rigidly shaped by and in turn shaping consumer culture. Magazines like Puck, Life, and Judge started with a strong political bent, but were soon competing with newer magazines like Vanity Fair and Harper’s Bazaar which were not too politically oriented, and as a result the rivalry to get more readers dampened the quick-wittedness and dogmatic focus of the political periodicals.103 Political cartoons again dominated the public mind once the United States was involved in a major war, but the impact on satire during foreign war tends to be quite different. In 1917, breaking away from the tradition of criticizing the government, cartoons started imparting patriotic messages. The antiwar cartoons almost served as mouthpieces of the government as these mainly dehumanized the enemy. Uncle Sam was drawn in a famous poster with a finger pointing at the viewer and saying, “I want you,” in order to motivate people to enlist; this is an example of the nationalistic fervor that seeped into the world of the artists without much irony.104 Although cartoons targeting the enemy flourished at that time, questioning America’s social ills along with its new imperial undertakings was also prevalent in cartoon strips. With the focus on the external enemy, the tone and tenor of the cartoonists displayed a departure from the previous era, as Prohibition and female suffrage, encapsulated in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth amendments to the Constitution respectively, provoked much reproach and second-guessing clothed in pungent humor. Prohibition was satirized

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in the form of Mr. Dry, an unflattering representation of the policy itself.105 Theodore Roosevelt’s foreign endeavors and domestic policies were both supported and opposed vehemently, providing ample material for cartoons, as represented by Images 2.14 and 2.15.106 The toy, Teddy Bear, is actually based on a cartoon drawn by Clifford Berryman for The Washington Post.107 Along with the shift in direction toward more soul-searching as well as a newly outward gaze, technology played a huge role in changing the structure and status of political cartoons in the American vista. The new technologies available for printing and publication in the early twentieth century made it very cheap and easy for newspapers to publish cartoons, and soon black-andwhite cartoons became regular features in newspapers rather than the colored political cartoons of the magazines. The new trend was to have shorter and less provocative cartoons in daily newspapers. The cartoons appearing in newspapers did so daily and therefore had less depth and elaboration, and often were not even overtly political. Cartoonists who were used to the pace of periodicals often failed to deliver according to the rigid new schedule and were obliterated by a new generation of cartoonists.108 Another underlying reason for the collapse of cartoonists as major political voices was that magazines were often reluctant to support eminent cartoonists even when they expanded readership and fame for the magazine through their art. Editorial cartoonists tended to become so famous and powerful that political enemies took a stand against both the cartoonist and the magazine. When magazines and cartoonists came to be regarded as partisans, they had to combat powerful opposition. The animosity of politicians against cartoonists and their publishers made it difficult to sustain contentious cartoons in magazines.109 In other words, the very success of cartoonists in combating political corruption, or at least exposing it, led to their downfall. While technology elevated the status of cartoonists to powerful political mediators, it was their mainstream positioning which made them targets for the powerful. Utilizing available technology to demand more from the cartoonists, establishment newspaper owners curtailed their power and political influence. The New Yorker came onto the scene in 1925, filling the vacuum Puck, Judge, and Life had left, in an era when Depression, recovery, and the Second World War were to be the running topics for years to follow. Along with the president and other political leaders, the nation itself was under the spotlight over rampant unemployment amid the economic downturn.110 Rollin Kirby drew a devastating cartoon for New York World holding President Hoover​ accountable by showing that there were two chickens in every garage, and not two cars in every garage and two chickens in every pot as promised by Hoover.111 Most cartoonists were critical of the New Deal, and as an extension hostile to Franklin Roosevelt too. This hostility, however, did not become translated into malice, as we note that the physical handicap of the president was never the target of the cartoonists.112

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Image 2.14  Puck Cover: Another Shotgun Wedding, with Neither Party Willing. Taylor, Charles Jay, “Another Shotgun Wedding, with Neither Party Willing,” December 1, 1897, chromolithograph, Puck, v. 42, no. 1082, cover, Keppler & Schwarzmann, New York. Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2012647635/.

The sharp wit and moral indignation of the cartoonists once again gave way to patriotism and nationalism when the Second World War started, as war generally inspires outward antagonism against the enemy rather than inward

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Image 2.15  Judge Cover: It Ought to be a Happy New Year: Uncle Sam and John Bull. Gillam, Victor F., “It Ought to be a Happy New Year: Uncle Sam and his English Cousin Have the World Between Them,” Jan. 7, 1899, chromolithograph, Judge, v. 360, no. 899, cover, Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2008678839/.

appraisal. As expected, the wartime cartoons were critical of the enemy and were imbued with strong patriotic fervor.113 The spotlight of wit and sarcasm were the enemies of the United States, and the tools of mirth and wrath were

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deployed to dehumanize them. Many of the cartoons of that period were patriotic portrayals of the military and represented national pride.114 American humor took a different turn after the Second World War in the midst of optimism and affluence. Even though a number of social ills like racism came to the fore in public discussion, satire in both the print and visual media remained for the most part absent, or at best blunt, in the middle of new messages of upbeat advances. Perhaps it was difficult to change the tone from the recent nationalistic fervor and to suddenly become self-critical; therefore, even during the Red Scare instigated by Senator Joseph McCarthy, satirists were slow to seize the opportunity to deliver what might have been a poignant critique of fanaticism and the abuse of state power.115 The fatherly Eisenhower, despite his uneasy compromise with McCarthy, got a pass from satire, probably because of his predominant image as a Second World War hero. One exception that stands out in that era, managing to rise to the occasion, was a new magazine called MAD. In comic book form, almost singlehandedly it dissected the Red Scare fomented by McCarthy, the ominous shades of homegrown totalitarianism, and the pervasive rhetoric of fear, in a period when only a few feeble voices were heard against the government’s authoritarian, undemocratic, and tyrannical tendencies. MAD has often, and justly, been credited with politicizing the comic book genre.116 Post-Second World War America was a place of transition from many points of view. Satire was not only being printed on paper, it was being performed on stage and on screen, and had become accessible to a large group of citizens. When it comes to literary satire, Kurt Vonnegut might well be the most important chronicler of both the social and political changes and the anxieties of the generation who grew up after the Second World War with respect to these changes. Instead of the mainstream culture which portrayed the war as a tragedy that could not have been avoided and the soldiers as heroes in an epic drama, Vonnegut questioned the rationale of the war itself. Instead of projecting the enemies as evil, Vonnegut focused on human nature as an inherent source of greed and evil, such as in his depiction of the destruction of Dresden by Allied forces. Instead of wanting us to spend our energies supporting or opposing Republicans or Democrats, Vonnegut urged us to figure out who were always the winners and who were always the losers. Vonnegut may have been the last prominent American satirist to have left his indelible mark on literature rather than the performative space of mass media, although he was a source of inspiration for many stand-up comedians.117 The day of the literary satirists probably came to an end with the relative decline of print in comparison to the precipitous rise of television in the popular imagination. Although “black humor” was an important literary genre in the 1960s, it was limited to more experimental magazines, or novels not reaching the mass audience. As television satire has reached new levels of popularity

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today, satire in literary writing has probably never been at such a nadir, with a resurgence of realism making literary satirists a distinct minority. The next generation of presidents—John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon—was assailed in the mass media when television emerged as an important alternative medium, and then quickly became even more important than print journalism as the preferred venue for public criticism and joking about political mishaps. The assassination of Kennedy turned him into a tragic American hero, while his various blunders (e.g., the Bay of Pigs debacle) mostly escaped harsh treatment on television. His renegade sex life came to light much later, but the charges regarding that aspect of his life have seldom been unforgiving. Johnson suffered the wrath of the cartoonists as a reaction stemming from the open hostility directed against the Vietnam War as well as the troubles accompanying the civil rights movement. Nixon, of course, ascended the pinnacle of irony and caricature because of his eccentric personality and the Watergate scandal. Some of the best political cartoons of any era were drawn during the Watergate scandal.118 Tower contends that over time political cartoons gained not only maturity and nuance, but also an ideological platform which was broader than political parties or personalities. He credits the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal for invoking a sense of truth-telling and providing a sense of power to the artistic endeavor by letting it feed on the manifestly absurd. President Johnson was seriously damaged by a cartoon where he was shown to lift his shirt to show a scar in the shape of Vietnam.119 But we also have to consider that although Watergate was regarded as a national crisis, the object of burlesque was a particular person, President Nixon. The president and his unlikeable temperament made it quite easy for him to be spoofed. Early satirical depictions of Nixon were quite merciless because his reputation and personal characteristics were already ripe for buffoonery; the Watergate fiasco emerged as an excellent gift to caricaturists,120 yet along with all the satire it inspired, it also expanded the norms of tolerance in terms of what was permissible to take on in political satire. To sum up, American political satire in its literary form had a flourishing start that went hand in hand with the political chaos surrounding the nation’s birth and formative years. Bier contends that American humor always had a truth-telling streak, “an element of correctiveness,” especially in the antebellum period.121 American humor, in his view, was driven by relative speed, and was quick and pointed, which was preserved in the next generation of newspaper and magazine cartoons in the form of brevity and sharp appeal. The monologues prevalent in contemporary political satire, arguably the most potent form of political summation in the mass media, are rooted in the tradition of lavish verbal articulation that originated in the literary forms.122 Other scholars have pointed out that American humor has always been marked by skepticism, cruelty, derogation, misanthropy, nihilism, and often, surprisingly, sentimentalism too. It may parody the truth and lies behind the reigning

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myths of national life, but it has not been free from the blanket characteristics of oversimplification, admiration of the grotesque, and facile idealization, attributes that are believed to embody the American public itself. The cartoons through the years have generally been combative, more negative than corrective.123 Although political personalities constituted a large part of the target of the cartoonists, it is imperative to note that they did not spare imperialism, poverty, and other policy issues which are embedded in the American political fabric. Much of their artistic zeal was employed in questioning rather than normalizing the existing political structure through humor. In the cartoons that we have scrutinized, we can find both personalized targets who were being savagely teased and ideologies such as imperialism, income inequity, or social unfairness that irked the cartoonists; they responded to these thematic concerns with all their skill to highlight these issues in the public domain. In short, the ancestors of contemporary political satire have bequeathed the whole toolbox to future generations, yet with all the technological advancement and maximum accessibility, satirists on late-night television generally limit their artistic brilliance to individualized and party-specific marks. They reach the bull’s-eye in terms of creating laughter with japing and needling but seldom open up another framework to assess personal failures as systemic constructions. Their climax is the point where the hypocrisy is revealed, but they seldom venture to the next step toward inward gazing, where satire is at its best in illuminating the logic and compulsion of the irrational. It is in that space that satire becomes most meaningful, where the construction of irrationality is understood as not only something to be laughed at but as part of congenital production, so that viewers may be perturbed into a realization of such connections. In the next two sections, I address the reasons and the processes whereby political satire became myopic and outward focused instead of utilizing its potential for creating new frameworks to evaluate dire political realities. WHAT IS SATIRE IN THE PRESENT POLITICAL CONTEXT? We have taken detours through literature and cartoons, and we now have a sense of the larger conditions of media, postmodernism, and neoliberalism, so that all these discussions serve as the prelude to understand the political satire of the day. The questions that intrigue me are the following: Why is it easier to produce satire that evaluates personalities and not systems? Why do some personalities evade stern rebuke but others who support or continue the same policies are not made fun of? Is satire capable of providing a coherent narrative of the recent political breakdown? Most importantly, can satire of the twenty-first century function as a tool to hold politicians responsible, or do humor, generalization, and excessive coverage normalize political ills?

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Most of the recent research that addresses the role of political satire in American politics questions how these shows shape political knowledge, whether they lead to political engagement, and what groups of citizens are susceptible to their influence. Sophia A. McClennen, Jeffrey P. Jones, and Amber Day are some of the foremost voices to have raised and responded to such questions. McClennen believes that satire encourages critical thought, and that irony illuminates obscure meaning.124 Jeff MacNelly, an editorial cartoonist who died in 2000, also firmly believed in the power of satire, holding that “Political cartoonists violate every rule of ethical journalism—they misquote, trifle with the truth, make science fiction out of politics. . . . But when the smoke clears, the political cartoonist has been getting closer to the truth than the guys who write political opinions.”125 On the other end of the spectrum are people like Leonard Feinberg, who assert that in the end satirists only reinforce social conventions by critiquing the excess, the faults, and the duplicity, often bearing the unintentional message that a return to the ideal would resolve problems. In this view, satire targets particular personalities, and seldom the entire institutional setup.126 Along with the focus on the impact of contemporary political satire, I am also interested in its production and what prompted its evolution, in order to situate it as a prominent source of ideas in the current political realm. My analysis of the satire that currently takes place on late-night television is that present (especially post-9/11) political satire embodies some characteristics that make it unique and set it apart from the satire of previous eras. In contrast to their rebel forebears who did not hesitate to transgress social mores in order to make their points in stand-up comedy, satirists now are part of the mainstream media. Satirists do not feel the need any more to cater to as large an audience as possible, or to be careful not to offend too many of those watching television, because narrowcasting allows the structural backing of large media channels to let them frame their performances in a way that they resonate with discrete groups of people. Jones argues that the new political television cannot be divided into either the informative or amusing pigeonhole, because it employs multiple narrative frames.127 The public is well aware that both television and politics are spectacular performances, and that the press and government are interdependent institutions, mutually benefiting from such theatricals. News media are part of the political spectacle, as is satire.128 Their visibility, popularity, and expectations have all increased exponentially in popular culture. At the same time, being mainstream means reflecting many of the values that abound in the media and politics; the very benchmarks satire should be critical of have now been incorporated into the art as well. The new generation of satire is based not only on information available in the mainstream media, but more often than not it constitutes a source of new information and the satirists formulate their shows in the manner of investigative journalism. While we can hail their commitment (though no satirist

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has yet accepted the onus of being a real journalist), the more pressing question is why they need to provide vital information as part of their backdrop and why they cannot rely on the mainstream media any more. Satire also tends to operate in a repetitive fashion: it celebrates the fantastic, and then at some point normalizes the odd occurrence to move on to the next example which has to be even more absurd. This cycle of standardization and constantly raising the stakes for the farcical is closely intertwined with satire having becoming mainstream and needing to be informative. I would also argue that while political satire is partisan, it is not ideological. One of the reasons it cannot be ideological (though it has a history of not only criticizing presidents and political parties, but also taking a stand against imperialism, foreign wars, domestic racism, and the like) is that satire is now an integral part of the conventional media and one of its main forms of entertainment. Its critique of real news on television often appears hypocritical as it operates using parallel norms and ends up producing comparable programs. One of the most memorable scuffles in recent media history took place on CNN’s Crossfire in 2004, when Jon Stewart berated news commentators for hurting America by creating an environment with two mutually exclusive sides that could never compromise with each other. Political analyst Tucker Carlson was severely mauled by the comedian for creating a political discourse that was sensational, conflictual, and negative.129 The whole thing became a media sensation, and when Crossfire got canceled, Stewart received tribute for the demise of the show. He was credited, at least by his base, not only for standing up to the CNN pundits, but for challenging the very justification of their programming. But when the same accusations were made against him, along with claims of his bias toward Democrats, Stewart claimed that he was presenting fake news and satire and should not be judged by the same standards. This was a lame defense because what is presented through satire, whether it is fake or not, seems to impact a huge number of people, and for many of these audiences satire is now the principal source of political information. What also stands out in the dialogue between Stewart and Carlson is that the ideal political tableau that Stewart envisioned was incremental negotiation between political parties, which conveys a naïve faith in the political system despite the fact that he was covering at the time many of the serious human rights violations of the Bush government, and despite the fact that like past instances of U.S. human rights offenses in countries from Chile to Cambodia, no one in the administration was ever really held accountable. The pinnacle of political engagement for Stewart was the creation of an environment where dialogue and criticism were possible almost as ends in themselves, not necessarily where serious breaches were acknowledged and the responsible parties punished. Stewart, at least in this instance, opted to take his cues

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from the mainstream media about his political role instead of challenging it, even though he was quite capable of handling issues going beyond superficial political chit-chat. Stewart has often forcefully claimed that he is a comedian first and that his political ideology takes a back seat to his comedy. There is no reason to disbelieve him, as we often see satirists attempt to claim the honor of equal-opportunity offenders. While there is no doubt that the platform of political satire often accommodates and attracts politicians of all stripes, no satirists have tried to distance themselves from the liberal ideology they believe in. Nonetheless, their ideological position seems to be reflected mostly in a myopic form of support for political parties or candidates of the moment, and rarely in terms of political principles. In other words, they are much more vigilant about the gap between the principles and actions of one particular political party. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars were lampooned and deflated during the Bush era, but President Obama was more or less given a pass even though he continued some of the same policies. This trend also reflects the tendency to make fun of personalities instead of policies, thereby operating at a normalizing level, rather than questioning tacit political agreements. Contemporary political satire on television contains a liberal bias, but at the same time seems to be free of ideological underpinnings. Stewart’s faith in the political ideal also came across vehemently in the series of disputes he had with CNBC reporter Rick Santelli as well as Jim Cramer, the host of Mad Money on the same network. Santelli took on Obama’s stimulus plan as promoting bad financial behavior and helping out irresponsible mortgage payers who were not entitled to government subsidies.130 Cramer, along the same lines, walked back his sunny views of the state of the economy, and also blamed the people for their own faulty decisions. Stewart showed clippings from Mad Money (Cramer: “I would encourage anyone who is in the hedge fund game to do it [manipulate markets]. Because it’s legal. And it is a very quick way to make money. And very satisfying. . . . By the way, no one else in the world would admit that. But I don’t care.”), with Cramer also lamely defending himself and his predictions.131 Stewart insinuated that because financial experts like Cramer were more interested in ratings and in redefining their shows as entertainment, Stewart himself had been forced to change the tone of his own show from light amusement to covering serious criminal activities, because unsuspecting individuals such as his mother were taking financial advice from Cramer’s show.132 But while it is true that attention was given to Santelli’s unjustified outburst at the government stimulus (falsely claiming that the stimulus helped out mortgage payers) or Cramer’s bad advice (telling people to buy Bear Stearns stock when the price was sixty-nine dollars, yet eleven days later the price of the stock had dropped to two dollars), there was little talk about why indeed the stimulus did not help out mortgage payers but only banks, and who benefited from the turbulent stock market. Stewart remained

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comfortable with strident attacks on the players within the economic system, rather than questioning the premises of contemporary political economy. On a number of other issues, such as the kind of civic culture that nurtures political bipartisanship, Stewart has proven himself perfectly capable of focusing on the root causes of disagreement and challenging opposing views. As mentioned earlier, he did not hold himself back when he was criticizing the hosts of CNN’s Crossfire for being partisan hacks and hurting America.133 In that instance, Stewart envisioned his role as educating the public to bridge the gap between ideological divides and to preserve the existing political design rather than to challenge it, let alone dismantle it. The distinction between real news and fake news was important to him, not only to safeguard himself and his jokes, but to make the point that his jokes were only jokes. Although he claimed to be “fake news” (long before Trump added the new meaning of fake news), he saw a distinct role for himself that he believed in. The mutual exclusiveness of different ideologies bothered Stewart, who was mindful of the accusation that satirists, and in particular he and Colbert, were being blamed for sharpening the ideological divide among the audience, and he therefore sought to compensate for his perceived sins by creating a common bond that could connect people. Along with Colbert, Stewart arranged a daylong gathering, the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, where different segments of people could voice their grievances toward the opposing camp without censure and be able to hold a dialogue with each other. The event was staged in the midst of the build-up to the 2010 midterm elections. Around the same time, Glenn Beck, the right-wing commentator from Fox News, was hosting his own event to celebrate America’s heritage, “Restoring Honor,” at the Lincoln Memorial, across from the Washington Mall where Stuart and Colbert had their own rally. Surrounded by enthusiasm and hype, Stewart and Colbert’s rally was attended by more than two hundred thousand people, with real-time viewers reaching nearly three million. It was a fun-filled day, with beautiful music, messages, and gestures, but ultimately, even with such a wide audience, the hosts ended up preaching mostly to the choir. Was Stewart only responding to the accusation by other journalists that he too had been guilty of what he had once accused the hosts of Crossfire of doing, namely dividing America?134 At Stewart and Colbert’s rally, daylong programs were arranged to feature famous entertainers with their tidings of unity. They pledged for a more amicable political environment without making any specific demands, such as to close the Guantánamo Bay prison, or to prosecute Bush administration officials for illegal torture, or to give vent to any of the crying domestic needs of the day. Stewart pledged to recover politics from the 15 to 20 percent of vocal extremists, led by right-wing pundits. Although critical of Bush-era policies, he always persuaded people to keep their criticism civil and was leery of anyone who drew comparisons between Bush and Hitler. After eight

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years of a relative lull during the Obama presidency (although most of the egregious Bush policies continued), the Trump presidency has instigated and legitimized long-dormant issues such as racism and xenophobia with such actions as implementing the travel ban or taking a soft line with the Ku Klux Klan and self-proclaimed fascist and anti-Semitic groups. After the horror in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a woman named Heather Heyer was crushed to death by a car intentionally driven into the crowd by a supporter of white supremacy, Antifa, the loosely banded anti-fascist group, has been harshly criticized not only by Trump but also by Noah, the successor to Stewart.135 To me these examples are indicators of political norms, where politics is personalized (members of Antifa can be rebuked for their preference for anime or violence), while ignoring the circumstances for the emergence of a group like Antifa. Noah could have selected for scrutiny those members of Antifa who wish to stand up against racism, anti-Semitism, and all forms of bigotry, whatever the cost and with whatever means necessary. This example, though not an indictment specific to Noah, serves to point out the environment in which he is operating and perhaps emulating. We also have to remember the format and scope of the mainstream media where popular culture is being performed, but which remains oblivious of or negligent toward discussing macro political issues such as poverty, power, or neoliberalism. There can be multiple sketches about the disaster of the water supply in Flint, Michigan, but in the absence of any in-depth coverage of this very serious problem, the sketches, while they reveal the hypocrisy of politics and make us angry, do not allow us to turn anywhere after our laughter fades away or to use the incipient anger as a tool for real action.136 Another point of contrast is that satire in literature does not have to be concerned about whether it is covering well-known or contemporary events, but political satire on latenight television is necessarily rooted in popular culture. To their credit, prominent political satirists such as Stewart, Colbert, Oliver, Bee, Maher, Meyers, and others of their class have often brought significant issues to public attention—issues which might have gone uncovered by the mainstream media—but if the issue is not followed up, the story terminates in laughter or anger or both, without leading to anything more than expression of frustration or cynicism. As real journalists on television often present political news from a myopic and immediate compulsion, some political satirists are acting more like journalists by providing the missing historical or political reasoning. Many of the programs done by Oliver are richer and deeper in terms of detailed information and analysis than what is presented in political news and analysis on regular television. Actually, mainstream media and satire now rely on borrowing each other’s material quite often. While it is customary for satire to build stories on the information derived from mainstream media, often the news shows now not only rely on satire to argue for or strengthen their

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own points but seamlessly incorporate the new information that is interjected through satire. Here are two examples from Oliver and Bee, as they are shaming President Trump for his dealings with North Korea and stirring up fears of nuclear war. While they don’t restrain their fangs against the North Korean dictator, yet within a few sentences they refer to the history of imperialism and the Korean War to put the whole America-North Korea relationship in a historical setting, which should be more of a task for real journalists. These are examples of satire that situates the present in relation to history and opens up a different schema to view the America-North Korea relationship, shattering our conventional way of processing information. But what is tragic is that these storylines were drowned in laughter generated by the parody aimed at the two leaders, in satire and news alike: Oliver: And let’s just engage in some truly magical thinking. What if you could somehow just take out Kim Jong-un? Well, you’ve probably got an immediate humanitarian crisis on your hands, as well as a leaderless country with a power vacuum and nuclear weapons. And, as we’ve learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, when regimes fall and there’s no plan in place, that vacuum can be filled with terrible things. We do not want to find out what North Korea’s ISIS would be.137 Bee: We are hurtling toward war with North Korea. One insane person is bullying another insane person who is launching missiles in our direction. I wanted to find out if there was a way to prevent the end times in the next couple of weeks. So I sat down with North Korea expert Christine Ahn to find out. There are two things we all know about North Korea. One, they love marching with their missiles and equipment. And two, Kim Jong-un loves being in photos that are awful. What can you tell us about North Korea that we don’t know? North Korea Expert Christine Ahn: What I would say is that there was an indiscriminate bombing campaign waged by the United States against North Korea . . . [where] eighty percent of North Korea was completely destroyed. Bee: And people are alive today, who remember it, who were there? Ahn: Absolutely. More bombs were dropped on the Korean peninsula than throughout the whole Asia-Pacific theater in World War II. Bee: This was not a storyline in M*A*S*H that I recall!138

Without a consistent political ideology informed by proper historical knowledge, events lose their real significance. After the recent upsurge of

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racism and bigotry, the American media has mostly been discussing the events as gross aberrations, occurrences that are not American, while ignoring America’s racist past. This reflects the outward gaze, where actions are analyzed in a shortsighted fashion, blaming only those who are immediately responsible and bypassing the political coalitions designed to produce such events. Actually, the rise of the KKK in the neoliberal political environment has strong parallels with the rise of the KKK in the Reconstruction era. It seems that this is a lost opportunity for enlightenment, just as the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq was a lost opportunity to discuss prisoner abuse in general or Guantánamo Bay was a lost opportunity to discuss the extrajudicial tentacles of the American empire. We might see this as the point where satire loses its mirror characteristic, its ability to provoke selfcriticism. While satirists may be aware of the historical connections, typically they seem reluctant to shine a light on the whole structure and feel comfortable highlighting the specific failings of selected individuals or groups in society. Interpreting politics in terms of personalities rather than policies cannot be understood as no more than a stylistic choice of satirists because this methodology has the power to shape political discourse in ominous directions. President Trump has been severely criticized for his push toward anti-immigrant policies such as the border wall, accelerated deportations, and the suspension of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA),139 but President Obama had escaped much of the brunt of satirists’ attack and even media criticism even though he ended up implementing one of the worst mass deportation programs in modern American history and failed to provide a real safety net for the undocumented who arrived in this country as minors. When this situation exacerbated under Trump and his abhorrent policy of separating children from asylum seekers and treating both parents and children as criminals, satirists took to the podium to mock the specious Trumpian rationalizations.140 But while their attitude and concerns are genuine, they have failed to connect the freshly revealed cruelties as an integral part of our immigration bureaucracy. The DACA recipients only got a temporary reprieve during the last years of the Obama presidency, and yet Obama faced minimal rebuke from his liberal base for this abject failure. Bee interviewed Obama for a Halloween show before the 2016 election and addressed the apathy of young voters, but failed to question why the enthusiastic young voters of 2008 had become demoralized by 2012 and 2016, what was the role of the candidates and the Democratic Party in that regard, and why the officeholders were not reaching them.141 Such a personalized focus is a sad alternative to incisive probing, and is deeply conservative because it reinforces the legitimacy of the existing arrangement, while we lose opportunity after opportunity to question the validity of criminalizing refugees and asylum seekers or immigrants who have been present since childhood.

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All of this analysis of satire’s role and expectations is compounded by a relatively new development in satire, which is that on late-night television it operates as a real source of information rather than presenting information in such a way as to illustrate a hidden agenda. We have seen how in totalitarian Russia satirists had to resort to underhanded methods, or the subterfuge of self-denying jokes, to hint at political violence which could not be openly addressed. Now we are in a postmodern environment where most people doubt the validity of news, yet satire—which is supposed to be an interpreter of news—is taken as a leading source itself. Moreover, it deals not in the obscure and disguised, but in political news that is nakedly transparent, no matter the degree of cruelty or shame involved. Consider, as one of innumerable examples one can find as soon as one tunes into late-night satire, Maher’s breakdown of the Republican position on the ACA, which is couched as satire in form and articulation but conveys most of the actual policy criticisms of the Republican health-care bill. Maher is using irony and snark to draw attention to the hypocrisy of Republican politicians, and we can either laugh or be angry or feel both sentiments at the same time, but this monologue seems incapable of delivering a blow, let alone a shock wave, to our moral framework. All of the manipulations and perfidies he is exposing are already being performed without any attempt to hide intentions. The framing of the Republican politicians of their health-care vision is obviously different than that of Maher’s; when the opinions of the Republicans clash, it is only an opportunity for them to see who can speak the loudest and therefore claim victory for the moment. The ingenious task of satire, to articulate the clandestine, has become obsolete with the present mode of political coverage, where endlessly circular fights over who is right and who is wrong make up for the lack of analysis and the repetitive spectacle substitutes for nuance of discussion: This week the Senate unveiled their super-secret health care bill. Like me it was hashed out behind closed doors. And you know that everybody thinks it was unveiled. Unveiled is not the right term. You unveil a sculpture. Nobody goes, “Behold a turd.” This is more like something that was excreted. I mean, the healthcare bill is more like a manifesto from the Zodiac killer. They should have published it by cutting out letters from the newspaper. It phases out Medicaid, the safety net for our oldest, poorest, and most vulnerable citizens. It lets states drop the Obamacare protections like pre-existing conditions. And just for spite, it defunds Planned Parenthood. No—no more gynecological exams, although Trump says he is still available to grab pussies. Now, of course not being one-sided and leaving out the good part there’s a massive tax cut for the top one percent. Yes, the guiding principle is rich people. If you like your money, you can keep your money. . . . A small group of Republican senators say they can’t vote for it because it’s not mean enough. A group led by, not surprisingly, Ted Cruz, who has been studying healthcare from top to bottom, up and down. Ted says, “Who knows more about making people sick than I do?”142

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The responsibility for initiating a different quality of conversation obviously does not rest upon the shoulders of the comedians alone, but on the media as a whole, particularly professional journalists. Satirists are very much a product of the same media that avoids substantive issues and can often be superficial in its examinations. Police killings of unarmed minorities are depicted as personalized stories, and discussions are held in terms of the weight of responsibility between the police and the victims, while mostly ignoring the systemic connections between poverty, police brutality, and the militarization of law enforcement. In this political environment, popular political movements such as Black Lives Matter become only minority voices, and are interpreted through a personal lens instead of being situated in the political tradition and compared to the civil rights or Black Power movements. Satire, of course, only makes sense within its proper ambience. The question is what sets those preconditions? To what extent is the medium responsible for setting the framework? How does the media report on politics? Modern punditry has recently blurred the line between fact and opinion, and opinions have overshadowed real news and meaningful analysis. While two of the most popular animated cartoon shows, The Simpsons and South Park, continue the tradition of challenging social and political norms on television, The Daily Show has flourished not only as a satiric comedy show but also emerged as a trustworthy fount of news analysis for its huge audience base. The Onion, the most well-known satiric print newspaper, reaches even more readers with its online presence and digital news. Humor has evolved into such an indispensable part of political analysis that NPR, a serious source of political information, has stand-up comedians performing on podcasts (Ask Me Another) and a show called Wait, Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me!”143 After the September 11 attacks, The Onion was among the first to break the moratorium on humor and lead the process toward national healing and normalcy. The composition of political norms and limits, and who gets to participate in laying down such rules, takes us beyond looking at the role of particular satirists and reveals a treacherous terrain of political calculation. Satire is constituted in the very political environment it takes place in and castigates. Sometimes it is difficult to take off the blinders which make us believe that satirists have much more power than they actually do. SNL had planned a skit in 1998 focused on the deregulation of media ownership and the concentration of corporate power. General Electric, the owner of the NBC network, was mentioned in the skit as one of the powerful corporate giants which owns most media conglomerates. That skit was removed for not being funny enough, but the real reason was the dissatisfaction of GE officials.144 The imposition of limits to freedom on the media is nothing new. Jim Hightower, the populist liberal politician from Texas, had a well-received syndicated show on talk radio (the ABC Radio Network), carried by one hundred and fifty stations around the country and reaching a million and a half listeners. Hightower used satire to excoriate the

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idiocy of various institutions, with corporate America certainly not escaping his zestful wrath. When Disney bought ABC, Hightower’s program was canceled as soon as he criticized Disney on ABC.145 The last characteristic I want to pay attention to is the proclivity to codify the freakish in satire. We notice an interesting development during the Trump presidency regarding the attempts to humanize President George W. Bush. During the alternative Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner arranged by Bee on April 29, 2017, comedian Will Ferrell (of SNL fame) showed up as Bush and tried to tickle our nostalgia for things which were presented as not being as bad as now. President Trump may be more dangerous than the second President Bush, at least domestically, but it is egregious to forget the role of the Bush presidency in establishing the new world order of terrorism and counterterrorism, leading to a reordering of domestic priorities. The satirists have almost all voiced their preference for the Bush era compared to the Trump presidency (as each of them has uttered sentiments along the lines of “now I miss Bush”), and thereby contributed toward regularizing the mishandling of power that actually led to Trump. The jokes regarding torture and Guantánamo Bay, or even the drone attacks that continued throughout the Obama years, have helped desensitize us, and neither news on television nor late-night comedy has focused on the real plight of real people because of inhuman policies and their floundering enforcement. It remains much easier to laugh at Bush over his fitful vocabulary and criticize his administration for mismanagement of war, rather than question the rationale for war which is intertwined with the justifications for American empire. When Ferrell plays Bush, he is superb in his mannerisms, body language, and overall reaction at the electoral victory of Trump. He takes quite a few punches at the new president, but the overall tone of the performance is to illuminate how much more likeable and personable Bush was, compared to Trump: I just wish someone had told me that all you have to say is fake news over and over again. . . . That could be your answer for everything. A tie stops at the belt. A big long tie that goes past your mid-thigh does not mean what you think it means. Apparently, I am a better painter than a president! How do you like me now? History has proven to be kinder to me than many of you thought.146

Dagnes argues for two factors being responsible for the elevation of satire in the current political schema: the broad political environment which sets the level of tolerance, and the willingness (or lack thereof) of the media to

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converge on issues that are deemed significant by the people. When the media did not or could not quench that thirst, satire stepped forward to provide the requisite stream of information. What satire spotlights may resonate with people, but without the existing political modalities available to persuade the government or to express meaningful dissent, satire evaporates in laughter, dispersing in its own whirlpool.147 Satire often shrivels during national crises, noticeable in the fact that it took quite some time after September 11 to denounce Bush. While the rickety justification for the Iraq War was easier to satirize, the Afghanistan War has remained taboo for years, both for satirists and journalists. Media technology has played an important role in creating a national political culture where the local is often quickly translated into easily comprehensible terms for all audiences. American politics reveres no-holdsbarred debate and free speech, hence criticizing elected officials by means of slapstick, farce, and a condescending tone has always been accepted.148 While participation in political action is hailed as a valued democratic practice, the role of unlimited amounts of money in the electoral process often minimizes the possibilities for policy changes in the desired direction. These obstacles to meaningful political engagement by the people have been erected by both political parties. Satire often selects the easy route of individualized caricature, as this is not only manageable but less disappointing when the desired impact does not materialize.149 Political humor about sex scandals is facile and effortless, but good satire should function as a looking glass: we should be able to perceive our own failings even as we laugh at others. Satire is not only a tool to be used for condescension; it is an equally powerful tool for self-contemplation. Satire has become much more political and partisan over the years, and is often as informative as actual news. The dilemma that screams for attention is the dangerous potential of partisan irony bereft of ideological bias. The lack of overt ideology was also inherent in coverage of the 2016 election. While Trump was widely reprimanded for his divisive personal stances, the media invariably gave more attention to his private shortcomings rather than his radical policy positions which he is delivering in his presidency. The preference of the media for style over substance is certainly not new, but seemed to reach a peak with the attention showered on candidate Trump. The way Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, the two main Democratic Party contenders, were covered is more evidence of how political attention is driven by parties and personalities, not ideology. Sanders and Clinton offered very different policy prescriptions, but what got more attention was such issues as the attendance at their respective rallies or the gender aspects of the Clinton campaign. In fact, when Sanders appeared on the political satire shows, he faced more open-ended questions and had more room to talk about his preferred policies, compared to his presence on the regular media.

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The function of satire is to reproduce a cognitive space where what cannot be said is uttered and what has been accepted is questioned. Critical thought and self-analysis are important components of satire, which we can judge by contrasting the mainstream media’s presentation of political news and the interpretations offered by satire. If both the real news media and satire offer the same analysis, and satire only showcases a different style, then the critical thinking part gets submerged in laughter. As McClennen and Maisel point out, “What has changed is the fact that the object of much satirical mockery— the news media—has become increasingly disconnected from information, so much so that satire has evolved as a source of information rather than just a critique of it.”150 Griffin reminds us how history’s great political satirists have seldom been political insiders with any real power or influence.151 It is an interesting contrast with the present time when we perceive the power of political satirists to impact political speech to be at its peak. Far from being rebellious radicals, political satirists are now often celebrity figures and their popularity can even be cashed in for a political career.152 Popular culture has undergone tremendous expansion in addressing the diversity and multiculturalism of the changing society. One would think that this expansion in the possibilities of popular culture might have afforded more room for satire to venture into difficult territory, such as holding the majority of Americans who supported Bush’s disastrous wars responsible for their complicity. Our own way of life, benefiting from cheap oil acquired at the cost of disastrous wars, seldom came in for introspection. Though the changing—younger, more multicultural, more socially liberal—audiences are there, satire continues to preserve an escape route, a shared space for comrades who speak each other’s righteous language without connecting people to a larger fury. Again, it is not just the responsibility of satirists but reflects the political reality they inhabit. Whether in literature or in the media, satire is a reflection of the political reality that already exists. To the extent that literary culture, the historical source of great satire, is in eclipse, it becomes all the more important for satire in the popular media to continue its function of closing off escape routes. As satire has evolved in parallel with politics, the political participation it encourages is mainly about confronting or supporting different groups of people, rather than making sense of policy positions. As the sphere of politics has narrowed, so has the impact of satire, even if a lot more satire is being produced. It has become mostly a means to express dissatisfaction against particular figures, not against the system, because satire is a product of the same dynamics which distort politics and culture. The worlds of politics and entertainment may have collided, but the former has become almost impermeable in terms of needed reforms. Like satire, politics too has become a spectator’s game. The rise of Trump in the political world and the prioritization of entertainment in the media reflect similar trends where the respective political and cultural theaters value performance

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over any other values and real issues become swamped in the celebration of ritualistic and symbolic gestures. We are more aware yet more helpless, boxed in by the paradoxes produced and bolstered by postmodernism. THE POSTMODERN FUSION OF POLITICS AND ENTERTAINMENT The postmodern aspects of popular culture, prioritizing performance over policy, make room for neoliberalism without changing the basic political structure, and lead us to the construction of a form of satire that has strayed far from its rebellious heritage. The impact of both postmodernism and neoliberalism over the media in general, and satire in particular, has been incalculable, as the citizen/voter/community member has mostly been transformed into a customer/consumer/spectator in the new reality. Postmodernism, by definition, thrives on multiple storylines, accepting that truth cannot be understood objectively, with irony becoming a way to digest paradoxes. In that regard, satire may be the most appropriate tool for the postmodern generation, except for the fact that the political world that is being castigated and that needs intervention is solidly situated in a different reality. There is no doubt that political satire has reached a whole new younger generation and made it more politically aware and interested, but has all this generated more voters and activists? The appeal of satire in the postmodern world hangs upon this dilemma, but is even more complicated. Fletcher is deeply concerned about the role of satire in postmodern society. While satire in its ideal form is shaped by singleness of purpose, postmodern literature and culture are ostensibly more open. Can satire astutely reflect the ambiguities and ingrained paradoxes that seem prevalent in politics?153 Political satire was recharged in the Bush era when there were both overt hypocrisies to highlight and hidden manipulations to uncover. In the Obama era, satire fell flat even though many of the chicaneries and dissimulations continued in U.S. policy. While focusing on personalities in each instance, satire failed to underscore the systemic problems of American politics, and therefore its presentation of the Bush and Obama years appears distinctive only on the surface because satirists assumed different tones of rebuke toward similar problems. In the Trump era, satire ostensibly is thriving, but satirists are often only repeating various outrageous statements and actions by cruel and barbarous figures, instead of revealing any hidden meanings or deceptions. Satire seems to have reached a nadir as the reality is funnier than satire and the presidency has become the ultimate entertainment. When The President Show depicts the vice president getting trained in ethics by a group of specialists (while he asks such questions as “Lying, is that unethical?” or “Is it ethical to mislead

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the president for his own good?”),154 or the president obsessing over the breaking news and praying that the stories are not about fired FBI director James Comey,155 or behaving like a toddler throwing tantrums,156 or uttering, “My tax plan is to never pay taxes,”157 or “I declassify everything I touch; the White House used to be super classy but is now totally declassified,”158 these are not mere laugh lines, they happen to strike a nerve or illuminate the truth by using a slightly exaggerated form of presentation of both factual and made-up dialogues and insinuations. While it is true that postmodern media allows for more political content, it needs to be assembled as entertainment. We have also seen that we may get a somewhat broader range of information and perspectives from political satire, but for me the pressing question is how the sphere of political news has been impacted by the bright and shiny world of political satire. The newer satirical hosts, such as Meyers, Bee, and Klepper, indulge in fewer impersonations, sketches revolving around politicians’ personal foibles, or made-up news items.159 Instead they rely heavily on step-by-step deconstruction of real news events, and it often strikes me that in the Trump era the real is often funnier than mimicry. The lines between news and entertainment, and satire and political argument, as we have seen extensively, are blurry and porous. But what is the impact of such hybridity on political consciousness? Does it make us more aware? Does it make us more cynical? Does it make us more engaged? Or are these the wrong questions to ask? The meanings of politics and political engagement have changed amid the neoliberal reality, and the media reflects the new materiality where engagement might well denote awareness without meaningful change happening. To return to a popular reference from Seinfeld, what happens when the different worlds collide? How do we identify that collision? I would argue that one point of collision or implosion, and certainly a postmodern moment, came to politics (and media) with Sarah Palin and her doppelgänger, Tina Fey, on SNL. While the physical resemblance between the two characters was uncanny (apparently, Alec Baldwin complimented Palin for her performance, taking her to be Fey, and on the other hand Palin once dressed up as Fey for a Halloween party), what was mesmerizing was how Fey could often repeat Palin’s talking points without changing any words. Neither Fey nor anyone on the cast of SNL could make a parody out of her interviews or speeches as John McCain’s vice presidential candidate in 2008. Her vocabulary, mannerisms, and gibberish arguments could not be made any funnier than they already were. That seemed to be a defining moment when politics and entertainment merged in front of our eyes, and now in the Trump era we don’t know how we can disengage the two from one another. Here are some excerpts from Palin’s famous interview with Katie Couric; it is noteworthy that Fey was able to use Palin’s lines verbatim on SNL:

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Couric: You have cited Alaska’s proximity to Russia as part of your foreign policy experience. What did you mean by that? Palin: Alaska has a very narrow maritime border between a foreign country, Russia, and on the other side, the land boundary that we have with Canada. It is funny that a comment like that was kind of . . . mocked. Couric: Explain to me why that enhances your foreign policy credentials. Palin: It certainly does because our next door neighbors are foreign countries, there in the state that I am the executive of. Couric: Have you ever been involved with negotiations, for example, with the Russians? Palin: We have trade missions back and forth. It’s very important when you consider even national security issues with Russia. As Putin rears his head and comes into the airspace in the United States of America, where do they go? It’s Alaska, it’s right over the border. It’s from Alaska we send those to make sure that an eye is being kept on the very powerful nation Russia because they are right there. They are right next to our state. Couric: When it comes to establishing your worldview I was curious what newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped to stay informed and understand the world? Palin: I’ve read most of them with a great appreciation for the press, for the media. Couric: What specifically, I am curious to know. Palin: Um, all of them, any of them that have been in front of me all these years. Couric: Can you name a few? Palin: I have a vast variety of sources where we get our news too. Alaska is not a foreign country as it’s kind of suggested. It seems like, wow, how could you keep in touch with the rest of Washington, D.C. when you live up there in Alaska. Believe me, Alaska is like a microcosm of America.160

Fey was able to use almost the whole interview word for word, with some interjections like, “Katie, I’d like to use one of my lifelines,” and “Just gotta have to get back to you.”161 The Today Show played the original interview and the SNL spoof side by side to show how identical the real political interview and its satirical representation were. And here are some famous quotes by Palin, which satirists have failed to improve upon:

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You know what they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull is? Lipstick. America is looking for answers. She’s looking for a new direction; the world is looking for a light. That light can come from America’s great North Star; it can come from Alaska. Polls? Nah . . . they’re for strippers and cross-country skiers. We eat, therefore we hunt.162

Another relevant development is how easily professional politicians now find a ready-made space for themselves as anointed news commentators, though they lack conventional journalistic skills. What is sought are not only their names and opinions, but the emotions their presence signifies. It is narrowcasting that allows the media to carve out a space for an amateur like Palin to function side by side with professional journalists who once used to scorn her and still do. Along with Palin, Mike Huckabee, Eliot Spitzer, and numerous others have turned to punditry after political disgrace, and television has welcomed them with open arms. As Ouelette argues, media fragmentation paves the way for brand membership, where the brand is about a particular worldview and lifestyle, evoking a new kind of consumer citizenship.163 When Palin became a commentator for Fox News, Fey, impersonating her as Palin on SNL, claimed the entire network as Sarah Palin Network; likewise, Palin’s memoir was roasted, in a New York Magazine article called “The Revolution Will Be Commercialized,” as a commercial enterprise which revealed her surrounded by brand-name logos.164 Palin’s book tours were arranged in the format of presidential campaign events. She resigned her post as the Alaska governor to continue with her book tour and become a Fox News commentator. And she charged a quarter million dollars per episode for the reality TV series, Sarah Palin’s Alaska, featuring her family and their lifestyles, including hunting, fishing, and gold mining.165 Although, as mentioned earlier, SNL has established a tradition for spoofing presidential candidates, without which election season in America would feel incomplete, the show has had a difficult time being funny lately when the personalities it is parodying seem to have exceeded the bounds of any accepted definition of normality. Prior to Bush, political jokes were good-humored, not necessarily a vehicle to spark outrage. The jokes about the Clinton-Lewinsky affair spurred righteous anger, but all of it seems pretty mild now. Satire’s portrayal of various political personalities (even those with whom there was marked ideological difference) had been focused on personal character flaws

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(as Day quips, “George W. Bush was portrayed as a dim-witted frat boy, while Bill Clinton was a junk-food-loving skirt-chaser”),166 but with Palin we entered a new era where satirists started competing with politicians to appear funnier. Baldwin as Trump has had one of the most challenging roles in the history of satire. He is portraying a parody of an unpopular president (with whom he has serious ideological issues, having even offered to stop playing Trump if the president reveals his tax returns), who speaks in a way that play on his words is redundant for caricature. Baldwin has to rely on physical exaggeration and tomfoolery with speech to the extent that he can, but the usual method of juxtaposing rationality with irrationality falls flat because Baldwin is dealing with only irrationalities. It is simultaneously the easiest topic in satire as it writes itself, but also very difficult in terms of acquiring the right balance between humor, likeability, and disdain. Interestingly, satire has been tested and tried by Fox News too, when in 2007 the channel started its own satirical show, The ½ Hour News Hour with Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter as the mythical president and vice president, to make up for the gap of satire that the right-wing audience perceived. The initial show featured Sean Hannity and amassed 1.4 million viewers but earned only a 2.3 rating out of a possible ten and the show was canceled after just seventeen episodes.167 It was more offensive than funny. Instead of having a go at real political events, the targets smeared were angry lesbians (Hillary Clinton) or repulsive men with cult-like followings (Barack Obama). The show favored performances by fictional characters rather than responding to real events. The parody fell flat as it never engaged with actual news.168 This foreshadowed the very real danger satirists face today as they are trying with great difficulty to spoof personalities who already manifest as caricatures. So influential has satire become lately that it often remains the default measure for rationality; in which case, how can satire be satire? To return to Sarah Palin’s example again, here is Meghan McCain, daughter of 2016 Republican presidential candidate John McCain and an adviser to his campaign, evaluating her father’s running mate. It is noteworthy how she refers to SNL as a way to judge Palin’s competency, and to point out that the perceived image of Palin dominated everything else that was on her resume. Apparently, the McCain campaign, along with the media, was dazzled—at least for a while—by Palin’s perceived beauty and sex appeal and atypical political career. The media got over the Palin magic as soon as she started being interviewed, and focused on her lack of experience and expertise, and often her sheer lack of basic knowledge. Palin, truth be told, made the job easy for the media when, as discussed above, she was unable to name a single newspaper she read, or when she claimed that she could see Russia from her backyard, which she thought should count as foreign policy expertise. For the McCain campaign, the magic spell dissipated soon enough when they felt that Palin

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was competing with the presidential nominee for attention, and that she and her family drama had become the story instead of the campaign itself. The last quote by Meghan McCain is a reflection of Palin’s attitude and the overall reaction of the McCain camp: The original cast from Saturday Night Live (where I once worked) was called “The Not Ready for Prime Time Players.” That’s what the Palins looked like: not ready for prime time.169 The Palins were stunning, gorgeous, and color-coordinated. They are a spectacularly beautiful family to begin with, no matter what they are wearing—and perhaps even better looking in person than on TV.170 I mean no disrespect to them when I say this, but when they arrived from Alaska and unpacked their bags, they brought dramas, stress, complications, panic, and loads of uncertainty.171 There is a fine line between genius and insanity, they say, and choosing her as the running mate was starting to seem like the definition of that line.172 Sarah stepped back onstage by herself. She was waving to the crowd, saying hi to the cameras, almost as though she was in Alaska—not Arizona. What was she doing? I was shocked. It was as if she wanted to make the night about her, not my Dad. She was trying to have the last word, and the last wave.173

A recent example of the fusion between what is real and what is unreal is actor Kevin Spacey’s unceremonious exit from the Netflix series House of Cards—where he played the fictional president—after he was accused of sexual misconduct; note, however, that the real president actually has admitted to sexual transgressions in private conversations that have been exposed, but has suffered no consequences. The irony of the situation, where a fictional president is held to a higher standard than the real one, has not escaped the social media wits. Another example of the collision of the worlds became apparent when Colbert, the master of alternative reality, had to deal with the 2016 election result on live television and was shocked to find out that the winner was Trump. His agony was real, yet he had to continue performing on his show, while we the audience witnessed both the election result, which was real evidence of entertainment taking over politics, and its representation, Colbert watching helplessly as his brand of entertainment was being ruined by real politics. Which was the real and which was the copy was difficult to distinguish in this instance. Perhaps Baudrillard is right about the power of the copy of the copy becoming more real than the real. Colbert, to his credit, has mostly attempted to speak truth to power using his parody pulpit. When he was invited as the main speaker at the White House

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Correspondents’ Association Dinner in 2006,174 he started with soft punches but did not shy away from making loaded points about the president’s plunging approval ratings, the real reasons for the Iraq War, and the mismanagement of that war. Colbert’s performance did not play well with the mainstream media,175 which prompts us to ask again who sets the rules of discourse. Here are some spectacular lines from Colbert’s speech, which met with a cold shoulder for not maintaining a respectful tone toward a sitting president: As excited as I am to be here with the president, I am appalled to be surrounded by the liberal media that is destroying America, with the exception of Fox News. Fox News gives you both sides of every story: the president’s side, and the vice president’s side. I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least, and by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq. Now, I know there are some polls out there saying that this man has a thirty-two percent approval rating. But guys like us, we don’t pay attention to the polls. . . . We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in “reality.” And reality has a well-known liberal bias. Let’s review the rules. Here’s how it works: the president makes decisions. He’s the Decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put them through a spellcheck and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know . . . fiction!

He ends his performance with a mock audition tape for the post of press secretary, where legendary journalist, Helen Thomas (shunned by the Bush Administration) gets to ask the question, “Your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and Iraqis, wounding Americans and Iraqis for a lifetime. Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true. My question is, why did you really want to go to war?”176 Bush was reported to be livid, though he continued to smile throughout the performance. The more interesting aspect of this story is how Colbert, the darling of late-night satire, was treated by both the print and the digital media. The initial reaction of the media was a vast silence toward his performance. He was knocked down for breaking the implicit taboo of not criticizing a current president to his face, and even called unfunny, which surely must have stung the most. When Colbert transformed his satire into a blunt, unforgiving tool to speak truth to power, support for him and his art, both in the media and in the real world of politics, evaporated. Neither realm was ready with an appropriate

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reaction when the worlds of satire and politics collided in a meaningful way. This practice of exposing the president and bringing him down in person is now meaningless as President Trump refuses to be present at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner. Hasan Minhaj got away with his sharp reproof the first year of the Trump presidency, but the following year Michelle Wolf was upbraided for being improper and crass (just as Colbert was eviscerated for being impolite and unfunny), though her jokes were much milder than the alltoo-serious statements the president makes regularly.177 There is no dearth of argument about the political implications of satire, but the measurement of the impact of satire is mostly done through the gauges of popularity, awareness, or engagement (either self-defined or in terms of voter participation). Satire has been able to both educate and amuse its audience, a task at which the mainstream media has recently shown great ineptitude.178 The kind of investigative journalism that has become increasingly rare in the mainstream news media is reflected, for example, in many of Oliver’s field reports. One of the positive results of the recent collision between satire and politics is how much more informative satire has become. Stewart has been compared to Walter Cronkite as a trustworthy originator of real news for the millennial generation.179 Here is an explanation of the Dodd-Frank Act by Stewart, which can rival any description by real news and win handily. The segment opens with two cartoon characters, Jon Stewart and President Obama, and Obama explains the Act in response to Stewart’s queries: Stewart: What is this Dodd-Frank Act? Obama: It was an act to promote the financial stability of the United States by improving accountability and transparency in the financial system to end too big to fail, to protect the American taxpayer by ending bailouts, and to protect consumers from abusive financial services practices. Stewart: That sounds great. Have you read it? Obama: Are you kidding? I am told it has two thousand three hundred pages and is divided into sixteen titles. Stewart: What will the Financial Stability Oversight Council do? What are their duties, Mr. President? Obama: Jon, the council has three purposes. Number one, to identify the risks to the financial stability of the United States from both financial and nonfinancial organizations. Number two, to promote market discipline by eliminating expectations that the government will shield them from losses in the event of failure. And number three, to respond to emerging threats to the stability of the United States’ financial system. The council’s duties are to enhance the integrity, efficiency, competitiveness, and stability of United States financial markets to promote market discipline and to maintain

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investor confidence. The Financial Stability Oversight Council will have ten voting members and five nonvoting advisory members. Stewart: Wow. That all sounds very expensive. Obama: Well, the price of stability does not come cheap. Stewart: I hope we all get our money’s worth. Thank you for taking the time to explain this to me, Mr. President. I have learned a lot about the DoddFrank bill.180

During the government shutdown of 2013, the mainstream media was focused on hype and hysteria, engaging in a blame game, rather than a reasoned discussion of citizens being denied fundamental services, the exorbitant federal costs of closure, and government employees losing valuable work time. The Onion, in contrast, summarized the impact of the government shutdown succinctly: “Realistically, you won’t be affected by this very much in your day-to-day life, but you’ll feel the full effects during the 2014 midterm election when you lose your seat in Congress.”181 In 2018, The Onion did not lose another opportunity to take a stab at a looming shutdown: “12 Percent of Federal Government That’s Currently Functioning To Shut Down.”182 When Oliver interviews Edward Snowden (who seems to be otherwise invisible to the mainstream media) is it satire or real news? Oliver did a piece asking random people on the street who Snowden was. Most respondents did not recognize the name, and the ones who did only had a vague idea about what made Snowden famous. Oliver played the video to Snowden when the latter was describing his commitment to privacy rights and the right of the people to make decisions about the scope and range of activities of such important surveillance organizations as the National Security Agency (NSA). Oliver explains how American citizens do not care about foreign surveillance, and only worry about domestic surveillance when it is framed in terms of personal privacy violations. He asks people how they would feel if the government were allowed to look at pictures of their genitals, and in response to this question his respondents feel that the government would be using too much power. What Oliver is doing is still in the realm of satire, but he is also proving a larger point by isolating privacy rights in a personal way that resonates with people: Oliver: Why did you do this? Snowden: The NSA has the greatest surveillance capabilities that we have ever seen in history. Now what they will argue is that they don’t use this for nefarious purposes against American citizens. In some ways that is true but the real problem is that they are using these capabilities to make us

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vulnerable to them and then saying, Wow, I have a gun pointed at your head, I am not going to pull the trigger, trust me. Oliver: This is the most important line in the sand for people. Can they see my dick? . . . [Section] 702 surveillance, can they see my dick? Snowden: Yes. The FISA Amendment Act of 2008, which section 702 falls under, allows the bulk collection of Internet communications that are at one end foreign. . . . If you have your email . . . like Gmail hosted on a server overseas or transferred overseas, any time it crosses outside the border of the United States your junk ends up in the database. . . . Your wholly domestic communication between you and your wife can go from New York to London and back and get caught up in the database. Oliver: Executive Order 12333, dick or no dick? Snowden: Yes. 12333 is what the NSA uses when the other authorities are not aggressive enough or they are not catching as much as they like. . . . When you send your junk through Gmail, for example, that’s stored on Google’s servers. Google moves data from data center to data center invisibly to you without your knowledge. Your data could be moved outside the borders of the United States temporarily, and when your junk was passed by Gmail the NSA caught a copy of that. Oliver: Prism? Snowden: Prism is how they pull your junk out of Google with Google’s involvement. All of the different Prism partners—people like Yahoo, Facebook—the government deputizes them to be . . . their little surveillance sheriffs. Oliver: Upstream? Snowden: Upstream is how they snatch your junk as it transits the Internet. Oliver: Mystic? Snowden: If you are describing your junk on the phone, yes. Oliver: 215 Metadata? Snowden: No, but they can probably tell who you are sharing your junk pictures with because they are seeing who you are texting with, who you are calling.183

The role of news parodies in serving as a political tool raises two interrelated questions. It highlights the extent to which parody facilitates public involvement in electoral politics and legislative processes in ways that real news has failed to spur; real news informs, but satire perhaps motivates

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better, or at least has the potential to do so. The more important issue, however, is the impact of such engagement. Stewart has argued that his show has no political impact, but as often suggested in this book these frequent disavowals have to be taken with a grain of salt, and might well be the satirists’ preemptive fending off of attacks upon their presumed political role, which they haven’t explicitly been granted. It is a discomfort with political consequences that is new to satire, and a direct consequence of the postmodern ethos. Chevy Chase’s cruel impersonation of President Ford is often blamed, at least partially, for the incumbent’s electoral loss in 1976. There is no doubt that these shows have reanimated the concepts of accountability and transparency in government. On the other hand, politicians also use the platform to reach out to people. In the United States, self-degradation of a certain ironic kind is often perceived as reflecting strength and tenacity of character; therefore, appearing on SNL, or being interviewed by Stewart or Colbert and their many successors, or showing up on the even more controversial Maher’s panels has been embraced by politicians seeking the limelight.184 There is no doubt that genuine political satire, like good investigative journalism, can function as an instrument of democracy. It can illuminate injustice, point out hypocrisy, and tell us when government is not living up to ideals. Stewart, Colbert, Maher et al. are political, and they certainly have their biases, but more often than not they keep insisting that they are equalopportunity offenders—which, on its face, may be true, but it doesn’t take away from their general liberal tendency. At the same time, as I have discussed, there are many examples when political humor tends to be presented apolitically, highlighting personal lapses and presenting missteps as part and parcel of the democratic process, and thereby normalizing contradictions by defining them as maladies that are common and must be endured.185 Real satire such as Colbert’s excoriation of the press and the president sounds alarms of wrongdoing. In comparison, while Bush’s mispronunciation of strategery got laughter, it is disturbing that jokes about the WMD and the drone wars got the same degree of laughter without provoking disgust. Peterson provides an example of a successful parody, a sketch about the 1988 presidential debate between Bush Sr. and Massachusetts Governor Michael S. Dukakis, where, after a series of Bush slip-ups revealing his incompetency, Dukakis delivers the punch line, “I can’t believe I’m losing to this guy!”186 In contrast, the 2016 sketches portraying the Trump-Clinton debates focused mostly on body language (Trump creeping up behind Clinton) or catchphrases which were entertaining, but failed to capture the essence of the election: the fact that Trump’s nationalist cultural message was resonating with a considerable number of voters, speaking to their economic frustration. When satirists like Dave Chappelle refer to Trump as “the bad DJ at a good party”187 on Colbert’s The Late Show, it essentially treats Trump as detached

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from American history and politics and reflects our discomfort with a rough and rowdy president and his boastful feats, yet remaining unperturbed at the American political order which not only sustains Trump and his presidency but has produced many historical policies destructive to people, both at home and abroad. Genuine satire expertly leverages meaningful indignation, but pseudo-satire is simply dismissive as an end in itself.188 Peterson points out that the mainstream media started operating like entertainment channels before the emergence of political satire. As I have suggested earlier, it may well have been the lacuna left by the news which political satire rushed to fill in. Cable news channels needed to glue their viewers to the TV set at all hours of the day and night, and without the drama of suspense, conflict, sex, and violence, this simply could not have been done. As Peterson says, “By featuring John McCain as the Maverick, Al Gore as the Robot, Rudy Giuliani as the Serial Groom, Hillary Clinton as the Ice Queen, journalists (especially TV journalists) have a way to hook viewers used to cop dramas and soaps.”189 Television moves away from reporting legislative news and analysis, and instead the script that emerges is a phenomenon known as infotainment. The new trend of infotainment offers more news in terms of quantity, but the news has become bereft of substance. What sells instead of policy analysis is, for example, the breakdown of body language by professionals and rank amateurs alike—a staple of “news” commentary on every television channel, and even respectable print outlets, after any major political debate. The increasing focus on personal style over political substance has been true all across the board—on the campaign trail, in the media, on late-night television, and of course, lately on social media of all kinds.190 While the focus since the 2016 election has been on “fake news” sponsored by Russian agents or sites operating on Facebook and spreading disinformation or dissension among the Democratic party rank and file, to focus the ire on these (real or imagined) Russian perpetrators is to miss the point about the general distortion produced by social media. The problem is not a handful of renegade provocateurs of foreign origin, but the substance of the algorithms driving social media. These provide a constant newsfeed of self-affirming “political news” of a trivial nature to people of any ideological persuasion, the participants’ updates being cluttered with superficial analysis making them feel good about themselves. These changes in the media landscape, including social media, have been spurred by deregulation and globalization, and have ultimately influenced the quality, depth, and caliber of the material presented as news to the public, including across the spectrum of social media. And it is in this context that satire appears to have become more trustworthy than actual political news.191 Jones, however, argues that the division between politics and popular culture on television broadcasts was artificial to begin with, tied as it was with a structural requirement regarding public broadcasting. Prior to 1987, the

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FCC had required part of the programming to have a public interest component for broadcast licensing, and cable channels used their political shows to fulfill that obligation. These simulated categories and artificial divisions fell apart as soon as the requirements were eased, and the era of cable channels ensued. The oligopolies which controlled the media did away with competition of the kind that existed before deregulation, and now had the luxury of packaging politics as entertainment because they had no fear of losing their fragmented audience bases.192 SNL started its regular parody of political news in its “Weekend Update” segment in the mid-1970s, and in subsequent years network news subconsciously mimicked the template where convening the news becomes the news itself. In a postmodern turn, when satire became politics, politics turned into satire. Haugerud notes that “as ownership rules were loosened, a wave of mergers followed and the number of major media corporations plunged from fifty in 1983 to a mere five by 2004.”193 Media deregulation of the 1980s was further strengthened by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, a bipartisan agreement to allow unparalleled media consolidation. The consolidated media owners have deep investments in multiple media such as newspapers, magazines, movie studios, radio and television stations, and book publishing (as Oliver reports in his piece on the Sinclair Broadcasting Group). Mainstream journalism in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries has operated in a strikingly different political economy, where news, including investigative journalism, turns into a pure commodity, its value measured strictly in terms of viewership or popularity, and where, to enhance its value, it is presented as a spectacle, often dissected from its mundane context, thereby altering and shrinking the meaning of political issues.194 Programs, whether about politics or entertainment, are regarded as business and are only valuable if they attract or retain viewers. The print media has been hurt significantly in this different type of competition, measured by eyeballs alone. The 2008 financial crisis hammered the last nail into the coffin, because instead of being perceived as an important public service, newspapers came to be regarded as mere businesses which were not bringing in enough profits compared to other media. All the available technological advancement did not enhance the depth and quality of coverage; instead, while these advances expanded the breadth, they mostly allowed multiple sources to duplicate what was deemed popular. The rise of social media has only accelerated the echo effect, with leading political figures, television channels dedicated to their partisanship, and social media all working in tandem to cultivate exclusive audience bases. Meanwhile, the actual scarcity of investigative journalism has become hidden through multiple presentations of the same issues and takes all across the digital world. Moyers states that journalists in the early 2000s faced numerous pressures leading to self-censorship, which seriously weakened their objectivity and limited their power of choosing the content of the news.195

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The Onion was the first modern fake news site, but it proudly proclaimed itself as such. Fake news as propaganda did not have the same associations with American democracy before Trump stepped into office. Politics was turned into entertainment long before The Daily Show and The Colbert Report made entertainment more political. The question is not whether satire is political enough, but instead whether politics is only a façade of entertainment, and whether policy is being shaped apart from the politics that entertain us in the media. Satire can make us rethink our role in politics, encourage or discourage us from voting, and inform us about particular candidates and issues, but it shies away from challenging the overarching norms. In a way, when politics and entertainment became connected, politics and policy became disjointed. Here, for example, is Anderson Cooper describing President Trump at his infamous Arizona rally (of the type that has become so common now as to be barely newsworthy), followed by Trevor Noah describing Trump’s visit to the United Nations. Not only is the tone of reproach directed at the president by both the journalist and the satirist very similar, but just as Cooper does not mention the background of the Republican party’s comfort with racism and the fact that racists paved the way for Trump and the white supremacist rallies, Noah also presents Trump as completely different than past presidents, conveniently forgetting how America has historically dominated the United Nations. While Noah’s satire can perhaps be overlooked, because at least he is claiming to be entertaining people rather than providing a history lesson, Cooper has more of a responsibility to frame racism in the historical perspective and to show how it has evolved as an integral part of the current presidency with widespread support from the Republican Party: Cooper: Sometimes he does clearly think of himself as a victim, a victim of Republicans, reporters, leaking staffers, Democrats, and just about everyone else. Donald Trump, the world’s biggest victim trapped inside the body of the world’s most powerful man. . . . Last night, the president was supposed to talk about his accomplishments and his agenda but it became a seventy-seven-minute airing of grievances in which the president again went out of his way to make himself the victim in the tragedy of Charlottesville, a tragedy that had many real victims including Heather Heyer, just thirty-two years old, struck and killed by a driver on what authorities say was a mission of murder. Last night, the president mentioned Heather’s first name in passing but spent most of his time in Charlottesville trying to repeat and rewrite what he said and didn’t say immediately after the fact. . . . He said there were people quietly protesting the idea of removing a statue of Robert Lee in a torchlit march in Charlottesville on Friday night. What’s so stunning about those remarks about very fine people being at that torchlit march is that it was a well-organized march by neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and white nationalists. And they were chanting Nazi slogans and anti-Jewish slogans and it’s on tape. . . . With President Trump there’s always one constant: himself. It is always

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about himself, about his crowds, about his victory, his strength, his wealth, his intelligence, his speech, his reviews, his coverage, his innocence, him.196

Noah: Now the big event today was President Trump’s first address to the General Assembly, and expectations were high. . . . From a global perspective, it is refreshing to see an American leader who’s not going to dictate to the world. In fact, Donald Trump almost wants nothing to do with the world. . . . Trump didn’t just threaten Venezuela. He also called for sanctions on Cuba, an alliance against Iran, a new regime in Syria. . . . I don’t know what’s more insane, the fact that Donald Trump just stood in front of the United Nations and threatened to wipe out a country of twenty-five million people or the fact that he followed that up with “Rocket Man.” Like, you’re gonna follow it up with a little catchphrase joke? That’s like walking into a crowded space, pulling a gun and being like, “Did I do that?” Uh, yeah, you did. You know, honestly, when you watched this address, it felt less like a presidential address to the U.N. and more like an insult comic roasting the world. In fact, if Trump didn’t have power or nuclear weapons, I think that would be a pretty dope show.197

Satire as resistance is not a novel concept, but now satire is part of the mainstream cultural churn, and its effectiveness seems to have been blunted as it has become more visible. Parallel with the rise of political satire, different activist groups like Billionaires for Bush emerged or re-emerged on the cultural landscape. These groups were never taken seriously in politics, but were treated as part of the counterculture. In 2004, during the reelection campaign of President Bush, Billionaires for Bush suddenly became visible, as they were covered by CNN, ABC, and MSNBC, along with newspapers. Their parody was quite funny, and their message resonated with the people, but this gang of activists, satirists, and self-acclaimed “culture jammers” has so far only managed to make political dissent palatable and entertaining with their sharp wit, visuals, and presentation.198 Their placards with messages like “Corporations are people too,” “Widen the income gap,” “Taxes are not for everyone,” and “Thanks for the $700 billion check!”199 are no doubt ironic, but represent cultural meaning more than political agency. The mainstream American media’s coverage of anarchist protesters emphasizes their tactical actions rather than the issues motivating the protests, so that even when they are covered their messages are undermined. Their visibility and sardonic slogans during the 2004 Republican convention were deemed not threatening but amicable, proving the democratic values which allowed such space for dissent. Style over substance overshadowed the way Billionaires for Bush was portrayed only in terms of their tactics, drowning out their message.200 One member, Ken Mondschein, expressed his frustration thus: “The reason the media loves us is because we’re like sexy copy, we’re interesting, we’re that kind of quirky weird story that editors

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love, so we fit, we work very well with the media, we fit that paradigm that they want because that’s what we’re supposed to do, that’s what we’re engineered to do.”201 Portraying the protesters as others detracts from the element of responsible citizenship, their power to challenge the norms. This also implies that satirists are very much part of the mainstream, following the predictable narrative arc rather than questioning it. Any form of resistance, whether it takes place on the television screen or the streets, is now defined as performance. How can we define resistance when performance or play is defined as action, and the moment it is enacted it loses political agency anyway? One of the most creative contributions of Colbert to satire and politics has been Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow. In 2011, Colbert founded this Super PAC in front of a live TV audience to highlight the absurdity of campaign finance regulations and their designed ineffectiveness. The whole process—filing for the Super PAC, getting approval, passing it on to Stewart when Colbert briefly ran his presidential campaign, misusing the funds, not being held accountable, and bending the law by redefining “coordination”—everything was done on live television. In fact, the audience consisted of donors who had supplied large amounts of funding to run the mock Super PAC to expose how Super PACs really work. Spoofing both the style and content of the political ads run by Super PACs, Colbert ran ads asking voters to write in “Rick Parry, with an A for America,” or “Vote for Herman Cain,” with Colbert’s picture insinuating himself as Cain. He ran an ad targeting Mitt Romney, calling him a serial killer, because Romney as the head of Bain Capital had carved up corporations, and corporations are regarded as people by Romney. Colbert was intent on finding out the extent of what was allowed under the new campaign rules. He revealed that apparently there were no meaningful rules, and it was almost impossible to penalize anyone even if they clearly broke the very broad and flexible campaign finance restrictions. Colbert claimed that the Super PAC was not affiliated with his show, while he and Stewart called their common lawyer, Trevor Potter, to strategize for future political ads. Colbert won the Peabody award for his performance (and activism), but of course didn’t make a dent in actual campaign finance regulations.202 While it remains one of the best recent satirical efforts, it could not aspire to reform our blatantly unjust campaign finance methodology. Here are some excerpts from Colbert’s interviews: I have a Super PAC: the Colbert Super PAC. As far as I can tell, the difference between a PAC and a Super PAC is a cover letter because I formed a PAC but a PAC can only take so much money and it can only spend so much money, and I wanted to spend unlimited amounts of money and receive, more importantly, unlimited amounts of money. And so my lawyer told me all I had to do was add a cover letter that said I intended this to be a Super PAC and it was a Super PAC.

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There’s nothing in federal election law that says I can’t use all the money to buy myself a sailboat. . . . They [the FEC] can fine me, but they have to actually rule that I did something wrong and the FEC is a three-three organization and they’re far more likely to come to a tie in which they say “We don’t know whether you’ve done anything wrong,” in which case I can keep doing what I want. We’re Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow. And starting first thing tomorrow, we’re gonna figure out how to make the world a better place tomorrow. In the meantime, we’re just collecting money.203

Colbert (with the help of Stewart) revealed how simple it was to influence the election with money, how flexible and ineffective the regulations were, and how absurd the whole method was, and yet his brilliant masterpiece had little impact on reality.204 The fact that such powerful illumination did not leave any mark on the real political world is not only an example of how little power satire has but also how the political world is safe from any intervention, whether it is from satirists or ordinary citizens. The only way to challenge the Super PACs would be to overturn the Citizens United decision, which now seems an impossible dream, given the make-up of the Supreme Court. Anything else— however smart, sharp, and revealing—only validates the reign of Super PACS by proving how invincible they are, and along the way we get to laugh a little. All Colbert did was follow the legal channels of campaign fundraising, and this became a travesty unfolding according to rules written by the political establishment. His Super PAC existed in the real world, raised over a million dollars, and inspired many others to form Super PACs for the purpose of educating people or fighting the campaign finance laws that make it possible to form Super PACs. We come to the shocking realization that the Super PAC Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow is simultaneously a parody and a reality.205 Perhaps the focus of investigating the presumed Russian collusion in Trump’s election would be helped by a different sort of question: what makes it so easy for foreign governments to influence U.S. elections? It wasn’t Russian president Vladimir Putin, but the U.S. Supreme Court, which has made such situations inevitable. In January 2010, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in the case of Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that the government may not bar corporations from donating to political campaigns. As corporations are regarded to have equal rights like people, regulating political expenditures was interpreted as regulating public speech. With this ruling all previous efforts toward campaign finance reform were made futile, as there remained no further need for corporations to hide their funding for particular candidates or issues or parties. An enhanced version of the political action committee, called the Super PAC, was spurred by this ruling,206 and could raise unlimited sums of money from anyone, and overtly advocate for or against candidates or positions, without any meaningful scrutiny from the

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FEC. This ruling opened the floodgates to campaign contributions, as well as legitimizing secrecy and anonymity in campaign contributions by allowing a part of the Super PAC to be converted into a nonprofit group and then to use its 501(c)(4) nonprofit status to keep the list of donors private.207 Had the Bush administration been an anomaly, Colbert, Stewart, and all the other comedians would have been the greatest public servants. The problem is not what their roles are, but instead the shrinking media sphere and public space that elevates them so precipitously. In the past, satire had fun with news sources the public had already consumed. But as McClennen and Maisel have rightly asserted, “Today, satire is often the only source of news that the public consumes. And it is often a more trusted source of the news than the mainstream news outlets. This shift is extremely significant.”208 It seems that in this new environment, journalists are happy to embrace satirists, often counting on satire to make points that may be improper to make as journalists. Ever since President Trump has classified the mainstream media as “fake news,” journalists have been referring to this label as a badge of honor, and now both news and satire have been categorized as fake news. The connections between postmodern apathy and neoliberal free market ideology are what really form the basis for the current popularity of satire. While Stewart and Maher separate themselves from what they are satirizing, Colbert satirized himself to prove his point in his earlier show. But as McClennen suggests, This is tricky terrain . . . since in-character parody has both the potential to be more incisive in its critique and also more dangerous. When Colbert emulates the narcissism and egotism of right-wing pundits, creating a cult of personality, he runs the risk of merely mirroring the same passive viewing practices common to programs like The O’Reilly Factor.209

Narvaez has looked at truthiness, one of Colbert’s signal contributions to satire and politics alike, from a psychological angle and explored the implications of conflating morality and intuition.210 Truthiness would be funny if it were confined to the world of satire, but in this era of fake news it is truthiness that reigns over facts and truth. As Peterson so aptly summarizes, “The difference between mere truth-telling and the contemplation of truthiness lies in the distinction between merely pointing out the fact that the emperor wears no clothes and leading us to understand how we could have been led to ignore his nudity in the first place.”211 The Trump presidency is evidence of the duality of neoliberalism and multiculturalism that postmodernism allows to exist in parallel ways, while political policy is distanced from the realm of open cultural and social discussion. Activism works as performance but real political change is not possible through such tactics, unless, as with the case of the Tea Party I discussed

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earlier, activism intends to work through political institutions. The changes in economic reality can only be brought about with policy changes. But who sets the rules of conversation to decide whether a particular form of activism can translate into reality? Neoliberalism has shrunk the political space, turning citizens into audiences. The bargain with postmodernity seems to be for discrete groups to acquire cultural visibility, to be heard and seen, but not to acquire any other meaningful presence. The last point I want to pay attention to is how the interrelations and collisions between politics and entertainment manifest globally. The timing of OWS and the Arab Spring share a parallel, and we find that this confluence extends beyond street protest, sharing technologies, and even mimicking each other’s mode of protest. Political satire in America has changed the nature and content of satire all over the world, and its impact is perceptible in politics everywhere.212 Just as technology has allowed for the prevalence of satellite television in remote parts of the world, parody has emerged as a tool to question political authority throughout the world. Both neoliberalism and postmodernism require a global stage to truly flourish and extend their reach. The emergence of Al-Jazeera and its identification with the Middle East rather than just Qatar is an important example. The global media is also diluted with real and fake revolutionary programming. In Iran, the U.S. government orchestrated a program called Parazit (based in Washington, D.C.) through the Voice of America, using parody as their new mode of soft power. When the Iranian government wanted to shut down the program, it was unable to do so as the social media outlets utilized to view such programs were beyond the Iranian government’s control.213 Even where authoritarian regimes rule over and control all the power nodes, the media, which was once controlled by the state, has long ceased to be tantamount to public broadcasting services which could easily be hijacked, influenced, and manipulated by the leadership in any given state. The media was one of the first avenues of globalization. As soon as private commercial network channels started operating, satire, even in countries with authoritarian political systems, became a major vehicle of entertainment, and political satire could not be eliminated from that mix. Authoritarian regimes have often been helpless against the intrusion of technology. As noted by Baym and Jones, In India, parody appeared on the twenty-four-hour news channels, further effacing distinctions between informing citizens and entertaining customers. This was also an attempt to capture the younger audience who were simply not interested in the mainstream discourse of government and politics. The public broadcaster in Germany, ZDF, designed the heute-show following The Daily Show with the explicit intention of re-energizing public engagement by the younger generation. It is not a coincidence that this trend was paralleled in

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not only the western democracies of France and Italy, but also countries with more authoritarian and complicated governance, like Iran and Romania.214

It is in this new context that Noah’s framing of Trump as an African dictator makes perfect sense. We see Jacob Zuma, the then South African president, and Donald Trump, the then candidate, in clip after clip with eerily similar sensational claims and theatrical flair.215 According to Noah, Obama may have been the first black president, but Trump is the first real African president of America. In the age of neoliberalism and its postmodern presentation, the context where satire is interpreted has been expanded to a global stage beyond the reach of cultural memory. As the worldwide audience is being entertained by the new American political spectacle, it is fitting that we receive some of the feedback and meaning from viewers beyond the national boundaries. Echoing this fluid transition, Stewart has emerged as an international force from the national stage, inspiring many other satirists and journalists all over the world. One of his admirers, Bassem Youssef, the Egyptian satirist often referred to as the Egyptian Jon Stewart, began his show B+ on the Internet, based in his apartment with a single camera.216 He was arrested by the Egyptian government for insulting Islam and President Morsi. He was revered and reviled in equal measure for his criticism of the Morsi administration, including defense minister (and now president) Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, because many people believed that the Morsi government was at least democratically elected, and despite its mistakes was far better than the present government headed by el-Sisi, who seized power through a coup d’état. The power of parody is apparent in all its magnification when Egyptians fault a comedian for making the political situation worse for them. Satire is perceived as a powerful instrumentality even when its actual political impact remains limited. It offers a certain fluidity and familiarity that can transcend national and cultural boundaries. Whether or not the potential of satire can be utilized as a political vehicle depends not only on its quality but also the setting in which it operates. One way to argue for the prominence of satire, as I have done in this chapter, is to point out the merging of politics and entertainment on the global scale, and also highlight the transition of the media itself, the structure of global conglomeration which has had a profound effect on the values inherent in programming. As to why the sharp bite of satire has been slow to achieve even limited political gains, one reason can be that the real world of politics has transformed in accordance with neoliberal principles, where the space available for politics has shrunk, visibility rather than change has become the measurement for political engagement, and the rules of entertainment have taken over the rules of politics. It is to this final point that I turn to in the next chapter.

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NOTES 1. Stewart Justman, The Springs of Liberty: The Satiric Tradition and Freedom of Speech (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1999): 1. 2. Seth Graham, Resonant Dissonance: The Russian Joke in Cultural Context (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2009): 15. 3. Michael Billig, Laughter and Ridicule: Towards a Social Critique of Humor (London: Sage Publications, 2005): 39. 4. Ibid., 91. 5. Ibid., 57. 6. Ibid., 202–214. 7. John Morreall, Taking Laughter Seriously (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1983): 4–5. 8. Ibid., 8. 9. Ibid., 103–4. 10. Ibid., 20–1. 11. These are three prominent Democratic politicians caught in sex scandals that damaged their political careers. Anthony Weiner was a congressman from New York who resigned after his sexting behavior surfaced, and after a series of scandals is now serving in prison for engaging in sexting with an underage girl. Eliot Spitzer was the governor of New York who had to step down after only one year in office because of a sex scandal with a prostitute. Bill Clinton, the forty-second president of the United States, had an extramarital relationship with an intern while in office, and faced impeachment charges in the House for perjury and obstruction of justice but was acquitted in Senate proceedings. 12. Three prominent Republican politicians who were either alleged to have engaged in or were caught in sex scandals that damaged their political careers. Larry Craig, the Idaho senator, was arrested for lewd behavior in a men’s restroom in an airport and resigned after a guilty plea of disorderly conduct. David Vitter was the Louisiana senator who apologized and did not seek reelection after his involvement with an escort service surfaced in public. South Carolina governor Mark Sanford was caught having an extramarital affair but was able to hold on to his office and even get elected as a congressman from South Carolina. 13. https​://en​.wiki​pedia​.org/​wiki/​List_​of_fe​deral​_poli​tical​_sex_​scand​als_i​n_the​ _Unit​ed_St​ates.​ 14. Amanda Marcotte, “Todd Akin ‘Legitimate Rape’ Doesn’t Result in Conception, Unless You’re One of My Staffers.” Slate, July 17, 2014. http:​//www​.slat​e.com​/ blog​s/xx_​facto​r/201​4/07/​17/to​dd_ak​in_on​_msnb​c_a_n​umber​_of_p​eople​_on_m​y_sta​ ff_we​re_co​nceiv​ed_by​_rape​. 15. “Fact-ish: Parenting with the Enemy.” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, YouTube video, 5:58, April 9, 2015. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=xH7​OS5uJ​ GkY. Here is another actual example of this horrible provision. Natasha Salmon, “Man Who Raped 12-year-old Awarded Joint Custody of Her Child.” The Independent, October 8, 2017. https​://ww​w.yah​oo.co​m/new​s/man​-rape​d-12-​old-a​warde​d-114​ 90499​2.htm​l?.ts​rc=fa​uxdal​.

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16. One of the best examples of incongruity theory is the movie Life Is Beautiful (1997), which portrays a father and a son in a concentration camp during the Holocaust, where the father tries to shield his son from the brutality by inventing stories to explain the events that the five-year-old boy is mystified about and unable to fathom. The father, while powerless, uses humor to save his son from the inhuman cruelty, and the memories of the concentration camp, which could have been a source of trauma for the little boy, become happy memories with his father. While the movie exposes one of the most despicable events in human history, it uses humor and humaneness, which speak volumes more than any ridicule or sarcasm toward the perpetrators of the violence could have generated. 17. “Trump’s Twitter War of Words with North Korea: A Closer Look.” Late Night with Seth Meyers, YouTube video, 9:09, August 9, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​ com/w​atch?​v=6nU​4kfVZ​MAY. 18. “Ladies Who Book: Steve Bannon.” Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, YouTube video, 6:58, August 9, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=ej_​5vyDk​ZgU. 19. Julie Webber, The Cultural Set Up of Comedy: Affective Politics in the United States Post 9/11 (Chicago, IL: Intellect, 2013): 24. 20. Noël Carroll, Humour: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014): 76–7. 21. Julie Webber, The Cultural Set Up of Comedy: Affective Politics in the United States Post 9/11 (Chicago: Intellect, 2013): 4. 22. M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, The Pompadours: A Satire on the Art of Government, trans. David Magarshack (Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis Publishers, 1985): vii. 23. Karen L. Ryan, Stalin in Russian Satire, 1917-1991 (Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2009): 12–13. 24. Ibid., 5. 25. One example of humor as an instrument in the hands of the powerless is illustrated in the movie Rosewater (2014). This is Jon Stewart’s debut venture, and is based on the experiences of journalist Maziar Bahari, held in captivity for four months and interrogated brutally throughout that period. An interview and sketch that Bahari did with a journalist on The Daily Show was used as evidence that Bahari was a spy in communication with the American government and the CIA. While trying to understand the reasons for his imprisonment and dealing with the absurd charges of treason based on his appearance on a late-night comedy show, Bahari remembers only the strong smell of rosewater, a bizarre contrast to the whole ordeal. While the movie is not presented as satire, the premise that appearing on The Daily Show can be interpreted as evidence for treason has a Kafkaesque flavor to it. The plot itself is so ironic that there is almost no room for parody in the telling of the story. 26. James Poniewozik, “Colbert Rides a Trump Wave, While Fallon Treads Water,” The New York Times, February 22, 2017. https​://ww​w.nyt​imes.​com/2​017/0​ 2/22/​arts/​telev​ision​/colb​ert-f​allon​-trum​p-lat​e-nig​ht.ht​ml?_r​=0. 27. Horace, however, acknowledges Lucilius as his predecessor. Gilbert Highet, The Anatomy of Satire (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962): 24. 28. Ibid., 148. 29. Ibid., 235.

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30. M. H. Abrams. A Glossary of Literary Terms (Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace, 1999): s.v. “Satire.” 31. In 1854, after analyzing satirical elements in the works of Byron, Moore, Swift, Pope, Churchill, Erasmus, Sir David Lindsay, and George Buchanan, James Hannay lamented the absence of satirists on the contemporary British literary scene. James Hannay, Satire and Satirists: Six Lectures (London: Robson, Levey, and Franklin, 1854): 268–76. 32. Dustin Griffin. Satire: A Critical Reintroduction (Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1994): 133–9. 33. Ibid., 152. 34. Ibid., 155–6. 35. John Morreall, Taking Laughter Seriously (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1983): 103. 36. Julie Webber, The Cultural Set Up of Comedy: Affective Politics in the United States Post 9/11 (Chicago, IL: Intellect, 2013): 17. 37. A political party in power in Britain at the time, supporting constitutional monarchy as opposed to absolutist monarchy. 38. George Orwell, “Politics vs. Literature: An Examination of Gulliver’s Travels,” in Discussions of Jonathan Swift edited by John Traugott (Boston: D. C. Heath and Company, 1962): 91. 39. Anis Shivani, “Torsten Krol’s The Dolphin People: A Great Utopian Parable for Our Savage Times.” The Huffington Post, May 25, 2011. http:​//www​.huff​ingto​ npost​.com/​anis-​shiva​ni/hu​ffing​ton-p​ost-r​eview​s-t_b​_6162​15.ht​ml. 40. Jack Pendarvis, “Odell’s Bad Day.” The New York Times, April 10, 2009. http:​//www​.nyti​mes.c​om/20​09/04​/12/b​ooks/​revie​w/Pen​darvi​s-t.h​tml. 41. Stewart Justman, The Springs of Liberty: The Satiric Tradition and Freedom of Speech (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1999): 1–3. 42. Ibid., 3. 43. Michael L. Grynbome, “Michelle Wolf Routine Sets Off a Furor at An Annual Washington Dinner.” The New York Times, April 29, 2018. https​://ww​w.nyt​ imes.​com/2​018/0​4/29/​busin​ess/m​edia/​miche​lle-w​olfs-​routi​ne-se​ts-of​f-a-f​uror-​at-an​ -annu​al-wa​shing​ton-d​inner​.html​. 44. While white nationalists have recently been behaving with impunity, from their violent online verbal onslaughts against liberals to actual physical attacks, such as at the now infamous 2017 Charlottesville rally where they killed one protester, the liberal media is taking liberals themselves to task for the loss of civility represented in such acts as denying service to White House officials such as Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Stephen Miller, and numerous others. 45. W. O. S. Sutherland, Jr., The Art of the Satirists: Essays on the Satire of Augustan England (Austin, TX: The University of Texas Press, 1965): 127–8. 46. Bruce Ingham Granger, Political Satire in the American Revolution, 17631783 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1960): 3. 47. Diana Donald, The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996): 3. 48. Marcus Wood, Radical Satire and Print Culture, 1790-1822 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994): 264–9.

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49. Based on some ten thousand satirical prints from the period of George III’s reign, she has catalogued and analyzed satire in eighteenth-century England. Diana Donald, The Age of Caricature: Satirical Prints in the Reign of George III (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996): 1. 50. https​://ww​w.rev​olvy.​com/m​ain/i​ndex.​php?s​=Russ​ian%2​0joke​s&​;item​ _type​=topi​c. 51. https​://ww​w.rev​olvy.​com/m​ain/i​ndex.​php?s​=Russ​ian%2​0joke​s&​;item​ _type​=topi​c. 52. Seth Graham, Resonant Dissonance: The Russian Joke in Cultural Context (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2009): 3–8. 53. Ibid., 9–14. 54. Ibid., 44–7. 55. Steve Lipman, Laughter in Hell: The Use of Humor During the Holocaust (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson Inc., 1991): 10–2. 56. Rick Noack, “The Ugly History of ‘Lügenpresse,’ a Nazi Slur Shouted at a Trump Rally,” The Washington Post. October 24, 2016. https​://ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​ t.com​/news​/worl​dview​s/wp/​2016/​10/24​/the-​ugly-​histo​ry-of​-lueg​enpre​sse-a​-nazi​-slur​ -shou​ted-a​t-a-t​rump-​rally​/?utm​_term​=.776​4e972​d0ba.​ 57. Steve Lipman, Laughter in Hell: The Use of Humor During the Holocaust (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson Inc., 1991): 30. 58. Ibid., 31. 59. Ibid., 32–3. 60. Ibid., 27. 61. Ibid., 37. 62. Ibid., 8. 63. Ibid., 21–2. 64. Vijay Prasad, “The Political Life and Cinema of Comrade Charlie Chaplin.” The Wire. July 29, 2017. https​://th​ewire​.in/e​xtern​al-af​fairs​/char​lie-c​hapli​n-com​ munis​m. 65. Damon Young, “Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Fires Editorial Cartoonist Critical of Trump: Here’s Why That Should Scare the Shit Out of You.” VSB. June 15, 2018. https​://ve​rysma​rtbro​thas.​thero​ot.co​m/edi​toria​l-car​tooni​st-cr​itica​l-of-​trump​-fire​d-by-​ pitts​bu-18​26864​520. 66. Adam Serwer, “Trumpism, Realized.” The Atlantic. June 10, 2018. https​:// ww​w.the​atlan​tic.c​om/po​litic​s/arc​hive/​2018/​06/ch​ild-s​epara​tion/​56325​2. 67. Bruce Ingham Granger, Political Satire in the American Revolution, 17631783 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1960): 18. 68. The most important patriotic satirists were Benjamin Franklin, Philip Freneau, Francis Hopkinson, William Livingstone, John Trumbull, Mercy Warren, and John Witherspoon on the patriot side; Jacob Bailey, Jonathan Odell, and Joseph Stansbury on the loyalist side; and John André and Charles Lee, the English satirists residing in America. For details, see Bruce Ingham Granger, Political Satire in the American Revolution, 1763-1783 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1960): 6–8. 69. Samuel A. Tower, Cartoons and Lampoons: The Art of Political Satire (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982): 31–3.

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70. Carl Holliday, The Wit and Humor of Colonial Days: 1607-1800 (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincot Company, 1912): 17–28. 71. Ibid., 76–7. 72. Jesse Bier, The Rise and Fall of American Humor (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Wintson, 1968): 32. 73. Carl Holliday, The Wit and Humor of Colonial Days (1607-1800) (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincot Company, 1912): 88–9. 74. Alison Olson, “The Zenger Case Revisited: Satire, Sedition, and Political Debate in Eighteenth-Century America.” Early American Literature 35, no. 3 (2000): 223–6. 75. Bruce Ingham Granger, Political Satire in the American Revolution, 17631783 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1960): 5. 76. Carl Holliday, The Wit and Humor of Colonial Days (1607-1800) (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincot Company, 1912): 94. 77. Ibid., 101. 78. Ibid., 112–13. 79. Samuel A. Tower, Cartoons and Lampoons: The Art of Political Satire (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982): 36. 80. Alison Dagnes, A Conservative Walks Into a Bar: The Politics of Political Humor (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012): 85. 81. Alison Dagnes, A Conservative Walks Into a Bar: The Politics of Political Humor (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012): 83. 82. Ibid., 83. 83. Samuel A. Tower, Cartoons and Lampoons: The Art of Political Satire (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982): 39–40. 84. Ibid., 37. 85. Ibid., 41–3. 86. https​://en​.wiki​pedia​.org/​wiki/​Broth​er_Jo​natha​n. 87. Samuel A. Tower, Cartoons and Lampoons: The Art of Political Satire (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982): 50. 88. Ibid., 53–5. 89. Gary Dyer, British Satire and the Politics of Style, 1789-1832 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997): 8–13. 90. Ibid., 14. 91. Ibid., 21. 92. Samuel A. Tower, Cartoons and Lampoons: The Art of Political Satire (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982): 59–60. 93. Alison Dagnes, A Conservative Walks Into a Bar: The Politics of Political Humor (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012): 86. 94. Samuel A. Tower, Cartoons and Lampoons: The Art of Political Satire (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982): 116–129. 95. Ibid., 120. 96. Ibid., 99–115. 97. Richard Samuel West, Satire on Stone: The Political Cartoons of Joseph Keppler (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1988): 1–2.

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98. Samuel J. Thomas, “Mugwump Cartoonists, the Papacy, and Tammany Hall in America’s Gilded Age.” Religion and American Culture 14, no. 2 (Summer 2004): 213–14. 99. Alison Dagnes, A Conservative Walks Into a Bar: The Politics of Political Humor (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012): 90–1. 100. Jesse Bier, The Rise and Fall of American Humor (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Wintson, 1968): 119. 101. S. T. Joshi, ed., Ambrose Bierce: The Fall of the Republic and Other Political Satires (Knoxville, TN: The University of Tennessee Press, 2000): xx–viii. 102. Alison Dagnes, A Conservative Walks Into a Bar: The Politics of Political Humor (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012): 87. 103. Norris W. Yates, The American Humorist: Conscience of the Twentieth Century (Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1964: 31. 104. Samuel A. Tower, Cartoons and Lampoons: The Art of Political Satire (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982): 154–7. 105. Ibid., 158. 106. Ibid., 163. 107. Ibid., 149–50. 108. Samuel A. Tower, Cartoons and Lampoons: The Art of Political Satire (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982): 146–7. 109. Ibid., 146–7. 110. Ibid., 164–5. 111. Ibid., 160. 112. Ibid., 163. 113. Ibid., 164–72. 114. Alison Dagnes, A Conservative Walks Into a Bar: The Politics of Political Humor (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012): 101. 115. Jesse Bier, The Rise and Fall of American Humor (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Wintson, 1968): 28–9. 116. Alison Dagnes, A Conservative Walks Into a Bar: The Politics of Political Humor (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012): 99–100. 117. Ibid., 106. 118. Samuel A. Tower, Cartoons and Lampoons: The Art of Political Satire (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982): 173–80. 119. Ibid., 186–7. 120. Alison Dagnes, A Conservative Walks Into a Bar: The Politics of Political Humor (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012): 113. 121. Jesse Bier, The Rise and Fall of American Humor (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Wintson, 1968): 9. 122. Ibid., 17. 123. Ibid., 29–30. 124. Sophia A. McClennen and Remy M. Maisel, Is Satire Saving Our Nation? Mockery and American Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014): 110–1. 125. Samuel A. Tower, Cartoons and Lampoons: The Art of Political Satire (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1982): 184.

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126. Leonard Feinberg, Introduction to Satire (Ames: University of Iowa Press, 1967). 127. Jeffrey P. Jones, Entertaining Politics: Satiric Television and Political Engagement (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010): 210. 128. Ibid., 182. 129. “Jon Stewart Implodes Crossfire in 2004.” YouTube video, 10:02, March 27, 2016. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=Cvn​yBCjP​tmU. 130. “Rick Santelli Calls for Tea Party on Floor of Chicago Board of Trade.” YouTube video, 5:16, February 19, 2009. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=wcv​ SjKCU​_Zo. 131. “The Listening Post: Jon Stewart vs. CNBC.” Al Jazeera English, YouTube video, 11:18, March 21, 2009. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=N3L​CZ3wT​DoQ. 132. “Jon Stewart Slams Jim Cramer.” YouTube video, 5:07, January 8, 2014. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=Nky​tKDzC​EeU. 133. “Jim Cramer Fighting Jon Stewart.” The Young Turks, YouTube video, 4:34, March 10, 2009. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=k9b​y4zHp​F_M. 134. Jody C. Baumgartner and Jonathan S. Morris. “Stoned Slackers or Super Citizens? The Daily Show Viewing and Political Engagement of Young Adults,” in The Stewart/Colbert Effect: Essays on the Real Impacts of Fake News, edited by Amarnath Amarasingam (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2011): 76. 135. Marissa Martinelli, “Trevor Noah on Antifa Violence: You Think You’re Punching Nazis, but You’re Also Punching Your Cause.” Slate. September 1, 2017. http:​//www​.slat​e.com​/blog​s/bro​wbeat​/2017​/09/0​1/tre​vor_n​oah_o​n_ant​ifa_v​iolen​ce_ vi​deo.h​tml. 136. “Brown in Town: A West Texas Water Crisis.” The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, YouTube video, 7:15, April 19, 2017. http:​//www​.cc.c​om/vi​deo-c​lips/​85lgi​ d/the​-dail​y-sho​w-wit​h-tre​vor-n​oah-b​rown-​in-to​wn---​a-wes​t-tex​as-wa​ter-c​risis​?xrs=​ synd_​faceb​ook_0​42017​_tds_​91. 137. “North Korea.” Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), YouTube video, 26:59, August 13, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=TrS​0uNBu​G9c. 138. “About North Korea.” Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, YouTube video, 6:34, December 6, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=Yg-​kG4kl​5dE. 139. DACA is an executive order by President Obama whereby the administration established a new short-term immigrant visa with work authorization (and eligibility to get driver’s licenses) for young adults who were undocumented but came to this country as minors. Introduced in 2012, it was renewed in 2014, but the Trump administration has rescinded this provision. The ultimate fate of DACA recipients remains to be determined. 140. Andrew Husband, “Stephen Colbert Delivers an Emotional Plea to Fellow Americans about Immigration.” UPROXX. June 15, 2018. https​://up​roxx.​com/t​v/ste​ phen-​colbe​rt-je​ff-se​ssion​s-imm​igrat​ion-l​ate-s​how. 141. “Presidential Interviews: Barack Obama.” Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, YouTube video, 5:44, October 31, 2016. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=b0y​ ONlMj​xjs. 142. “Make America Sick Again.” Real Time with Bill Maher, YouTube video, 7:07, June 23, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=sMF​gCSwA​Ozs.

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143. Alison Dagnes, A Conservative Walks Into a Bar: The Politics of Political Humor (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012): 26. 144. David Croteau and William Hoynes, The Business of Media: Corporate Media and Public Interest (Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 2001): 175–6. 145. Ibid., 175. 146. “Will Ferrell’s Full Speech as George W. Bush at #NotTheWHCD.” Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, YouTube video, 11:40, May 15, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​ tube.​com/w​atch?​v=KZ7​S-ymy​aZ4. 147. Alison Dagnes, A Conservative Walks Into a Bar: The Politics of Political Humor (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012): 79–80. 148. Ibid., 80. 149. Ibid., 22. 150. Sophia A. McClennen and Remy M. Maisel, Is Satire Saving Our Nation? Mockery and American Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014): 7. 151. Dustin Griffin, Satire: A Critical Reintroduction (Lexington, KY: The University Press of Kentucky, 1994): 145. 152. Comedian Al Franken was elected as a senator from Minnesota in 2009 and served until 2018, stepping down after an alleged sex scandal. 153. M. D. Fletcher, Contemporary Political Satire: Narrative Strategies in the Post-Modern Context (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1987): 14–15. 154. “Mike Learns About Ethics.” The President Show. Comedy Central UK, YouTube video, 5:09, August 4, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=GLU​ Es4zm​BHw. 155. “The President Pushes His Luck.” The President Show. Comedy Central UK, YouTube video, 3:58, June 16, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=Kbj​ jBtNM​W5s. 156. “The President Smashes Everything.” The President Show. Comedy Central UK, YouTube video, 4:17, July 21, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=AkT​ mtPW-​rro. 157. “The President Is Extremely Patriotic.” The President Show. Comedy Central, YouTube video, 3:04, September 28, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​ v=Bcu​07Ml7​HSU&a​mp;li​st=RD​GDmQp​gp-gV​Y&​;inde​x=7. 158. “The President Meets His Best Friend Bernie.” The President Show. Comedy Central UK, YouTube video, 4:02, May 19, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​ v=Gw1​QSIVi​d4E. 159. Amber Day, Satire and Dissent: Interventions in Contemporary Political Debate (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2011): 43. 160. “Katie Couric Interviews Sarah Palin.” CBS Evening News Exclusive, YouTube video, 28:33, October 31, 2008. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=-ZV​ h_u5R​yiU. 161. “Tina Fey Quotes Sarah Palin Word for Word.” NewsPoliticsInfo, YouTube video, 0:51, February 8, 2010. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=vgR​A8oTk​8ig; “Tina Fey Does Again.” Showbiz Tonight, YouTube video, 8:34, September 30, 2008. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=L5E​E_OIv​I5U. 162. https​://ww​w.bra​inyqu​ote.c​om/au​thors​/sara​h_pal​in.

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163. Laurie Ouellette, “Branding the Right: The Affective Economy of Sarah Palin,” Cinema Journal 51, no. 4 (Summer 2012): 188. 164. Ibid., 185–6. 165. Ibid., 186. 166. Amber Day, Satire and Dissent: Interventions in Contemporary Political Debate (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2011): 51. 167. Geoffrey Baym, “Rush Limbaugh with a Laugh-Track: The (Thankfully) Short Life of The ½ Hour News Hour,” Cinema Journal 51 no. 4 (Summer 2012): 172–4. 168. Ibid., 174–5. 169. Meghan McCain, Dirty Sexy Politics (New York: Hyperion Books, 2010): 32. 170. Ibid., 114. 171. Ibid., 115. 172. Ibid., 130. 173. Ibid., 170. 174. “Stephen Colbert Roasts Bush at 2006 White House Correspondents’ Dinner.” April 28, 2012. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=2X9​3u3an​Tco. 175. Russell L. Peterson, Strange Bedfellows: How Late-Night Comedy Turns Democracy Into a Joke (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008): 8–9. 176. “Reimproved Colbert Transcript.” Daily Kos. April 30, 2006. https​://ww​ w.dai​lykos​.com/​stori​es/20​06/4/​30/20​6303.​ 177. As an example, when sixteen different women accused Trump of sexual misconduct, he responded that the women bringing the charges were too ugly for him to pursue. 178. Russell L. Peterson, Strange Bedfellows: How Late-Night Comedy Turns Democracy Into a Joke (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008): 11. 179. Ibid., 45. 180. “Obama Explains the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act to Jon Stewart.” The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, YouTube video, 7:31, April 23, 2012. https​://ww​ w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=KWN​6mDQ7​WEE. 181. https​://po​litic​s.the​onion​.com/​what-​a-gov​ernme​nt-sh​utdow​n-mea​ns-fo​r-you​ -1819​59139​3. 182. https​://po​litic​s.the​onion​.com/​12-of​-fede​ral-g​overn​ment-​thats​-curr​ently​-func​ tioni​ng-t-​18222​38197​. 183. “Government Surveillance.” Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), YouTube video, 33:13, April 15, 2015. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=XEV​ lyP4_​11M. 184. Geoffrey Baym and Jeffrey P. Jones, “News Parody in Global Perspective: Politics, Power, and Resistance,” in News Parody and Political Satire Across the Globe, edited by Geoffrey Baym and Jeffrey P. Jones (New York: Routledge, 2013): 11. 185. Jimmy Fallon suffered a backlash when during the 2016 election season he had candidate Trump as his guest, but instead of asking pressing questions opted to ask him about his hair. 186. Russell L. Peterson, Strange Bedfellows: How Late-Night Comedy Turns Democracy Into a Joke (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008): 25.

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187. “Dave Chappelle Updates His ‘Give Trump a Chance’ Statement.” The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. YouTube video, 8:06, August 3, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​ tube.​com/w​atch?​v=5rj​tKMcv​qwA. 188. Russell L. Peterson, Strange Bedfellows: How Late-Night Comedy Turns Democracy Into a Joke (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008): 26. 189. Ibid., 63. 190. Ibid., 64. 191. Sophia A. McClennen and Remy M. Maisel, Is Satire Saving Our Nation? Mockery and American Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014): 55. 192. Jeffrey P. Jones, Entertaining Politics: Satiric Television and Political Engagement (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010): 6. 193. Angelique Haugerud, No Billionaire Left Behind (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013): 169. 194. Ibid., 169. 195. Ibid., 170–1. 196. “A Tale of Two Presidents.” Anderson Cooper 360, CNN, YouTube video, 16:15, August 24, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=tuk​yTSuV​A44. 197. “A Trumpian Debut at the United Nations.” The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, YouTube video, 7:50, September 19, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​ v=xWI​8jpql​VNE. 198. Angelique Haugerud, No Billionaire Left Behind (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013): 8. 199. Ibid., 25–6. 200. Ibid., 178. 201. Ibid., 183. 202. Sophia A. McClennen and Remy M. Maisel, Is Satire Saving Our Nation? Mockery and American Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014): 38–41. 203. “Colbert’s Super PAC.” A Compilation of Interviews with Stephen Colbert on Super PAC. April 22, 2013. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=Yuy​YBE0m​ D-s&a​mp;t=​59s. 204. Angelique Haugerud, No Billionaire Left Behind (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013): 51–2. 205. Sophia A. McClennen and Remy M. Maisel, Is Satire Saving Our Nation? Mockery and American Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014): 42–45. 206. https​://en​.wiki​pedia​.org/​wiki/​Polit​ical_​actio​n_com​mitte​e#Sup​er_PA​Cs. 207. Sophia A. McClennen and Remy M. Maisel, Is Satire Saving Our Nation? Mockery and American Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014): 38. 208. Ibid., 7. 209. Sophia A. McClennen, America According to Colbert: Satire as Public Pedagogy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011): 9. 210. Darcia Narvaez, “Moral Complexity: The Fatal Attraction of Truthiness and the Importance of Mature Moral Functioning.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 5, no. 2 (March 2010): 163–81. 211. Russell L. Peterson, Strange Bedfellows: How Late-Night Comedy Turns Democracy Into a Joke (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008): 144–5.

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212. Geoffrey Baym and Jeffrey P. Jones, “News Parody in Global Perspective: Politics, Power, and Resistance,” in News Parody and Political Satire Across the Globe, edited by Geoffrey Baym and Jeffrey P. Jones (New York: Routledge, 2013): 8–9. 213. Ibid., 8–9. 214. Ibid., 8–11. 215. “How South Africa Could Prepare the U.S. for President Trump.” The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, YouTube video, 11:49, November 16, 2016. https​://ww​ w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=5tK​OV0Kq​Plg. 216. Julie Webber, The Cultural Set Up of Comedy: Affective Politics in the United States Post 9/11 (Chicago, IL: Intellect, 2013): 176–7.

Part III

The Inevitable Trump Presidency

THE PRESIDENCY AND THE MEDIA Meyers: Donald Trump has been saying that he will run for president as a Republican, which is surprising as I just assumed that he was running as a joke.1 Meyers: Our last teen slang term is the “Trump Presidency.” It’s a noun used when you’re pretty sure the teacher doesn’t understand the material. Here it is in a sentence: “History class today felt like a real Trump Presidency. Mr. Solomon just said, ‘The Teapot Dome Scandal was a very big scandal. Huge scandal. Lots of broken teapots. Lots of unhappy people without tea. A tremendous scandal. Everyone says so. SAD!!’”2

It is only fitting to start the discussion about President Trump with quotes from Seth Meyers, as he has been held partly responsible for pushing Donald Trump to seek the Republican nomination because of his scathing jokes at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in 2011. Meyers has publicly apologized for his role in unintentionally promoting the Trump candidacy and presidency.3 John Oliver also urged Trump to run on national television and has owned up to his folly as well.4 It is also pertinent to note that the second quotation is from after Trump became president, and the joke by Meyers is reflective of how Trump is portrayed on late-night satire. Having fun with political candidates is hardly new, and in American politics has often been a rite of passage for measuring popularity, resilience, and the candidate’s rapport with the media. Even though Trump had long been a celebrity—since his early days as a prominent New York City real estate developer—and enjoyed profuse media attention due to his various risky investments, divorce scandals, and bankruptcies, his relationship with the 175

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media has been complex, conflictual, and more rife with paradox than any other candidacy or presidency in a number of perplexing ways. We have to situate the liaison between this presidency and the media in a historical framework in order to analyze the rationale, form, and trend of the concord that has developed, and try to figure out whether the new regime differs in any substantive way from past manifestations. The awareness of the significance of the relationship between the media and the presidency predates modern media. Charles Farrar Browne and his alter ego Artemus Ward enjoyed the adulation of President Lincoln, and his imaginary interview with Lincoln, which appeared in Vanity Fair in 1860, was one of the first instances of the use of a manufactured story that enjoyed wide readership and appreciation.5 Prior to this example, satirists mostly used their penmanship and performance to direct flak at the powerful. Even Benjamin Franklin, who was very much a part of the political elite, persisted with the same spirit, first targeting the British monarchy, and then challenging social mores in his Poor Richard’s Almanack. Mark Twain with his criticism of the Gilded Age and the growing imperial wars, as well as with his authorship of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), one of the most important American social commentaries, greatly elevated the role of the satirist. Twain was not only a literary writer and a gifted satirist, who incidentally also performed stand-up comedy, but he was also a widely known public figure and revered intellectual who enjoyed great popularity, and even frenzied adoration, well before the advent of visual media. As discussed earlier, he remained critical of not only exploitation of political power, but of the presidency in general, in spite of his amicable personal relations with several presidents, notably President Theodore Roosevelt.6 This age-old American trend of retaining philosophical disagreements in a professional setting is fading in the Trump era. The early twentieth century knew Will Rogers as one of the most famous satirists and performers in the pre-television era. He did not shy away from making jokes about President Woodrow Wilson, even when he had the president in his audience. Apparently President Wilson was so taken by Rogers’s one-liners that he repeated some of these snubs in his own speeches. A famous one-liner by Will Rogers went, “I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.”7 Rogers may well have been a predecessor of Stephen Colbert, because as far back as 1928 he ran a mock presidential campaign with the only promise that he would resign if he won. Although Rogers did not enjoy an equally warm reception from all the succeeding presidents, his voice and antics, looming over the airwaves on multiple radio shows, were regarded as politically critical. President Calvin Coolidge invited him as a guest at the White House, while President Herbert Hoover asked him to promote and support the President’s Organization for Unemployment

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Relief (POUR) through nationwide broadcasts. Robinson goes as far as to credit Rogers for initiating the connection between politics and humor, a trend that has proved to be irreversible.8 Comedy and politics have also signified uncomfortable associations, as depicted in the public shaming by President Eisenhower of his opponent Adlai Stevenson in 1952 for inserting humor into the presidential campaign which the president considered beneath the dignity of the office.9 As discussed earlier, television and politics did not start out with mutual respect, especially when it came to critiquing American policies or the president, with or without humor. Television was geared to creating a wholesome space for entertainment by keeping out the worrisome realities of difficult wars, troublesome race relations, burgeoning social unrest, and continuing economic injustice off the TV screen. This does not mean that political humor was absent from American society, but it does mean that it was largely absent from the media in the 1950s and 1960s. As with jazz music, political comedy was relegated to a niche space in the counterculture and had to wait its turn to eventually be accepted and celebrated in mainstream culture. The bland family-oriented TV screen of the 1950s and a large part of the 1960s had its other side in the burgeoning stand-up comedy scene where political satire evolved in all seriousness. Those who used politics, including presidential politics, as fodder for their acts were the “new wave” comedians such as Lenny Bruce, Bob Newhart, Dick Gregory, and Mort Sahl, but their acts were confined to stand-up comedy in improv theaters and considered unfit for family audiences. The controversial issues of the day received attention through the unrelenting gaze of the stand-up comedians, who both eased and intensified the tensions surrounding the difficult issues.10 Bruce sticks out as a stand-up comedian who did not hesitate to deploy his considerable comedic and linguistic skills to challenge the reigning social and political discourse and to shock people to their core. He was never awarded any space within the mainstream media, but instead had to spend time in prison over obscenity charges. Bruce was popular but notorious, a bad boy whose satire had no place on American television and by extension in the living rooms of American families. It was much later, in the 1970s, that with SNL the media finally figured out the perfect formula for using presidential politics as rewarding entertainment, commercializing and commodifying politics as a central theme of responsive theatrics rather than avoiding it for fear of offending the audience. As discussed in previous chapters, there had been earlier attempts such as TWTWTW (1961–65), Laugh-In (originally aired as a one-time show in 1967, and ran as a regular series from 1968 to 1973), and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour (1967–70), but it was SNL which provided the consistent and

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constant space in the media where politics and entertainment fused, sometimes in delirious play.11 On the other hand, the long years of conflict at the peak of the Cold War, from the Korean War12 to the Vietnam War, resulted in the use of political humor as state propaganda, often in caricatures of enemies or in the shape of comedians performing for U.S. soldiers deployed on war fronts. Resistance toward the Vietnam War and Watergate finally broke the taboo against manhandling the president over serious policy debacles. In a striking change of norms, Johnny Carson emerged as a celebrity vying with the president in terms of popularity. This is how Robinson sums up the significance and role of Carson’s newly acquired power in influencing the rules and space of satire in the media, and in having an impact that would last far beyond his own show: “In 1974 Carson delivered an ultimatum to NBC, demanding that it stop airing reruns of Tonight Show material on Saturday nights. Driven by economic necessity, the network gave license to Lorne Michaels, a former Laugh-In writer, to assemble the ingredients for SNL, which permanently made presidential satire a centerpiece of American popular culture.”13 It is worth noting that both Carson and SNL made fun of issues or personalities once there was a cultural consensus about what deserved to be mocked regardless of party affiliation. This is substantially different from the mutually exclusive audience base who feed today on political news presented with diametrically opposed worldviews. These new audience bases are unable to share a laugh as their definition of reality radically diverges based on which news channels they watch and believe in. Back in the simpler times of a singular reality, commercialization of comedy and presidential politics led to a mutually beneficial relationship between the White House and the media.14 SNL started projecting various presidents in a broad frame which has proven to be consequential for public consumption of politics as well as entertainment. Regardless of how presidents felt they were being portrayed, they could not desert the medium which provided them with the opportunity to reach out to the American people with such ease and convenience. The significance of this symbiotic relationship between the president and comedy was lost on no one. As mentioned earlier, even President Nixon, who famously hated the media and was even more wary of comedians, made an appearance on Laugh-In during his 1968 presidential campaign.15 Things took a wild turn when Watergate provided an easy choice to comedians and the mainstream media to present Nixon in a thoroughly negative frame. Compared to the elegant Kennedy, during his first presidential run Nixon did not evoke much empathy or laughter, but at least he had been able to shrug off his bitter failure with the witticism that he was “a dropout from the Electoral College, because . . . [he] flunked debating.”16 The media

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and comedians portrayed Nixon as ill-tempered throughout the 1960s, but after Watergate as evil, with Nixon never helping his own case. His press secretary, Gerald Warren, admitted that Nixon’s humor was mainly unintentional.17 He desperately wanted to be respected, more than he wanted to be liked,18 and this frame of mind shaped his relations with the media. Gardner asserts that Nixon’s presidency might not have ended in such disgrace had he possessed a more pleasant style and some comforting geniality.19 Impressionist David Frye released an album, Richard Nixon: A Fantasy, satirizing Nixon as a gangster in 1973,20 before the Watergate scandal. In subsequent years too, the office of the president was increasingly being perceived by people through the prism of satire, which often loomed large over storylines deriving from policy and substance. American presidents generally have to satisfy two contradictory demands: rising to the level of the hero and being human enough to come down to the level of the common people. Satire has often been the tool through which presidential follies can be exaggerated not only to generate laughter but to tame the larger-than-life character that the president represents to most people. SNL helped to produce that space and for years almost single-handedly assembled a frame within which viewers could readily assess and connect to the president and other important public figures. This circular process of hero-worshipping while taking the hero down a few notches reaches back to the early history of the nation and has been circulating unceasingly ever since.21 In the previous chapter, the examples from cartoons contain glorification of presidents as saviors (such as Lincoln) and simultaneous contemptuous portrayal of their alleged political manipulation (Lincoln can serve as an example in this category as well). In a contemporary manifestation of this circularity winding back upon itself, both Stewart and Colbert have often sought fictional advice from presidents Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin, portraying them on their shows with all their flaws, yet revering them. For contemporary satirists, it seems not entirely possible to rely on existing political figures when teaching lessons in civics, because the era as a whole has been tainted by the broad brush of their cynicism, so for a romantic interpretation of American civic morality they must return to a frame outside present conditions, yet even this earlier romantic frame must then be infected with the postmodern strain of all moralities being relative. A comparison between how President Kennedy and President Johnson were viewed by the media is an apt example of the media’s power to define the character of the president for the broad electorate. Kennedy maintained good rapport with the press with his genteel humor and sophisticated oneliners, and became a darling of the press, a factor that immensely helped him during crises like the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. His wry wit perfectly matched his charisma and confidence, and he delivered his ironic

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lines with exquisite timing. When Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., the patriarch of the family, was accused of buying the presidential election for his son, the latter responded in public: “I just received a telegram from my father. He says, ‘Don’t buy one more vote than you need. I’ll be damned if I’ll pay for a landslide.’”22 On the other hand, President Johnson’s image is forever entwined with the depressing management of the Vietnam quagmire, his charm and wit (he had talent for a kind of mimicry which was both cruel and crude) drowned in the image of the war president who did not keep his word. As a result, much of his accomplishments enhancing citizenship rights for many groups remain underappreciated until today.23 After the years of tart parodying of Nixon, President Ford proved to be a delightful subject for comedy. As Gardner asserts, “Ford gave America three years of good government and eight years of comedy material.”24 He accidentally landed the positions of vice president and then president, and his non-election was surrounded by a lot of confusion and perplexity. Ford himself added to that mix with unfortunate accidents, helping SNL with the framing of his presidency. Ford, like a good sport, embraced the SNL characterization of himself as someone who was physically and intellectually inept as a badge of honor, when in reality he was probably the most athletically gifted American president ever. Ford was widely perceived to be unimaginative and inarticulate, but was able to use his wit not only to improve his image25 but to genuinely connect with people. He used humor to ease the tension surrounding the Nixon debacle, the Vietnam War, hyperinflation, and the legitimacy of his own presidency. In his second major address as president, Ford opened his speech with these words: “So much has happened since I received this invitation to speak here today. At that time, I was America’s first instant vice-president. Today I’m America’s first instant president. The United States Marine Corps Band is so confused they don’t know whether to play ‘Hail to the Chief’ or ‘You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby.’”26 As mentioned before, Ford wrote a book called Humor and the Presidency (1987), where he states that the enormous power of the presidency has to be balanced with humor, especially of a self-deprecating vein, to reach out to the audience.27 During the primary campaign of 1976 between Ronald Reagan and himself, the Panama Canal emerged as a complicated issue; in that connection, he recalls with pride how he wore a Panama hat, but never specifically addressed the issue.28 SNL’s first presidential impression was of Ford, portrayed by Chevy Chase, who mostly acted confused and fell down a lot.29 With the objective of exercising damage control, press secretary Ron Nessen reached out to one SNL writer, Al Franken, expressing his wish to host the show, which started the tradition of political figures acting as guest hosts.30 Ford took so much pride in his selfdisparaging humor that the White House exacted appropriate revenge on Chase during the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner where Chase was

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the guest of honor. The president got up from the table and dropped silverware all over the floor, the audience at first not even realizing that the whole performance was staged. He even pretended to lose his speech with papers flying all over, but delivered with poise the punch line, “Good evening, I’m Gerald Ford,” and then turning to Chase, he said, “And you’re not.”31 When Chase was invited to Air Force One, Ford attempted to trip him up with his foot, and the picture caused quite a bit of commotion and laughter, as people marveled at the president who was thought to have finally got his revenge. The success of SNL, and Chase in particular, in defining the persona of the president proved to be ineffective when it came to President Carter. Carter’s moralistic demeanor was not cut out for self-deprecating humor. He entered the White house to bring back honesty, dignity, and decency, and in his own mind as well as in the minds of the electorate, humor had very little role to play in the task of national rejuvenation he had set for himself.32 The portrayal of Carter in the classic SNL sketch as a micromanager33 was based on a real radio callin show that was broadcast on the CBS Radio Network.34 Carter appeared too serious and often falsely modest in his notorious interview with Playboy,35 and the SNL spoof which portrays the president as uninterested in sex was based on

Image 3.1  President Ford and Chevy Chase. University of Michigan, “Gerald Ford and Chevy Chase,” 1986, photograph, Conference on Humor and the Presidency at the Gerald R. Ford Museum. Wikimedia Commons, January 29, 2015, https​://co​mmons​ .wiki​media​.org/​w/ind​ex.ph​p?tit​le=Fi​le:Ge​rald_​Ford_​and_C​hevy_​Chase​.jpeg​&​oldid​ =1482​90082​.

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that self-representation. Carter had to request broadcast time from all three networks—CBS, NBC, and ABC—for his landmark speech on energy, as CBS was reluctant to provide live coverage, and both NBC and ABC were also hesitant to interrupt their scheduled programming. The three major networks were often unresponsive to White House notifications of Carter’s addresses.36 The fact that Carter could be acrimonious in chiding the Washington establishment did not help, and his relationship with the White House press corps remained tense until the end.37 This mutual distance, even disinterest, between the presidency and the media tarnished Carter’s image, especially in comparison with the soon to be successful candidacy of Ronald Reagan, who was much more savvy in his dealings with the media and with comedic impressions of him. Satirists, taking their cue from the mainstream media, were generally unenthusiastic about Carter. Rubenstein has described the American presidency as being at the heart of political imagery in both cultural narratives (Hollywood movies) and political coverage, finding the conflation of these two landscapes a ritualistic feature of the American experience. She refers to Marilyn Monroe’s sultry singing of “Happy Birthday, Mr. President,” and its subsequent acceptance as an iconic code of culture that transcends both politics and entertainment.38 While she elucidates the differing presidencies of George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton to argue how symbolism and metaphors occupy a central stage in the way we understand American presidents, her take on the Reagan presidency is the most interesting because she finds the tactics of the great communicator hyperreal. As president, Reagan’s movie persona was being reproduced in the real political arena, mirroring his different roles on the silver screen.39 According to Rubenstein, the rhetorical maneuvers of Reagan were signifiers rather than real. She analyzes Reagan as our first postmodern president willingly performing for the audience, moving from one stage (Hollywood) to another (the presidency) with deftness, while capturing his rapt new audience with tricks that mirrored his previous career. These constant shifts between his different personas also made the already porous boundaries of politics and entertainment much more amenable and analogous to each other.40 I agree with Rubenstein’s assertion about the opening up of the boundaries between politics and entertainment during the Reagan era, which formed the audience base for generations; it is the same base that expanded with media deregulation and responded well to the packaging of all programming as entertainment. It simply cannot be a coincidence that most of the policies of media consolidation took place during the Reagan presidency. The framing of President Reagan was indeed challenging for late-night comedy shows. On the one hand, there was the folksy president who had so much anecdotal lore at hand and who was also prone to the occasional malapropism, but, on the other hand, the same president was filled with a charm that could easily sway the common person. As an actor, Reagan was adept

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at delivering punch lines, with precise timing and just the right style that overshadowed the substance of his message, a skill that proved very useful to connect with his supporters. Despite his Hollywood acting career of many years (or if we believe the postmodern frame because of his acting career), Reagan appeared genuine and humble, and his simple words convinced voters of his good intentions.41 Reagan may have been the first presidential character who was projected through multiple frames in the media and satire. A famous SNL sketch portrays the dual sides of Reagan, the smiling, bumbling, good-natured persona intended for public consumption, versus the highly competent, detail-oriented, and darkly manipulative side hidden from the public.42 This portrayal of Reagan in split personalities seems like a nod to Rubenstein’s frame of him. It is the audience/viewers/voters who are being afflicted with delusion or schizophrenia. In the same vein, political commentator Andrew Sullivan has called the Trump presidency a delusional reality show that we are all bound to watch, because it is the most exciting act on television or in real life. With his professional acting experience, Reagan was able to deliver cruel lines with a charming insouciance. He used his folksy style, a perennial show of exasperation, and balmy wit to empathize with the average voter. He responded with his famous “There you go again!” line to Carter in their only presidential debate of the 1980 campaign, and similarly delegitimized Mondale’s age advantage over him in the 1984 campaign by delivering the well-rehearsed rebuttal, “I want you to know that I will not make age an issue in this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.”43 During the 1980 campaign, Reagan continued to deliver discredited information, such as Alaska having greater potential for oil discovery than Saudi Arabia, even after that myth was debunked, but this style worked well with his crowd.44 Reagan’s resilience and political savvy were often missed by the media, which concentrated on his words, not on what he was conveying. His wisecracks allowed him to draw connections with people by articulating their cynicism toward government. He played off voter distrust of politicians with anti-government humor, making his supporters feel that he was one of them.45 In a cycle that is being repeated now, Trump displays similar disdain for government, and elicits similar support from his constituency. Reagan’s character easily deflected criticism, to the extent that his presidency would be called the “Teflon-coated presidency.” Instead of the serious misuse of governmental power, such as was represented in the Iran-Contra affair, he is remembered today mainly for his cheerfulness and optimism. Some of Reagan’s witty anti-bureaucratic one-liners from the 1980 campaign do not sound too different from Trump’s tweets, at least in substance if not in tone:

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Where else but in Washington would they call the department in charge of everything outdoors the Department of Interior? There are two ways of doing things—the right way and the way they do it in Washington. Washington is the only city where sound travels faster than light.46 The big spenders in Washington would have been right at home with Oscar Wilde. He’s the one who said that the only way to destroy a temptation is to yield to it. Government is like a baby—an alimentary canal with an appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other. Balancing the budget is a little like protecting your virtue. You just have to learn to say “no.” Feeding tax dollars to the government is like feeding a stray pup. It just follows you home and sits on your doorstep asking for more.47

One striking resemblance between Reagan and Trump is how they both embraced and excelled in the portrayal of themselves as Washington outsiders. While this claim is quite common among presidential contenders, Reagan amplified its implications by taking a permanent stand against government. Reagan, who in the 1960s had served as governor of the largest state, managed to convince the American electorate that he was on their team when he poked fun at government, redefining civil servants as the opposing camp. Trump is even more adroit in disclaiming association with the government whose highest office he holds. He constantly labels government employees whom he envisions as disloyal as working for the “Deep State,” and Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the U.S. election as a witch-hunt. In his lexicon, the government and the people are on antagonistic teams, so that he has to valiantly fight for the people who are being inundated by the “fake news” spread by both the media and government (or at least part of it). John Oliver has described the potent counternarrative of the Mueller probe being peddled by Trump and, more specifically, Rudy Giuliani, his lawyer.48 Interestingly, Giuliani has been openly stating in the media that he is building a support base to dissent against the possible impeachment of Trump, even if the Mueller probe were to find him guilty of collusion with Russia. While the aforementioned SNL sketch insinuated that Reagan was expertly camouflaging his cruel and efficient persona, Trump openly acts out malice

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on the campaign trail (egging on supporters to physically assault dissenters), at press conferences (making ad hominem attacks on reporters and delegitimizing them), and while speaking to the American public (arguing that there are good people on both sides, thereby equating avowed white supremacists with their resistors), all of his performances doing more to strengthen his support base rather than weaken it. Simulacra, according to Baudrillard, operates at three levels: the first copy of the reality attempts to be as close to the original as possible; the second level is where the hyperreal operates as the representation of the original but does not resemble it and produces new meaning by itself; and finally, third-order simulacra glosses over any attempt to claim authenticity by connecting with the original, instead displaying a subversion of the original and gaining meaning from its transparency and audacity. The fact that third-order simulacra projects an opposite argument using the original argument or visual, thus reversing its meaning, is precisely the play that attracts people to this phenomenon.49 If Reagan took us on a whirlwind tour of the hyperreal during his presidency, Trump is indulging in the production of third-order simulacra, openly revealing all of his agenda, with the mesmerized audience cheering on the new fabrications that he gleefully tests out. The argument that “the emperor has no clothes” falls flat in this setting because the emperor himself takes off his clothes and enthusiastically faces the cheering crowd. Although the similarities between Reagan and Trump are noticeable— especially when it comes to their showmanship—the differences between the two are perhaps even more critical, because of the different stages where their politics was being performed. Reagan’s audience was just getting used to the fusion of politics and entertainment, knowing that he had legitimately prepared for his career roles of an actor and a president. But by the time we reach the Trump presidency the boundaries between politics and entertainment have become completely blurred. The audience is not only accustomed to watching campaigns and policy changes as episodes of reality TV, they crave for the same excitement from political news as they do from their favorite shows on TV. Harping on a theme that has been a favorite of his, Trump claimed at his July 2018 Montana rally that the media is fatally dependent on him for ratings: “Because if I lose, should I lose? Or if I don’t run, they are out of business. Who’s going to cover? They are going to cover Bernie? Hey, they going to cover like sleepy Joe Biden? They’re going to cover Pocahontas [Senator Elizabeth Warren]?”50 This new development, which had not yet manifested during the Reagan era, allows Trump to present his every single plan and maneuver, regardless of how morally depraved it may be, to a livecast and demand accolades for his performance, which he quantifies in ratings—or in the slightly different language of politics, approval ratings.

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The intellectual deficiencies of Reagan were the butt of many jokes. Foreshadowing the second president Bush, he preferred one-page memos on complex policy issues rather than detailed personal briefings. Satirist Paul Krassner even quipped: “There was a fire in Ronald Reagan’s library and both books were destroyed.”51 For Trump there is not even any pretense of literacy left, with insiders having recently claimed, especially in journalist Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House (2018), that he has done away even with the single-page memos familiar from Reagan and the younger Bush. Also, unlike Trump, Reagan was able to laugh at himself; he once told children at a grammar school, “I thought you asked me here to remedial English class because you heard my speeches.”52 Even when modern satire has not exactly been precise about its portrayal of a particular president, with the mainstream popularity of SNL the projected persona on the television screen often appeared more authentic and real than the character himself. Dana Carvey’s impersonation of President George H. W. Bush was hailed as a better representation than the projection of the president himself.53 Carvey popularized catchphrases such as “Not gonna do it” or “Wouldn’t be prudent,” which the president did not even use, to the extent that they became quintessential verbal tics associated with the real president. The senior Bush’s own signature phrase, “a thousand points of light,” was maligned to such an extent that it only evoked laughter when used in all seriousness.54 No one in politics or entertainment is immune from appreciating the significance of such frames and their potential to convince the electorate with their representations of a particular candidate. The visual media impacts public opinion not only through agenda-setting, which sets the parameters of discourse, but also through framing, which defines the issues being discussed.55 The media has always exercised its power to portray political figures according to models of its own choosing and thereby impact public perception, but with escalating attention to the personality of the president and other leading political figures these perspectives have acquired even greater significance. As early as 1972, the New York Times assigned a reporter to cover the election only by way of sitting in front of the television set.56 Instead of the campaign trail, the focus was solely on the projections of the respective campaigns; the newspaper showed that it was prescient in its awareness of how important perceptions are and how they shape reality, often overshadowing or replacing it. When the aforementioned SNL skit projected Bill Clinton as insatiable and voracious—taking a detour through McDonald’s during his jogging schedule, and stealing the starstruck clientele’s food while explaining policy in layman’s terms57—the president and his team went along with it and seemed to enjoy the exaggerations of the Southern mannerisms, the raspy voice, and the popularization of the phrase, “I feel your pain.” Later, the Monica Lewinsky

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affair—with the explicit lewd details, the circuitous language of denial, and the impending impeachment—emerged as the central theme for the portrayal of the president, at least as long he was in office. So much raw material was available to construct this frame, following special prosecutor Ken Starr’s investigation, that it never went out of fashion. Every time there is an incident concerning sexual misconduct by a politician, there is invariably a reference to Clinton. Even at that point in time the process whereby satirists shaped the identity of the president seemed relatively effortless, titillating, and harmless. When SNL spoofed the first presidential debate between Vice President Al Gore and then Texas Governor George W. Bush, Bush was presented as a dumb candidate who could not understand, let alone articulate, serious issues, while Gore, consistent with the media caricature of him, was presented as a stiff, boring, and humorless politician apt to repeat himself.58 The two final words which the candidates uttered, lockbox and strategery, in a strange way managed to capture the essence of the 2000 election. Instead of laughing it off or going along with the amusement of the audience, Gore tried to present himself very differently in the second and third debates, both of which performances were interpreted as inauthentic, since his persona had already been well-established by the SNL spoof and other media representations.59 The world of satire was primed to exploit the unending material that President Bush provided not only with his personality but with the 2000 election fiasco. SNL, Bill Maher, and the emerging late-night programs on Comedy Central had only just started their escapades in that regard, but September 11 smashed the reductionist frame of looking at Bush as a simpleton who had inherited more than he could chew; now there had to be an element of the man somehow being asked to rise to the occasion, whether or not he could actually deliver on those expectations. I have already covered in detail the intricate relationship between satire and September 11, but now I want to draw attention to another aspect of the template that was used to portray Bush. It was satirists who first raised their voices in questioning the legitimacy of the Iraq War and the policy impact of the Bush administration’s war on terror. But as revisionist as they were, it remained difficult to break free of the mold that had already been established for the president. When disapproving of the president, the attention disproportionately remained on his awkward semantics, body language, and mannerisms, and furthermore, a substantial part of the policy criticisms were directed to other key players of the administration, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in particular. Even when Bush choked on a pretzel, it was Cheney, along with Bush, who was targeted for disdain. Later, Cheney’s own blunder of accidentally shooting a friend in the face instead of a quail during a hunt provided not only laughter but reams of amateur psychoanalysis.

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The Bush administration, however inept it was at war, understood well the media and satire landscape, and was skillful enough to at least try to change perceptions about the president. Laura Bush was said to be the main instrument for humanizing the president, and one of the main performances to display that attempt was at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner in 2005. Landon Parvin, the chief comedy writer during President Reagan’s first term, was in charge of writing Laura Bush’s routine,60 where she jocularly referred to herself as a “desperate housewife” and the president as “Mr. Excitement,” and delivered these perfect shots: “George, if you really want to end tyranny in the world, you’re going to have to stay up later.”61 Or “George’s answer to any problem is to cut it down with a chainsaw, which I think is why he and Cheney and Rumsfeld get along so well.”62 Robinson credits Laura Bush for not only humanizing her husband, but challenging the media to arrive at a more multilayered cultural frame. In his words, “She deployed comedy to tweak her audience’s perception of President Bush, but just as significantly—with Bush also present and on display as the object of laughter—the president was humbled by being called on to participate, however briefly, in a less imperious and a more vulnerable relationship between himself, those in the media, and the American people at large.”63 The frame for Obama during the 2008 election primary highlighted some of his mannerisms, but after he won the nomination and throughout the eight years of his presidency, it was one of pure admiration. Instead of mocking the president, Obama was propped up with an anger translator who reflected his real emotions and could express what he was presumably feeling when his opponents so relentlessly attacked him.64 Other than the 2008 primaries, where Obama and Hillary Clinton were engaged in a bitter head-to-head fight until the very end, Obama as a character shows up on SNL clips mostly to bring other politicians down a peg or two. The insertion of the character of the anger translator to supplement Obama’s persona was clearly a gesture that signaled which team the satirists were applauding for. This reluctance to take on the president and to instead assail mainly his critics was a departure from the playful repartee that had historically taken place between presidents and comedians. An interesting discussion about these frames involves how politicians of different genders are portrayed, an issue which rose to the forefront with Hillary Clinton’s two presidential candidacies. Gender emerged as contested terrain in the 2008 and 2016 primaries, with Clinton running to get the Democratic Party nomination. She lost the nomination to Obama in 2008, while in 2016 she succeeded in becoming the nominee in a closely contested race with Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Her electoral loss to Trump is often cited as an example of the rampant misogyny which is said to manifest in the

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polling booth, reflecting the unspoken biases of small-town voters, the media in general, and even comedic portrayals. Clinton, like Gore before her, was in a constant fight over the frame that the media had constructed for her, that of a very skillful politician representing the political establishment; she wanted credit for her long career, and yet played around with another frame, that of being a victim, as well as a voice of the downtrodden and a representative of women’s interests, but this was a frame which did not appear to be genuine in the context of her successful establishment career. Maureen Dowd has suggested that it might have been a mistake not to embrace the mantle of the establishment but to deny it,65 which might have lowered voters’ trust in her. Weinhold and Bodkin have described the role of masculinity versus femininity in the portrayal of both Trump and Clinton during and after the 2016 election. Just as Trump’s masculinity was questioned on SNL by showing him as infantile (when he plays with a child’s version of the Oval Office desk or kisses Putin), Clinton’s femininity was undermined by presenting her as too ambitious, not emotional enough, and vindictive in her responses to Bill Clinton’s accusers. Weinhold and Bodkin have taken a swipe at SNL for following a gendered frame that is obsolete and needs to be challenged.66 Commenting on sexism and feminism, Ferguson argues that Trump’s victory signifies the rise of a specific kind of feminism that is based on identity, describing it as anti-political in nature.67 Ferguson is essentially referring to the neoliberal categories of establishing political slots, where presence and visibility have been bought in return for compromising on essential values such as structural equality, collective action, or challenging the premises of ideology. As he states, neoliberalism treats women as free-floating participants in the political and economic process, and as long as they can maximize their consumer behavior, choosing what they want regardless of the consequences for others, that is regarded as freedom.68 The Miss Universe Pageant thus becomes a celebration of feminism in the neoliberal world. Trump can only be criticized for his personal failings—for example, the misogynistic remarks he made on tape—but not for the sum of his career as anathema to feminist values. Neoliberal feminism focuses on inclusion and consensus,69 thereby sidelining any serious efforts to question the larger issues of inequity. The problem with Trump is not only the incongruity of any frame to capture his wildly unpredictable and colorful exterior, but the way he has all along quite consciously been rejecting the frame that both the media and satire are trying to assign to him. The number of people who never believed he could win the presidency would constitute a long list of celebrities indeed.70 Trump offered New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman exclusive coverage of his campaign in 2015, but she turned it down because she never took his candidacy seriously. Trump was suspected of using his candidacy to launch a cable channel,71 and satirists like Oliver and Meyers built on this

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perception by constantly offering him his own reality TV show if he stepped down from the campaign. Even well into his presidency there are discussions about whether he ever really wanted to be president (Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury, supposedly a tell-all by White House insiders, trades on this presumption), and one of the reasons for this line of thinking is because he does not fit into any media frame. Here is Maher’s frame for Trump that satirists have followed in its broad outline. With the sole exception of Fox News, the frame to project and analyze Trump is a variation on what Maher is articulating: And then he [Paul Ryan] said . . . “Trump didn’t mean to obstruct justice, he’s just new with this.” Yeah right, until now he’s been lying in the private sector. He’s just new. In what other profession can you get away with this? Oh, bear with me, I’m not a dentist, I work at a shoe store. . . . And it’s not just him. This is where we are, ladies and gentlemen. The main Republican talking point is essentially Trump is too stupid to be guilty of anything. But if that’s the case, isn’t he too stupid to be president?72

The Trump campaign was largely treated as a joke until it wasn’t. The Huffington Post announced that it would not report on Trump’s campaign as part of their political coverage but as part of entertainment news.73 Six months later, when Trump was leading in the polls, they moved their coverage back to the political section with this persistent disclaimer: “Note to our readers: Donald Trump is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, birther, and bully who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims —1.6 billion members of an entire religion —from entering the U.S.”74 What sets Trump apart from other candidates—aside from Reagan, of course—is how his career in entertainment predates his political career. He had already been lampooned for his boisterous personality, his absurd positions, his over-the-top claims, and various distasteful aspects of his personal life. He was the butt of jokes in the world of satire and all the empathy had always been reserved for his victims. Here are two SNL portrayals of Trump, one with his current wife Melania after he won the presidency, and the other dating back to 1990, during divorce proceedings with his first wife Ivana. The SNL portrayal of Trump’s wife Melania is indicative of where our sympathies lie. She is shown as the mystery caller to a call center employee in Pakistan. Forlorn, she strikes up a friendship and feels comfortable sharing some of her nightmares with the stranger at the call center: Call Center Employee: And very abruptly [she] told me about her nightmares. She said she dreamed of a blue-eyed panther drinking by a river, looking at her and calmly saying, “Be careful what you wish for!” She ordered over four hundred thousand dollars’ worth of handbags and purposely put in

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the wrong address just so she could call and chat. . . . She told me that some time ago, she found a spider in a bouquet, she gasped, but when the maid asked if everything was okay, she answered yes. She feared that the maid would squash the spider, so she stared at the insect with her silence and even kept it safe in a box under her bed.75

The SNL portrayal of Trump divorcing Ivana Trump shows him cheating her in every way possible. Not only had he an affair, but he was swindling her out of a very ungracious prenuptial settlement. He teases her, bullies her, and tricks her to get out of paying the divorce settlement: Ivana: I have no intention of settling for twenty-five million dollars. Donald: Well, you are welcome to try, but section 1 clearly states, and I quote, “In the event of a divorce, the body of the second part, Mrs. Ivana Trump, will receive twenty-five million dollars under no circumstances, and at no time and in no country may she request more.” And this is your signature and your thumbprint, isn’t it? Ivana: Yes, of course you know it is, but that contract is invalid. You have a mistress, Donald! Donald: I must remind you Ivana that according to section five, paragraph two, I’m allowed to have mistresses provided they are younger than you.76

The media and the American presidency have always had a symbiotic relationship, and even when it was not always amicable it was widely accepted as interdependent and mutually beneficial. The turning point in the modern relationship between the media and the presidency seems to have been Trump, who is not playing along with this dynamic. He has shattered the frame of satire by challenging its exponents to portray him in a funnier light, just as he has explicitly challenged the news media by hurling accusations against the legitimacy of news and information. Instead of television being the only space where direct communication with large numbers of people is possible, Trump uses Twitter as a central means to reach his base. This is a huge challenge to the media, and neither the media nor satire has figured out how to respond to it. They keep disparaging the president’s use of Twitter, without realizing that they are not the intended audience. The president is narrowcasting, reaching out to those whom he needs, providing a stream of messages that carry symbolic meaning for them, all in front of a wide-awake global audience. The Daily Show goes so far as to credit Twitter for Trump’s ascendancy. Their story of Trump starts on May 4, 2009, when Trump issued his first tweet to tell the world about his upcoming appearance on Late Night with David

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Letterman. Trump’s tweets started with self-promotions for the Mar-a-Lago club, but he soon realized the potential and flexibility of the medium (immediate, no filter, grammar optional) on the campaign trail and bypassed the character limits of Twitter with his notorious Twitterstorms. The media latched on to the Twitter tirades, treating them as breaking news. In the words of The Daily Show correspondent Desi Lydic, “It took six years and thirty-six thousand tweets for Trump to get where he is today.”77 By now we should not be surprised that The Washington Post has tried to analyze the Trump presidency by dissecting his tweets.78 Trump is challenging the preferred media frame by getting his message out through alternative news and by sidelining the conventional news, which he calls the fake media, by keeping up a boisterous presence on Twitter. In the mid-twentieth century television emerged as the best medium to reach out to the preponderance of voters, but this has drastically changed. Trump is successfully reaching out to and persuading his voters, while the media passively carries the unprecedented story of that charged interaction and satire helplessly makes fun of its contents and processes. In a postmodern twist, Trump has discovered an alternate universe where he is not beholden to any of the parameters set by the media, but where instead he creates or destroys the norms within the realities of that alternate universe. The fact that his candidacy was taken as a joke has not been regarded as funny by him. His presidency is now mimicking his candidacy, but the media, satirists, and actual voters do not have the luxury to treat it as a joke anymore. The focus on style over substance did not start with Trump, but there is no doubt that he perfected it to such an extent that style now determines substance. We cannot forget that Trump himself is the product of a setup where performative skill overshadows politics. Trump may be the first fully postmodern president, his accession to power having been made possible by a transformation which contains both the old-school and the postmodern structure. The concepts of alternate reality, to which he adheres, and fake news, which he assails, are his weapons not only to delegitimize the media but also to reach out to his supporters. His daughter-in-law Lara Trump has launched a “real news” site on Facebook to counter the mainstream media projections of him. Buzzfeed reported that one of Lara Trump’s videos from July 30, 2017 had “over two million views, forty-seven thousand likes, and over fourteen thousand shares.”79 Twitter currently has about a third of a billion active monthly users, while Trump has more than fifty million followers, which puts him just outside the top ten list of those with the most followers, outranked mostly by celebrities.80 Acting as a celebrity himself, he has the skill to attract people’s attention to both dramatic and mundane issues by sensationalizing them. The mainstream media preys on controversies trending on social media, which leaves an opening for Trump to magnify his own social media activity and extend it to the realms of

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real journalism.81 So unlike previous presidents who had to rely on the media to connect with the American people, Trump is running his public relations and propaganda tactics on his own, with Twitter acting as his ideal platform and instrument. Twitter’s one hundred and forty-character limit (it’s recently been doubled) only amplifies sensational statements captured by buzzwords, reaching larger magnitudes of people through retweeting, an activity that is spontaneous, individual, and impossible to control. The instantaneous appeal of catchy statements is magnified by their use by the most powerful celebrity of all, the president of the United States. We might well claim that Trump has given a meaning altogether his own to the familiar term “bully pulpit.” Trump’s style of tweeting echoes the style of his rhetoric. Here are some excerpts from his interview with The New York Times (conducted on Air Force One on July 13, 2017), which can be read verbatim by any comedian as satire, leaving us confused as to whether it is parody or real. All his interviews follow a similar pattern. This is what sets the Trump administration apart, the fact that there is no room for parody anymore, to a qualitatively different extent than was true even for the second Bush presidency: President Trump: A big thing we have with China was, if they could help us with North Korea, that would be great. They have pressures that are tough pressures, and I understand. And you know, don’t forget, China, over the many years, has been at war with Korea—you know, wars with Korea. It’s not like, oh, gee, you just do whatever we say. They’ve had numerous wars with Korea. . . . They have an eight thousand-year culture. So when they see 1776—to them, that’s like a modern building. The White House was started—was essentially built in 1799. To us, that’s really old. To them, that’s like a super modern building, right? So, you know, they’ve had tremendous conflict over many, many centuries with Korea. So it’s not just like, you do this. But we’re going to find out what happens. Interviewer: What about steel? Trump: Steel is a big problem. Steel is—I mean, they’re dumping steel. Not only China, but others. We’re like a dumping ground, okay? They’re dumping steel and destroying our steel industry, they’ve been doing it for decades, and I’m stopping it. It’ll stop. Interviewer: You were joking about solar [discussing the border wall], right? Trump: No, not joking, no. There is a chance that we can do a solar wall. We have major companies looking at that. Look, there’s no better place for solar than the Mexico border—the southern border. And there is a very good chance we can do a solar wall, which would actually look good. But there is a very good chance we could do a solar wall . . . one of the things with the wall is you need transparency. You have to be able to see through it. In other

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words, if you can’t see through that wall—so it could be a steel wall with openings, but you have to have openings because you have to see what’s on the other side of the wall. . . . And I’ll give you an example. As horrible as it sounds, when they throw the large sacks of drugs over, and if you have people on the other side of the wall, you don’t see them—they hit you on the head with sixty pounds of stuff? It’s over. As crazy as that sounds, you need transparency through that wall. But we have some incredible designs.82

Roderick P. Hart has compared the rhetorical styles of various presidencies in Verbal Style and the Presidency: A Computer-Based Analysis (1984). He claims that what we know about our presidents is merely “enigma or abstraction wrapped in particular events or catchphrases,” not in-depth understanding of the institution and the people who comprise their presidencies.83 Hart contends that neither Harry S. Truman nor Dwight D. Eisenhower would perform well in the media today, in the era of instantly televised politics. Truman would land in trouble over his chauvinism and verbal indiscretions, whereas the wordy abstractions of Eisenhower would also be difficult for the media to process. The political, cultural, and technological changes in the nation as the post-Cold War years went along have greatly impacted the rhetorical and performing styles of the presidencies.84 Notice, however, that whereas Hart was concerned about the occasional infelicities uttered by a Truman or an Eisenhower, we have easily become used to much greater sins against grammar, usage, decorum, and sheer decency in recent years, once the media took a complete turn toward postmodernism. In the Trump age, we also have to wonder—recalling that Hart was writing in the early 1980s—whether it is the media that sets the rhetorical trends for public personalities to follow, or if it is the other way around. How else could we have gotten so easily used to the verbal misbehaviors of Reagan, both Bushes, and now Trump on a different scale altogether? According to Hart, The rhetorical patterns [he studied] also indicate that the presidency reflects the character of the American people. Despite its occasional pomp and circumstance, the presidency is still a damned informal monarchy. The American people have consistently demanded a “folksy” president who can keep their indomitable spirits indomitable. In addition, the American people have never been fond of standoffish politicians like Adlai Stevenson or doomsayers like Barry Goldwater. The American people have also retained from their history some anti-intellectualism and hence demand a full measure of practical talk. The presidents have obliged the American people in these ways and more, fashioning for themselves a role constructed of equal parts education and inspiration.85

If we accept Hart’s argument, we have to wonder what it says about the American character for figures like Bush or Trump, with their spasmodic

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thought process, to have assumed the highest office in the land. Do they audition the dominant rhetorical style many Americans practice today and expect to see duplicated by their president? Rather than treating Bush’s rhetorical deviances as an individual learning disability, Mark Crispin Miller analyzed, in The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder (2001), how the style emulated a deeper disorder in our collective psyche. How can satire be successful when the national rhetorical style has immunized itself from satire, by itself being a constant parody of high-flown public speaking? (Partly, this is the influence of postmodernism having saturated politics, the point I discussed at length in the previous chapters.) Barack Obama’s style never gave much ammunition to satirists, because he took decorum too seriously, which seems to have immunized him from satirical attacks. Here are some examples of Trump tweets which reproduce what has become acceptable in the present cultural landscape: Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump 3:09 AM—May 31, 2017 Who can figure out the true meaning of “covfefe” ??? Enjoy!86 Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump 7:58 AM—June 6, 2017 The FAKE MSM is working so hard trying to get me not to use Social Media. They hate that I can get the honest and unfiltered message out.87

With his disorienting thoughts and sentences, and apparently meaningless banter carrying deeply symbolic messages for those who understand him, Trump is a perfect fit in today’s social media environment. He would have had a more difficult time succeeding without Twitter, the gift that came wrapped in cutting-edge technology, unrestrained celebration of narcissism, short attention spans, and celebrity consciousness taken to slavish levels. His messages, both within and outside Twitter, project an aesthetic which is very postmodern. Likewise, the entire Trump administration, whether or not they are fit to run the government, has mastered that sensibility. It is impossible to hold any Trump administration official accountable for any outrageous speech or action—from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to HUD secretary Ben Carson—because they constantly refute their own words, deny the distinction between facts and opinions, and thrive on chaos as the ideal atmosphere in which to push through unpopular policy changes. Trevor Noah has started a museum of Trump tweets with the goal to put the president’s tweets in a historical context.88 Noah’s stunt may acquire additional meaning beyond the immediate gag. The tweets that have already gone out may be telling a

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more meaningful history of our times—what tugs at the nation’s emotions and why—than academic history can come up with. The linguistic distortions are ominous and intentional. Noah has screamed at the Trump administration, “Guys, this is America! Speak English!” while pointing out the spelling mistakes in the official White House transcripts that they themselves send to the media. The Trump administration’s proposed legislation pulling the United States out of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is called the United States Fair and Reciprocal Trade Act, and is already immortalized by its acronym FART, which may not be an oversight but an intentional play by rambunctious officials as they joyfully participate in the postmodern presidency where everything has turned into gamesmanship. Trump is the first president since Reagan not to show up at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner (WHCA). This is not just an indicator of his thin skin, as the media and satirists have interpreted it, but also of his total rejection of their worlds. The WHCA dinner has emerged as an important ritual to test the level of tolerance and resiliency of the president, especially in troubling times, so Trump’s absence is noteworthy. As mentioned earlier, Hasan Minhaj has been hailed for speaking his mind without Trump being present there,89 but to have the president sit and be humbled before the Washington governing elite serves as a ceremony to bring the president down to a human level. Trump has rejected this practice and initiated his own rites of fighting the press by calling it fake news, offering alternative news by means of Twitter or the obstreperous claims of administration officials. I will let Trump have the last word on this topic: Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump 3:41 PM—July 1, 2017 My use of social media is not Presidential—it’s MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL. Make America Great Again!90

THE MODUS OPERANDI OF THE TRUMP CAMPAIGN To figure out how candidate and now President Trump has succeeded in sabotaging the mainstream media, we have to explore his past as a celebrity and follow his rhetorical patterns and his dealings with clients or viewers. Unsurprisingly, his relations with satirists reveal his modus operandi quite transparently. Trump sued Maher in 2013 for being called the son of an orangutan, and this incident took place in a real court of law, not on the set of Comedy Central. This peculiar story is rooted in Trump’s own birther movement, where

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he doubted whether Obama could legitimately be the U.S. president, because according to Trump he was born in Kenya. Here is one of the many tweets on the birther issue and Maher’s response to that accusation: Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump 1:23 PM—August 6, 2012 An “extremely credible source” has called my office and told me that @BarackObama’s birth certificate is a fraud.91 Maher: Donald Trump must immediately submit to DNA tests to determine whether he is in fact the lovechild of a human woman and an orangutan from the Brooklyn Zoo.92

The birther accusation continued for years, not even dying down after Obama produced his birth certificate. During this period of wild accusations and the late-night satirists exploiting the absurd racism of the theory, Maher (on the Tonight show with Jay Leno) claimed, while psychoanalyzing Trump, that if he could prove he was not the offspring of an orangutan, Maher would donate five million dollars to a charity of Trump’s choice. Maher was making fun of Trump’s orange-hued skin and hair, mimicking Trump in how he had trolled Obama. Trump, however, treated this proposition seriously, and sent his lawyer to court with his birth certificate, claiming the five-million-dollar reward that had been offered by Maher in jest. The case was thrown out of court, and Maher complained how frivolous lawsuits like these clogged up the legal system. Trump treated any joke at his expense as a serious offense, while he unendingly jeered at the president with an accusation that had been proven false. Although the symbolic aspects of the birther assault—namely the inherent racism that could not accept the legitimacy of the first black president—were lost to no one, our collective laughter drowned out our understanding of how seriously the message was being perceived by its intended recipients and how growing numbers of people were beginning to connect with the thought process this attack represented. The rational response to the irruption had been to produce President Obama’s birth certificate, but this strategy had no impact on those who believed that he was an illegitimate president. It was irrelevant whether Obama was born in Kenya or Hawaii; what mattered was what this accusation signified, and how it was received by the people who would eventually turn out to be Trump voters. The cycle of symbolic messaging, intimidation (in the form of real lawsuits), and sheer bullheadedness had been Trump’s trademarks long before he stepped into the political arena. This was a pattern that continued in his confrontation with Stewart93 as well:

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Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump 8:09 AM—April 24, 2013 I promise you that I’m much smarter than Jonathan Leibowitz—I mean Jon Stewart @TheDailyShow. Who, by the way, is totally overrated.94 The Daily Show @TheDailyShow 10:28 AM—May 3, 2013 We seem to have hit a Fuckface Von Nervestick.95 Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump 11:37 AM—May 3, 2013 If Jon Stewart is so above it all and legit, why did he change his name from Jonathan Leibowitz? He should be proud of his heritage!96 Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump 11:37 AM—May 3, 2013 What’s funny about the name “F**kface Von Clownstick”—it was not coined by Jon Leibowitz—he stole it from some moron on twitter.97

Engaging in lawsuits has always been a specialty of Trump, and he did not hesitate to use this tactic in Scotland when he wanted to extend his golf course on the Menie Estate in Aberdeenshire by offering to buying a local farmer’s land. When the farmer, Michael Forbes, was not willing to sell his land, he was slapped with a lawsuit. What followed was a truly crazy series of events which included not only lawsuits and street protests, but complaints during a legislative session, challenges against a proposed wind farm, and an environmentalist stepping in and buying part of the property to help out the landowner, to avoid pending lawsuits with Trump by claiming that one of the landowners had relocated to Alaska. The maniacal story has been made into a short documentary by James Trosh.98 Here is Oliver explaining Trump’s tactics: The real damage isn’t in how he says things, but from three key techniques that he uses to insulate himself from criticism and consequence. And if we are not extremely careful, all three could have serious impacts that far outlast his presidency, and let’s start with the first one: “Delegitimizing the media.” Now, Trump has been attacking the press since he declared his candidacy, and in a broader sense, he’s been waging war on the very concept of truth. . . . The difference now is, he’s crying “fake news” as president of the United States, and he is openly proud of it, to the point that he recently tried to take ownership of the term itself. . . . Trump’s second technique [is] something called “whataboutism.” It’s the practice of changing the subject to someone else’s perceived wrongdoing. Now, Trump does this all the time, most famously when he was asked why he hadn’t forcefully condemned the neo-Nazis in Charlottesville. . . .

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Now this technique of saying “what about . . .” is actually an old Soviet propaganda tool, and the reason it is dangerous is because it implies that all actions regardless of context share a moral equivalency, and since nobody is perfect, all criticism is hypocritical and everybody should do whatever they want. It is a depressingly effective tool, which is why on Trump’s favorite network you hear it all the time. The problem with “whataboutism” is it doesn’t really solve a problem or win an argument. The point is just to muddy the waters which can make the other side mad, and that actually brings us to Trump’s third technique: “trolling.” Now trolling itself has been around for years. It’s basically eighty percent of what happens on the Internet. . . . But the thing is, Trump’s trolling is not actually without political value. Despite Trump’s few real policy accomplishments to date, he has consistently achieved one thing, and that is making his enemies unhappy. And for many Trump supporters, that itself counts as a major victory. While there is nothing new about any of these techniques, they are now coming out of the Oval Office. Which not only legitimizes them, it risks them spreading, and that sadly is happening.99

We have to give Oliver credit for being so right in his prediction that Trump’s techniques of intimidation would become the norm, as he himself is now facing a lawsuit for libel100 over a show he did on coal.101 Maher summarizes the Trump technique as a predictable three-step process of “bluff, lie, and attack,102 which sounds similar to what Oliver claims. Trolling as a political technique is being so widely used by key figures in the Trump administration that The Atlantic ran an article on Stephen Miller, Trump’s key adviser, titled “Trump’s Right-Hand Troll,”103 wherein Miller doesn’t appear to be offended by this characterization, and instead proudly narrates his successes using the art of provocation from his playbook. Provocation for Trump is not a side business, it is how he advances his main agenda, by refusing to ever back down; if satire expects to generate feelings of remorse in a democratic process, where confession of errors is prelude to a more inclusive discussion, then satire cannot possibly work with Trump. Oliver’s breakdown of Trump’s tactics to deal with controversy seems to have been the main method to stifle any scandal as a showbiz celebrity or real estate developer, a strategy adopted by him and his staff on the campaign trail. This attitude proved to be highly successful in dealing with disappointed voters or reproaches from the media. Now this simple three-step process of delegitimizing, distracting, and doubling down is the strategy of the president and his administration against any exposure. Consider the infamous pussy-grabbing scandal. Access Hollywood released an audio tape where Trump, who was being interviewed by Billy Bush, bragged about how he often sexually assaulted women and was able to get away with it because of his status. This tape was revealed a few days prior to a presidential debate, creating a huge uproar not only because of

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the content—namely the admission of such behavior by a presidential candidate—but also because of the crass language. Bush, the interviewer who was heard asking questions and giggling at Trump’s responses on tape, lost his job for his complicity, while the perpetrator, Trump, ended up becoming president. Trump reacted with a half-hearted apology, saying that it was just “locker room talk.” As many as sixteen women came forward and claimed that Trump had made sexual advances of various degrees without their consent. Trump remained supercilious, claiming that the women were too ugly for his attention. He then brought up the Bill Clinton sex scandals, and invited the women who had accused President Clinton of sexual misconduct to the presidential debate, an act Oliver might well have termed “whataboutism” and trolling. Trump called Hillary Clinton an enabler of her husband’s crimes, and compared her to the devil, saying that she had “tremendous hate in her heart.” Although at that point he acknowledged having used lewd words, as if to prove Oliver right afterward he went back to delegitimizing, by way of questioning the authenticity of the tape and claiming that the voice may not have been his. Bush resurfaced as a witness, speaking of the irony of losing his job for listening, while Trump ended up becoming the president despite such gross transgressions.104 This particular irony has had a long shelf life. With the new wave of allegations against powerful men in politics and media in late 2017, we find politicians of all persuasions being accused of serious and repeated sexual offences. While top-ranking Democratic politicians such as Representative John Conyers and Senator Al Franken resigned after such allegations in response to pressure from their own party, Trump busily trolled both leaders on Twitter. Around the same time, Roy Moore—the Republican nominee for Alabama senator who lost the race (the first Republican to do so in that red state in twenty-six years)—was accused of having dated teenage girls and engaging in sexual misconduct against them. Trump not only supported Moore wholeheartedly but claimed that since Moore denied those charges (some of which went back to the late 1970s) it should be enough to exonerate him. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, claimed that the difference between Franken and Moore was that the latter denied the accusations. The initial response of Republican leaders (Mitch McConnell in the Senate and Paul Ryan in the House) had been to ask Moore to step down from the race if the allegations were true (even if it meant the loss of the Alabama senate seat for the Republicans). But after Trump’s unabashed support for Moore and his clear preference for a Republican sexual predator of underage girls over any Democratic candidate, the dissenters within the party became silent. Here is Meyers making fun of Ryan’s position, and Noah explaining the affinity between Trump and Moore:

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Meyers: House Speaker Paul Ryan today repeated his statement that accused Alabama senate candidate Roy Moore should drop out of the race and Roy Moore repeated his statement that his girlfriend should drop out of high school.105

Noah: Birds of a feather, molest together!106

Trump’s outburst against Matt Lauer, the NBC Today show anchor who was fired because of similar charges of sexual misconduct, contains all three steps of delegitimizing, distracting, and trolling in a single tweet: Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump 4:16 AM—November 29, 2017 Wow, Matt Lauer was just fired from NBC for “inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace.” But when will the top executives at NBC and Comcast be fired for putting out so much Fake News. Check out Andy Lack’s past!107 And here is what he had to say about Moore: Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump 3:17 AM—December 4, 2017 Democrats refusal to give even one vote for massive Tax Cuts is why we need Republican Roy Moore to win in Alabama. We need his vote on stopping crime, illegal immigration, Border Wall, Military, Pro Life, V.A., Judges 2nd Amendment and more. No to Jones, a Pelosi/Schumer Puppet!108

In the continuing immigration crisis109 where the U.S. government has criminalized asylum seekers, taking their children away without consent and putting them in makeshift jails where they are kept in cages, Trump and his ilk (Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen) are following the same script of shifting responsibility (falsely claiming it was a policy the Democrats initiated), engaging in denial (only Congress can supersede existing laws), contradicting each other and often themselves, justifying their action by referring to the Bible, and directing their anger against people who are raising legitimate concerns.110 After strong reaction from citizens who marched and closed down ICE offices in a few cities, Trump reluctantly signed an executive order that would allow the children to be jailed along with their parents. The most galling image of this controversy, along with weeping children held in cages, has been First Lady Melania Trump’s jacket, which she wore to visit one of the child detention camps. The words “I really don’t care, do u?” were inscribed on the back of the jacket. While it may only have been only a jacket without any hidden message as her spokesperson claimed, or a message to the mainstream media as her husband tweeted, the insensitivity of her fashion choice illustrates the central values of the Trump

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administration—indifference, apathy, and erasure of the subconscious—as each and every Machiavellian scheme is vivaciously revealed, with demands for full audience respect and tribute. One writer at The Washington Post aptly titled her analysis, “Melania Trump wears her husband’s administration on her sleeve.”111 The satirists had a field day with this, Noah and Meyers both insinuating that the words inscribed on her jacket were actually Melania Trump’s wedding vows.112 Colbert raised the question whether we should continue treating her as a victim or an innocent bystander anymore.113 But satirists missed an opportunity to draw the connection between the disclaimer on the jacket and the origin of the phrase, “Me ne frego” (I don’t care), which was proudly proclaimed by Mussolini’s dedicated special forces.114 The jacket was from the Spanish retailer Zara, which has a history of producing clothing with controversial messages like the yellow star, or the proclamation “White is the new black.”115 If the role of satire is to shine a light upon what is hidden, this was a rare occasion to do so in an era when nothing is concealed anymore. The jacket was a shiny object which captured everyone’s attention, but the experts, who were supposed to deconstruct the meaning and make it evocative in relation to cultural codes, engaged in superficial laughter by treating the episode as child’s play and moved on to the next scandal. When there are reports of children being forced to recite the

Image 3.2  Melania Trump’s Jacket. Louis-Dreyfus, Julia. Twitter Post. June 21, 2018, 5:03 PM. https://twitter.com/OfficialJLD/status/1009949993426345984.

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pledge of allegiance to show respect for the country which has imprisoned them, in front of a mural of Trump,116 all ironies dissolve in this new reality (or unreality), and satirists are reduced to being mere narrators of events. Their role of exposing what is deliberately veiled or striking upon new meaning with absurd juxtapositions becomes superfluous because that is exactly how each spectacle manifests. Satirists are redundant in making sense of a world dominated by simulacra. The meaning of simulacra is self-contained in its construction, projection, and acceptance, so there is no need for interpreters—all that is needed are performers and audiences. The cruel and inhuman interpretation of existing immigration law—and its chaotic implementation without any plans to reunite children separated from parents—is consistent with many other acts of the Trump administration. These actions are criticized as lacking moral values or being inefficiently executed, but they serve a broader purpose which has been termed “vice signaling” by British journalist Nick Cohen.117 Vice signaling is the complementary concept to virtue signaling, a right-wing sneer against liberals posturing on behalf of the poor but being insincere. Vice signaling, on the contrary, is comprised of utmost sincerity, signaling the supporters that the politician is willing to take any action regardless of consequences.118 In lieu of a draconian immigration policy which would be difficult to deliver in the present stalemated Congress, Trump’s gesture might be conceded by his supporters as a genuine effort on his part to deliver on his campaign promise to restrict immigration. Coppins argues that the chaos created by the zero-tolerance immigration policy and separating children and putting them in jail is part of the overall strategy of Trump adviser Stephen Miller to consolidate their base for the 2018 midterm election.119 Dehumanizing immigrants is, in fact, a cornerstone of Trumpism, which is understood by his supporters as preservation of the racial and cultural hegemony of white America.120 None of these hasty pronouncements of administrative decisions and the chaotic follow-ups are any different from the spectacles that occurred on the campaign trail. Katy Tur, the NBC journalist who covered the Trump campaign, has documented her experience as a spectator of the melodrama unfolding during the campaign.121 Trump often called her out for doing a third-rate and disgraceful job, egging on his supporters to such an extent that Tur needed Secret Service protection from the frenzied mob. The phases of intimidating, charming, and shaming followed in a circular ritual and established a new pattern between the press and the presidential hopeful; it was a relationship rife with mutual distrust and disbelief, where revulsion was not even hidden from the other side. Tur documents in detail Trump’s combative style of intimidation, which was about challenging the legitimacy of the mainstream media. She was called “Little Katy” and “such a little liar, what a little liar” to her face at

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campaign events. The name-calling also mirrors how Trump dealt with his opponents on the campaign trail during both the primary and the general election. He has a knack for providing catchy labels to his opponents which stick to them. He memorably called Ted Cruz “Lyin’ Ted,” Jeb Bush “Low Energy Jeb,” Marco Rubio “Little Marco,” and Hillary Clinton “Crooked Hillary.” These names ignited his base and worked as dog whistles. Anytime he uttered these phrases, the alleged characteristics of his opponents would become visual, illuminated, and real to his supporters, as they got the true meaning of what he was trying to convey. During the 2018 G8 summit, the Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau was added to the list as “dishonest and weak” in the wake of a tariff war that has been blossoming with Canada, as with other global trading partners.122 While delegitimizing opponents with scandalous labels is not new, what is new in American political culture is discrediting the entire mainstream media. This has served two purposes for Trump: connecting with his base who were feeling left out of the mainstream media, and legitimizing alternate sources of information and communication to bypass the credibility check imposed by reporters. Trump has succeeded in creating his own media ecosphere, and is reaching out to his supporters (and non-supporters, for that matter) without any regard to how the media portrays him. Any accountability from the media is now labeled as fake news. No doubt Trump shows his appreciation for journalists when he admires their portrayal of him. Tur was taken aback when Trump once liked her analysis on TV and showed his appreciation in a way he would think was complimentary. While she was waiting along with the press, Trump approached her and kissed her without permission. Here is her reaction: “Suddenly he is so close I can smell what he had for breakfast. And then, before I know what’s happening, his hands are on my shoulders and his lips are on my cheek. My eyes widen. My body freezes. My heart stops.”123 And here is how Trump bragged about his sudden adoration of Tur: “She was so great. I just saw her back there. I gave her a big kiss. She was fantastic.”124 As president, he diligently follows Fox News and tweets whenever they are covering him favorably (which is most of the time). But consider the other experiences Tur had with Trump. After criticizing her coverage of his campaign, Trump called her out of the blue and demanded an apology. While Tur was explaining her responsibility as a journalist to scrutinize all the candidates, he suddenly changed his tone and started asking her opinions about his competitors Ted Cruz and Ben Carson.125 If the campaign disagreed with her analysis and shared it over Twitter, attacks on Tur unfolded there, ranging from harassment to death threats. The hashtag #assassinatethatbitch, initiated by Trump supporters, was countered with #mwithtur.”126 Trump used to taunt her at public rallies by charging: “There’s something

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happening, Katy. You’re not reporting it, Katy. But there’s something happening, Katy.”127After she interviewed him, he threatened her with dire consequences if NBC didn’t air the whole interview and edited out parts of it.128 He also provoked her with his insult of choice: “You’ll never be president.”129 Tur had similar experiences with the campaign staff. She was accused by Sean Spicer of insinuating lies about the campaign, and as soon as she cited Kellyanne Conway as her source Spicer hung up on her.130 Other reporters fared no better. When campaign manager Corey Lewandowski was implicated with harassing and physically assaulting a female reporter by violently grabbing her arm, not only did Lewandowski deny the allegation but he doubled down on the reporter by calling her a liar, an opportunist, and an attention-seeker.”131 When a surveillance camera confirmed the reporter’s claim, Lewandowski was arrested and charged with battery. Yet neither he nor Trump ever apologized.132 When his candidacy was close to attaining the nomination, the media put pressure on Trump to apologize for the birther movement. Though Trump blamed Hillary Clinton for sowing doubt in people’s minds about Obama’s birthplace and took credit for himself for clearing the air, he acknowledged that Obama was born in America. He never really apologized or took responsibility for manufacturing and nurturing the insinuation against Obama, but that was as close to an apology as we would ever get: As Tur sums up, “Seven seconds. Seven measly seconds. That’s how long it took Trump to dismiss a lie he told for years.”133 This analysis of Trump’s tactics corroborates Oliver’s diagnosis of disempowering the accuser, shifting the conversation, and trolling the prosecutor. Not only did Trump try to shift the blame for creating the birther controversy to Clinton, but by accusing her he was brazenly denying his own responsibility which had been recorded in the media for a number of years. As Grusin explains, Trump’s “aberrant behavior during the debates, rather than delegitimizing him as a candidate, ensured that the post-debate media focus would be dominated by him, not by Clinton.”134 Trump and Rosie O’Donnell had had a long-running feud involving name-calling and bodyshaming,135 which were recaputilated during his campaign by the media (and satirized to the maximum extent) to discredit his candidacy. Calling O’Donnell, or Miss USA Tara Conner, fat might incense liberal audiences, but Trump voters remain unaffected by such verbal sparring.136 One of the key elements that stood out for Tur was how important Trump’s image was to himself, how he believed he was the epitome of strength and stamina, and how irked he would become if he felt he was being projected as weak. After Marco Rubio mentioned how small Trump’s hands were and insinuated a less than macho image for him, Trump could not let this attack slide and bragged about his manhood in a presidential debate forum,137 where he said, “See how beautiful my hands are. Look at those hands, those are

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powerful hands.”138 This leads Tur to meditate, “He [Trump] is the Pavlov’s dog of politics: insult him and he’ll insult you back. He has to respond even if his ‘counterpunch’ lands in his own face.”139 This evaluation of an authoritarian personality by an “enemy of the people” (as per Trump) is notable for the language of civilized discourse, the very demolition of which constitutes Trump’s metanarrative for his campaign and presidency. Thus, to criticize Trump in these terms is to strengthen him and his constituency. Trump was at ease with boasting and lying throughout the campaign, making, for example, this patently false claim: “And by the way, the [Trump] winery . . . it’s the largest winery on the East Coast [it isn’t]. I own it one hundred percent, no mortgage, no debt [he doesn’t]. You can check [we did].”140 Here is a summary of Tur’s first-hand experience: I’ve learned that Trump has his own version of reality, which is a polite way of saying he can’t always be trusted. He also brings his own sense of political decorum. I’ve heard him insult a war hero, brag about grabbing women by the pussy, denigrate the judicial system, demonize immigrants, fight with the pope, doubt the democratic process, advocate torture and war crimes, tout the size of his junk in a presidential debate, trash the media, and indirectly endanger my life.141

This strategy of never owning up and always denying responsibility is reflected in how the Trump administration continues to deal with the unending scandals and controversies that have besieged them. We would be wise to take note of Tur’s analysis of the campaign, and extend it to the presidency: “Trump launched his campaign with paid actors in T-shirts. Now he has real people in silk ball gowns and men in six-thousand-dollar tuxedos lightly pushing and shoving to get face time—some having paid a one-hundredthousand-dollar membership fee for the right to be here. It’s an amazing reversal. Trump has gone from paying Joe Schmos to cheer for him to accepting money from Joe Somebodies who will happily do the same.”142 Here is an exchange between the satirists on The Daily Show, illuminating Trump’s strategy for dealing with criticism: Noah: After President Trump failed to condemn the white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia—where a participant in the white supremacist march carrying and shouting Nazi slogans drove a car over the protesters and killed Heather Heyer, one of the protesters—ESPN reporter Jemele Hill tweeted that Donald Trump was a white supremacist. ESPN clarified that this was not their official position, but only Hill’s personal opinion on her Twitter account. The White House demanded not only an apology from Hill over her private comment on Twitter, but that she be fired for disrespecting the stature of the presidency. Hill was suspended for two weeks, and had to apologize to ESPN. Let’s talk for a minute about Twitter. It’s a wonderful

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invention, but we have learned that if you ever tweet something that offends too many people, you could get fired from your job. Or you could become president. High risk, very high reward. Correspondent Roy Wood Jr.: I can see why people are upset about this. She called the president of the United States a white supremacist. . . .Where could she have gotten that idea? . . . They [Congress] just passed a unanimous bipartisan resolution asking Trump to condemn white supremacists. Trump is the only white dude I know that had to sign paperwork to prove he don’t like Nazis. Cut to Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders: I think that’s one of the more outrageous comments that anyone could make . . . and, certainly, something that I think is a fireable offense by ESPN. Wood: Oh, ho, ho, ho. That’s a fireable offense? You wanna see a fireable offense? Look around your administration, man. . . . Look, everyone has a right to get angry about tweets. It’s Twitter. That’s what you do. You get angry about tweets. But this is a White House official calling out a private citizen for speaking her mind. Jemele Hill was sharing her personal opinion. The difference is that one was on her Twitter account. The other was on a podium at the White House. Look at her! She got a flag and logo. That makes it official!143

Trump has been consistent in his methodology from business to politics, campaign trail to presidency, home to abroad. His dealings with foreign leaders, who have been historic allies and partners on international issues, have been quite troublesome. Here is Maher’s reaction to Trump refusing to shake hands with German chancellor Angela Merkel at a press conference: Did you see that she [Angela Merkel] had a look on her face like, How I long for the days when I got creepy shoulder rubs from George W. Bush . . . . Angela Merkel. He obviously hates her and of course he’s so good at hiding this stuff. They were sitting there and the people are shouting, “Don’t you want to shake hands like every president has ever done in every photo op?” . . . No, I’m not going to shake her hand. And then after the meeting, he tweeted, “Lousy meeting with German Chancellor Barney Rubble. Low-energy, unattractive. Did not even want to make me pop a tic-tac.”144

Immediately after his inauguration, Trump called foreign heads of state, and it was leaked from the White House that he had been quite rude with the Australian prime minister over refugee resettlements that had been agreed to by the previous administration. Here are some excerpts from that phone call, with the full transcript available in the public domain. It was reported that Trump hung up on the prime minister. The transcript may read like a script from one of the shows on Comedy Central, but it is from a real phone call between the U.S.

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president and Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull on January 28, 2017. It needs no help from Maher, Meyers, Colbert, Noah, or Bee: Turnbull: It is absolutely consistent with your executive order so please just hear me out. The obligation is for the United States to look and examine and take up to and only if they so choose—one thousand two hundred and fifty to two thousand. Every individual is subject to your vetting. You can decide to take them or to not take them after vetting. You can decide to take a thousand or a hundred. It is entirely up to you. The obligation is to only go through the process. So that is the first thing. Secondly, the people—none of these people are from the conflict zone. They are basically economic refugees from Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. That is the vast bulk of them. They have been under our supervision for over three years now and we know exactly everything about them. Trump: Why haven’t you let them out? Why have you not let them into your society? Turnbull: OK, I will explain why. It is not because they are bad people. It is because in order to stop people smugglers, we had to deprive them of the product. So we said if you try to come to Australia by boat, even if we think you are the best person in the world, even if you are a Nobel Prize winning genius, we will not let you in. Because the problem with the people— Trump: That is a good idea. We should do that too. You are worse than I am. . . . I will just have to say that unfortunately I will have to live with what was said by Obama. I will say I hate it. Look, I spoke to Putin, Merkel, Abe of Japan, to France today, and this was my most unpleasant call because I will be honest with you. I hate taking these people. I guarantee you they are bad. That is why they are in prison right now. They are not going to be wonderful people who go on to work for the local milk people. . . . Can Australia give me a guarantee that if we have any problems—you know that is what they said about the Boston bombers. They said they were wonderful young men. Turnbull: They were Russians. They were not from any of these countries. Trump: They were from wherever they were. Turnbull: You can certainly say that it was not a deal that you would have done, but you are going to stick with it. Trump: I have no choice to say that about it. Malcolm, I am going to say that I have no choice but to honor my predecessor’s deal. I think it is a horrible deal, a disgusting deal that I would have never made. It is an embarrassment to the United States of America and you can say it just the way I said it. I will say it just that way. As far as I am concerned that is enough Malcolm. I have

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had it. I have been making these calls all day and this is the most unpleasant call all day. Putin was a pleasant call. This is ridiculous.145

After calling the North Korean dictator King Jong-un “Rocket Man,” and threatening North Korea with “fire and fury,” he continued body-shaming King Jong-un146 Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump 4:53 AM—September 17, 2017 I spoke with President Moon of South Korea last night. Asked him how Rocket Man is doing. Long gas lines forming in North Korea. Too bad!147 Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump 4:48 PM—November 11, 2017 Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me “old,” when I would NEVER call him “short and fat?” Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend—and maybe someday that will happen!148

Of course his attitude toward Kim Jong-un changed completely and the dictator was showered with rare praise for his intellect and strength after the U.S.-North Korea summit that took place in Singapore in June 2018, which Trump considers worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize. One of the significant changes in U.S. foreign policy has been Trump’s declaration to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and following through with it despite its negative impact on the potential for resolving the Israel-Palestine conflict. As hinted earlier, along with delegitimizing, distracting, and staying on the offensive, another important strategy is to create chaos. Actions become meaningful because they are fast-paced, rapidly evolving, and involve muscle power, just as is true of an actionpacked thriller. The new impersonator of President Trump, featured on The President Show on Comedy Central, would agree with this assessment. He had this wisecrack to offer in his role as the president: “Back to complete chaos. Just the way I like it.”149 Noah also delivered his response capturing the permanent sense of impending catastrophe and offering an apt comparison of the conflict resolution technique that is being used: Donald Trump just blew up the Middle East so hard that ISIS is going to take credit for it! One of the major issues in the whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict is who has claim to Jerusalem. And the U.S. has always said it would be a fair mediator in this dispute until Trump. It’s like two people were fighting over a cookie, and Trump was like, “I say its Israel’s cookie. Now let’s talk about whose cookie it is!”150

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These offensive strategies become pointless when they are applied to a stable peaceful context. That is why the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, had to be taunted after a terrorist attack, and even Trump’s good friend British prime minister Theresa May has had to be shushed from time to time. As though following a dark comedy script, Trump ended up tweeting at the wrong Theresa May:151 Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump 6:49 AM—June 5, 2017 Pathetic excuse by London Mayor Sadiq Khan who had to think fast on his “no reason to be alarmed” statement. MSM is working hard to sell it!152 Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump 5:02 PM—November 29, 2017 Theresa @theresamay, don’t focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom. We are doing just fine!153

To go back to the campaign trail as the forerunner of the presidency, one of the most traumatic experiences for reporter Tur was when Trump called on her in his rally: “She’s back there, little Katy. She’s back there.”154 This jibe ignited Trump supporters to rush toward her for a physical attack because of her alleged lies and faulty coverage; the Secret Service had to step in to protect her from mob anger. The disturbing violence at the rallies was not only condoned but often was fanned by Trump himself. The strategy of keeping the press and his supporters apart played very well on the campaign trail as the media were segregated and labeled as the “real enemies of the people.” As Tur recollects, “The campaign and Secret Service force us to stay inside the pen while Trump is onstage. They even discourage bathroom breaks. None of them have a good explanation for why we’re kept separate from the supporters. Are we the threat or are they?”155 Grusin suggests that creating division and starting chaos enabled Trump to become a successful real estate developer and a hustling business celebrity. As a real estate developer, Trump used the technique of dividing between desirable and undesirable parts of the city, and between desirable and undesirable tenants. The strategy of snapping up distressed properties, developing them and making them inaccessible to most people, and then earning huge profits by selling them off is similar to what Trump did in the Republican primary.156 Trump’s belittlement of his opponents is a continuation of the cut-throat business model where the winner takes all, rather than the flexible political model where people must come together under the party banner to concede and compromise. The destruction of the enemy is a feature of a particular kind of business, which has not been the style in dealing with contenders from within the same political party.

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According to Grusin again, “One of Trump’s campaign techniques for developing media real estate properties was to stage them as shows—something like reality TV electoral mini-series—with the aim of winning the ratings and dominating the media real estate market with Trump properties.”157 The grand escalator ride on June 16, 2015 (interestingly predicted by the animated comedy series, The Simpsons, in 2000) came with the announcement of his candidacy, and then the successive spectacles involving the primaries, the convention, the debates, the victory, the transition, and the inauguration followed.158 Maureen Dowd has appropriately recapped the performance by saying, “Donald Trump glided down that escalator and promised to build that wall and bragged about his manhood and dissed the Pope and politics vaulted past parody.”159 Maher has described Trump as the president who keeps on creating his own crises. When Trump claims credit for signing an executive order to allow migrant children not to be separated and put in jail away from their parents, Maher quips, “Trump signed an executive order that revoked the policy that he started. He’s the Arsonist Fireman! He’s the guy who congratulates himself for saving the toddler in the pool that he pushed in.”160 While Maher labels the president stupid enough to put babies in prison, he misses how Trump has signaled with this abominable act his sincerity on restricting immigration to his followers. Also worth noting is how he shakes off the criticism of the child separation and imprisonment policy, first by shifting the blame to Democrats, and then holding a press conference with people who lost loved ones to crimes allegedly committed by undocumented immigrants. He dubs these victims “permanently separated” and creates a counternarrative of those who actually deserve our sympathy, rather than children in cages.161 Taking his cues for redefinition, the abandoned Walmart housing the children in cages has been relabeled a “summer camp” on Fox News Channel.162 The fact that the makeshift prison for children was in a former Walmart, the classic symbol of neoliberalism, indicates a seamless synthesis of economic principles and cultural values.163 This sort of symbolism is a perfect fit for the postmodern framework of production and reproduction of new meanings. Reports claim that the children are being housed in private prisons which charge the federal government seven hundred dollars a night for each child. Neoliberalism excels at creating crises and reaping profits from such deliberate disasters, so it is not a matter of Trump’s stupidity as Maher holds; Bush excelled at creating such crises too, but Trump has taken it to a different level. When President Reagan delivered his radio address to propose welfare reform, he cited hyped-up statistics to make his case for reducing welfare “dependency.”164 He popularized a hyperreal image of a welfare mom driving a Cadillac and gaming the system in order to justify a drastic policy

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change affecting the poor. This creation of a fake image under the umbrella of a real issue is second-order simulacra. In second-order simulacra, the question is whether or not the new imagery is factual and can be proven or disproven. NPR165 and other reporting outfits traced the origin of the example, Linda Taylor, to tell what actually turned out to be a complicated story about someone who went to prison for welfare fraud, even though the image of the welfare queen166 remains indelibly stamped on the discourse surrounding welfare. On the other hand, Trump recited a poem about a snake which gets refuge at a kind-hearted lady’s home and repays her by biting and killing her, and boasting that a snake will always spew poison regardless of the generous treatment it receives. Before reciting the poem, Trump uttered the word, “Immigrants!,”167 making it clear that the entire extended analogy pertained to them. This is how third-order simulacra operates: a “poem” cautioning against evil becomes recharged in our understanding of immigrants, erasing more benevolent historical frames to make cultural sense of immigrants. Trump’s overwhelming domination of visual and social media during his campaign and presidency is a takeover of a different space than what is usually allocated for politics. The cable networks chased after sensational news and showcased Trump and his antics with much fanfare. As with his real estate properties, Trump added value to that time by entertaining viewers as a performer.168 Major network stars have publicly apologized for the disproportionate time given to Trump, who has mastered the use of the short attention span tweet just as he has leveraged huge profits from small investments in real estate.169 But why is this strategy succeeding now in the media and politics? The problem lies with the structural changes that have taken place, so that the focus has shifted from ideology to talking points, a trend predating Trump. Dean discusses how both Sanders and Trump were presented in the media as anti-establishment candidates, erasing their fundamental differences. They were both framed as populists, but the message that attracted their respective supporters could not have been more different. By harping on crowd size, popularity, and the probability of winning, the message was downplayed, and opposing views on racism, sexism, and xenophobia were treated with equal weight. Even when the discussion revolved around the message, grievances about economic inequality were ignored and cultural insecurity was preferred as the main storyline.170 Dean identifies “communicative capitalism” as the reason why there cannot be political resistance against neoliberalism. Communicative capitalism shifts our language for structural problems to lived experiences, and exchange of such storylines becomes tantamount to political engagement. Since the experiences are usually first-hand, they cannot be shared beyond

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a particular group. Instead of solidifying and expanding groups or demands, we end up with multiple groups engaged in symbolic exchange of ideas, and this circular correspondence becomes the end product.171 The logic of communicative capitalism erases the distinction between truth and lies, amplifies Trump’s voice, and protects him from serious opposition.172 As Dean further informs us, “Trump should be understood as a politically powerful troll, one whose strength depends on getting attention, keeping people upset, and driving us to distraction. He feeds off the intensity of our feelings—and the affective networks of communicative capitalism are the perfect vehicles for generating and delivering it.”173 A great example of trolling was to blame the Mayor of San Juan when the administration came under attack for lack of federal support for hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico. The same modus operandi that landed Trump the presidency has been useful in diverting attention from domestic issues where the government has failed. Instead of showing remorse for not keeping the residents of Puerto Rico safe or providing them with the necessary means for survival, Puerto Rico has been blamed and unfairly compared to Florida and Texas, where federal dollars came through. Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump 5:45 PM—September 25, 2017 Texas and Florida are doing great but Puerto Rico, which was already suffering from broken infrastructure and massive debt, is in deep trouble.174 Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump 5:07 AM—September 30, 2017 The Fake News Networks are working overtime in Puerto Rico doing their best to take the spirit away from our soldiers and first R’s. Shame!175 Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump 6:26 AM—September 30, 2017 Such poor leadership ability by the Mayor of San Juan, and others in Puerto Rico, who are not able to get their workers to help. They. . . Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump 6:29 AM—September 30, 2017 . . . want everything to be done for them when it should be a community effort. 10,000 Federal workers on the island doing a fantastic job.176

Trump has mastered the art of self-satire to such an extent that he is being blamed for the genre’s demise. Shows like HBO’s Veep (2012–present) seem dated, as fiction cannot keep up with the reality.177 Hemingway178 and Tracinski179 argue that Trump is the true successor to Stewart. They refer back to the Crossfire interview where Stewart expressed righteous anger against

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talk-show hosts for dividing America and yet defended his own satire, which also escalates the partisan rift, as mere comedy. In the first chapter I discussed September 11, our grief-stricken moment, for supposedly heralding the end of the age of irony. In our current vulgar moment, the same funeral bells are said to be tolling for irony. But it is not possible to step outside our predominant reference point, so such calls are premature and misplaced. It is at moments which are like rips in the fabric of national life that irony becomes suddenly visible as the tactic we have been using to make sense of the world. Faced with a September 11 or a Trump presidency, we start questioning the morality of our main cultural mode, but it soon starts reasserting itself. The difference between September 11 and the Trump presidency is that Trump is a willing agent leveraging irony against the media elites designated as mortal enemies—but then again September 11 was also claimed by some to have been the ironic event par excellence, the blowback feeding into empire’s death fantasy. Tracinski claims that Trump has utilized the framework of anger as entertainment, except for a different audience. The same principle of narrowcasting which supported the late-night comedy shows has also allowed the audience base for Trump to flourish. As narrowcasting grows, we find rightwing radio hosts and late-night satirists on opposite ends of the spectrum. The recent response to right-wing radio shows consists not only in debunking their outrageous claims, but also the rise of new programming like “Pod Save America,” and the growth of liberal news networks with unabashed partisan bias.180 Latimer blames the media for losing empathy with the conservative portion of the nation. Arch-nationalists like Steve Bannon (whose roots are in the fear-mongering Brietbart News) call the media the “opposition party,” which resonates with Trump supporters.181 Like a satirist, Trump utters audacious claims, at times backtracking that these were jokes, or doubling down on the claims to the point where politics cannot be distinguished from dark comedy. The psychology of Internet trolling seems to be shared by both satirists and Trump. Tracinski in fact blames Stewart and his ilk for establishing ridicule as the main mode of political discourse, a tool that came in really handy for Trump. Trump cannot be shamed for conventional deficiencies because he has never claimed to abide by them. As Tracinski admonishes satirists, “You can’t make his candidacy look like a joke, because he already beat you to it.”182 Hemingway makes a more serious accusation against late-night comedians. She mentions the Obama years when late-night television embraced liberal satirists like Colbert, Meyers, Maher, Oliver, and Bee, yet produced very little satire probing the president or his administration. The moment the satirists consciously or subconsciously laid down their arsenal for Obama, they signified belonging to the liberal elites, with whom a large number of

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Americans find nothing in common. This is the faction who not only voted for Trump but have been persuaded that the mainstream media is the real enemy of Middle America. To them satire felt like political advertisement, and the mainstream media a space where they were perennial strangers. Hemingway has explained how satirists overplayed the card of absurdity, applying it not only to truly preposterous situations but to anything that seemed disagreeable to them.183 Kapferer traces back the Trump presidency to Trump’s reality TV show The Apprentice,184 which has been referred to as “the ultimate job interview.” Its tactics, mannerisms, and authority continued into the Republican primaries. In Kapferer’s words, “Trump is the charismatic mirror for the American people.”185 A character like Trump can only shine in a particular environment, where ideological positions have become hollow. Trump can emerge as a “technological singularity” only in the post-political landscape.186 As Kapferer emphasizes, “Trump is post-critique. His is the brilliant reversibility of comedy or satire. . . . His capacity to contradict himself, change positions, recover, and move on—his mediatic blur—is his strength.”187 It does not seem much of an exaggeration when Trump is depicted as a gangster on The President Show, seeking advice from other mob leaders, who sometimes insinuate that Trump is crossing a line that they themselves would not.188 The fact that presidential campaigns have become more entertainment than politics is not a creation of comedy, but of structural changes that have occurred within the media and in the real space of politics. Campaigns as entertainment did not start with Trump; they did so when the media decided to prioritize viewership over any other considerations. Both campaigns and coverage became candidate-oriented, opening the doors to unlimited material for satire that can easily be personalized because it freely utilizes scandals and the absurd. The success of late-night comedy and the failure of the mainstream media to offer serious political discourse have worked together to shift a large part of campaign coverage to the comedy channels. The primaries started becoming crowded with florid new players, with the implicit understanding that the criteria of the primary and the general election would remain different. Trump found his base through narrowcasting and succeeded by applying values from the world of entertainment to the world of politics, in both the primary and the general election, and to the presidency as well. Earlier, Palin had complained about liberal media bias, but Trump made the norms and frames of the media ineffective. As president, Trump has been using the power of pardoning like cliffhanger episodes of reality TV,189 pardoning supporters like Vice President Cheney’s aide Scooter Libby, Sheriff Joe Arpaio who violated federal orders by continuing racial profiling in Arizona, ultra-right-wing political pundit

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Dinesh D’Souza for illegal campaign contributions, first-time non-violent drug offender Alice Johnson for possessing cocaine (as per celebrity Kim Kardashian’s suggestion), late boxer Jack Johnson (fulfilling superstar Sylvester Stallone’s recommendation), and he has been toying with the idea of pardoning celebrity entrepreneur Martha Stewart.190 Disgraced Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich’s wife reached out to the president via Fox News Channel for her husband’s pardon, which Trump has been considering, just as he has also been touting the possibility of pardoning anyone who might be found guilty in the Mueller probe, including himself. We hear probable names every now and then as the president keeps us on our toes, teasing us as to who might be next on his list. This is a small example of the arbitrary charismatic authority he has carried forward from The Apprentice. Trump and his presidency have been compared to The Truman Show,191 the 1998 movie revolving around a television show based on a real person’s life, an unsuspecting figure who is adopted by a corporation and grows up in a simulation of a real town where everyone else is an actor. Truman is the only one who does not know that his life is not real. The movie is a cheeky rebuttal of our attraction toward reality TV and questions the boundaries between reality and simulation. Just as Truman is confused about his reality, we, the audience, are now mystified about the difference between reality and unreality. Whatever distinguished entertainment from politics has now been erased. HOW DO TRUMP SUPPORTERS RELATE TO POPULAR CULTURE? Maher: Finally, new rule, if you want to understand why America is so divided, don’t talk about Republicans and Democrats or red states and blue states. Read the story “The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse.” Currently being sold under the new title What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton. But the original was about two mice who learn that you’re either one or the other, city or country, and the same could really be said for America. When you fly over it you don’t see red states or blue states. You see vast stretches of land where there’s nothing and then every once in a while a city. Here’s Missouri but every state looks the same: a sea of red with a few blue dots. Now, I can joke about Alabama all I want, and believe me I want to, it’s Trump country, but Birmingham, because that’s a city, it voted for Hillary. Something happens to you when you live in a city. You get mugged. But you also have a multicultural experience. Cities are places with diversity and theaters and museums and other gay stuff. I have nothing against rural life but I’ve seen farms on TV and they look dusty. . . . This is the existential crisis of our president. He’s an asshole but he’s not a hick. He represents one group but belongs to another. I hate to break it to

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you real Americans, but what Trump likes about Chuck [Schumer] and Nancy [Pelosi] is they’re not you. And he’s not one of you. Trust me when Trump watches The Beverly Hillbillies, he roots for Mr. Drysdale. And when he tells a crowd I love you, what it means is that in Middle America he found something he had long ago run out of in New York. Suckers. Trump voters were played for rubes by the ultimate fast-talking, city slicker who saw vulnerable people nervous about jobs and the melting pot getting too melty and he told them he would build a great wall and they could get their jobs back at the mine and they said, “Where do I sign?” Folks, you didn’t make America great again, you enrolled in Trump University.192

This is Maher’s explanation of Trump supporters, which is as insightful as any political analysis of the 2016 election. One of the baffling questions in the mainstream media and the world of satire after the 2016 election has been identifying who the Trump voters are. Explanations have included the political (the unheard grievances of the silent majority), economic (people who have been made redundant in the neoliberal economy), structural (gerrymandering by Republicans leading to large numbers of safe districts despite more voters supporting Democrats), and cultural (the identity crisis of the shrinking white majority), all of which capture part of the reasons for the 2016 electoral result. But for my purpose I want to utilize the perspectives of satire and changes in the media to offer an explanation for the motivation of American voters who decided to choose Trump in both the primary and the general election. The demographic and spatial divide Maher mentions is reflected in the media and the audience as well. I have discussed the role of globalization, neoliberalism, and media conglomeration, and how these trends have led to ample channels for comedy, as narrowcasting made competition for audiences in the old-fashioned sense obsolete. These are also the factors that fused politics and entertainment together, so that as long as there was enough of an audience, politics as entertainment was encouraged and preferred over rational discourse and sedate argumentation. What has been missing from the discussion are the large numbers of people who have ceased to view late-night comedy shows in particular, and most network channels in general, as sources of news, information, or entertainment reflecting any semblance of their lives. As a shrewd businessman, Trump realized the political potential of the grievances of the invisible people in America, many of them white and older, who feel little connection with the America being projected on the television screen. A notable serious effort to understand and reach out to them was made by Michael Moore. His movie Michael Moore in TrumpLand (2016), labeled as an October surprise, was an investigation of the motivation of Trump voters in small-town Ohio, done with genuine respect and curiosity. Moore, for example, holds a town hall meeting and invites Trump supporters

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to speak their minds. Although it was labeled anti-Trump (Trump assumed from the title that it was backing him and boasted of getting Moore’s support until he was corrected) or pro-Hillary, it was really a heartfelt appeal to the Democratic Party and the elite liberals to bridge the gap with the non-elite poor who had similar economic interests. Trump may have misunderstood Moore’s intentions, but he was the one who got the message about identifying with non-elite poor white voters from the heartland who would carry him to the White House. Trump may have understood his base much better than the liberal and conservative establishments ever did. His campaign promise of building a wall on the southern border to keep out “Mexican rapists,” or banning the entry of Muslims through racist immigration and refugee policies, hit a nerve with many people. The working class is powerless in the neoliberal economy and blames both the economic system and its beneficiaries (successful immigrants from foreign cultures, or low-skilled Mexicans who can compete in the labor market), so that the accusations against Muslims, Mexicans, refugees, and immigrants in general resonated with that segment of the electorate. Here is Maher again on Trump voters, but this time making quite different points, first in an interview with Fareed Zakaria, and then on his own show: Donald Trump is a reflection and what we learned is that there are a lot of vulgar, tacky, racist people in this country, more than I thought. . . . The typical Trump voters in the primaries made . . . seventy-two thousand dollars, they are not hurting economically like they say they are.193 Here on inauguration day, in the interest of new beginnings, liberals have to stop calling Trump voters rubes and simpletons and instead reach out and feel their pain. The pain they insist we did not see, and there is ample evidence for that pain. Did you know that the fourteen states with the highest number of painkiller prescriptions per person, they all went for Trump? Trump won eighty percent of the states that have the biggest heroin problems and the counties that he won in Ohio and Pennsylvania that went for Obama last time are the ones that are racked by opioid abuses. So, let’s stop calling Trump voters idiots and fools and call them what they are, fucking drug addicts!194

On January 23, 2016, at a rally in Sioux City, Iowa, Trump memorably claimed, “I have the most loyal people. . . . I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.”195 Time and again in the ensuing year of campaigning, despite proliferating scandals, sexual allegations, and evidence of unhinged behavior, his voters proved him to be right. Trump was adept at transmitting messages to his supporters which sounded like gibberish to the regular media and were duly made fun of in the

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world of satire, but which carried symbolic significance and were heartily embraced by his voters. The symbolic messaging partly had its roots in the birther movement, where challenging the legitimacy of President Obama by questioning his place of birth held quite separate meanings to different groups of people. While the media, both straight and comedic, was focused on the factual defiance and responded with real information as to where Obama was born, for a large group of people the literal question and its answer were meaningless. What mattered was that the legitimacy of the Obama presidency could be challenged, and the one who was doing it against all odds and was being torn apart in the media was seen as being courageous and deserving the mantle of leadership. The truthiness of the birther movement and the emotion and sentiment it inspired were more overpowering than the veracity of Trump’s accusations. In the same vein, on November 27, 2017, Florida business owner Mark Lee said, “Let me tell you. If Jesus Christ gets down off the cross and tells me Trump is with Russia, I would tell him, ‘Hold on a second, I need to check with the president if it’s true,’” and went on to add, “It’s based on everything he’s been doing. He’s been winning.”196 A Texas businessman who owns a golf course in Brownsville said that during the campaign he thought Trump was talking about a rhetorical wall. If there was a real wall, he would lose his business because his golf course is located right along the Rio Grande, but in his interview to Desi Lydic of The Daily Show this businessman admitted that he would still vote for Trump. The only thing about the president that bothered him was how Trump once drove his golf cart over the greens at Trump National Golf Club in New Jersey, and as a golf course owner that image broke his heart!197 This is precisely the kind of supporters Tur encountered at Trump rallies, where journalists were told to “fuck off” by attendees. The animus against Hillary Clinton was mostly ascribed to irrationality or misogyny, rather than emotions rooted in deeper frustrations.198 At the same time, the sexual allegations against Trump hardly bothered his supporters. Tur describes a Trump supporter who “was wearing a white low-cut tank top with a homemade message scrawled on the front in red marker: Trump can grab my . . . . Below that, she drew a shaky arrow pointed down towards her crotch.”199 Having ignored the Trump constituency for much of the postmodern era, after their electoral victory there seem to be some efforts by the media to woo them. The popular sitcom Roseanne was revived in November 2017, with the lead character a dedicated Trump supporter, just as is the real-life actress Roseanne Barr. In the original sitcom, running from 1988 to 1997, Roseanne and her family were representatives of the working class, often invisible in the media. The economic status of the characters remains the same in the revived episodes as Roseanne and her husband face such struggles as the

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steep cost of prescription drugs, but their cultural status seems to have risen, as they are able to enact vestiges of privilege such as monitoring their Muslim neighbors—a sign of the social reality in America today.200 The logical inconsistency of voting for politicians who go on to limit health-care provisions and then having to worry about obtaining medications seems to be lost on both Roseanne and her audience. The show was canceled within six months in May 2018 when Roseanne tweeted a racial slur against former Obama administration adviser Valerie Jarrett, comparing her to an ape. Roseanne apologized and blamed the sleep aid Ambien for her nocturnal Tweetstorm, but Ambien tweeted back that “racism is not a known side effect.”201 Maher, a friend of Roseanne, summarized her behavior as “abhorrent, bordering on presidential.”202 Roseanne and her tweets are unacceptable and cannot be condoned in the public domain, yet real racist policies continue despite sharp official condemnation. In a truly postmodern twist, she is now presenting her supposed “unmediated self” through her YouTube channel,203 demonstrating an example of integral reality where there is no real attempt to absolve herself, where she screams and utters profanities in an unmoored stream, and where her entire premise for getting into trouble is supposed to be that she “thought the bitch [Jarrett] was white,” all of which takes us so far from the original incident that it is not a replica of anything. The relationship between Trump and his supporters may be one of pure adulation, but Trump’s relationship with the Republican Party has faced a few ups and downs. Republican senators and representatives have often raised feeble complaints, but the 2018 primaries have shown that speaking against Trump in Republican districts leads to renouncement by voters. The Republican Party started its concessions with the Tea Party, and the abjection has now come full circle with Trump. It is also fitting that when The Washington Post ran a story of the takeover of the Republican Party by Trump, they illustrated it through a series of cartoons.204 All of this serves to illustrate the submersion of normal politics into an attitude that eminently lends itself to satire, while the media and satire find themselves unable to keep up. When Trump claims that the mainstream media is the real enemy, this is a message heard loudly and clearly by his voters who appreciate that their reality is absent from the television screen. While Trump voters were being chastised for their misinformation, lack of awareness, bigotry, preference for violence, and scapegoating of minorities, they realized that the only privilege they had left in the neoliberal economy was the right of suffrage and they used it vigorously to voice their grievances. With very few exceptions like Moore, almost no one in the media predicted a Trump victory. As mentioned before, Colbert was doing a live show during the election results, which created a rare occasion for the real Colbert to pierce through, dumbfounded as he was over the outcome.

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Both Trump and his former advisor Steve Bannon have consistently labeled the media as the “enemy of the American people,” at the same time as Trump has been reaching out to his supporters through Twitter messages which are lavishly covered by the media. As long as his messages are on display, he does not need the media for anything else. He needs the media only as the enemy figure, and as a reliable transmission belt. Here is an example of the sort of tweet we all laughed at, without considering its deeper meaning and whom it reached and what it conveyed. The fight between the media and the White House has only escalated greatly during the presidency. Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump 1:48 PM—February 17, 2017 The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @ CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!205

The old standby SNL retains an acute sense of self-criticism in assessing its own role in this debacle. One of their most trenchant sketches, from March 12, 2017, centers around a machine that translates a dog’s language. The elaborate scientific experiment is deemed successful when the dog’s thoughts begin to be translated, until it is revealed that Max the dog is a Trump supporter. The owner of the dog (Scarlett Johansson) and two other scientists (Kyle Mooney and Mikey Day) and the sponsors receive a shock when they debut their invention. The scientists and donors are all liberals and they are horrified. The dialogue between the owner and the dog is not only playful but reveals notable liberal blind spots. For example, Max the dog: “I know Trump has issues, but one big issue is better than business as usual.” Helen the owner: “Max, I’m sorry. You are just a dog, you don’t know what you are talking about.” Max: “Excuse me, Helen, but yes, I do. . . . It’s that condescending attitude that made people want to vote for Trump in the first place.” Helen: “Trump is bad, Trump is a racist!” Max: “What do you know about black people? You never brought one into our house once.” Helen: “What about his record on women’s rights? Don’t you want me to have a choice over my own body?” Max: “You didn’t offer me a choice when you cut off my balls!”206 The brilliance of Trump lies in the fact that instead of participating in existing politics, he has redefined it for himself and his supporters. The rise of populism everywhere has been offered as a rational explanation for the rise of Trump. America does not have sizable populist parties, yet from time to time there have been presidents who got elected under a major party’s banner and yet claimed they were different. Most insurgent candidates like George Wallace (who supported segregation at the end of the 1960s) or Bernie Sanders (who recently challenged the institutions of the Democratic Party) never win. Yet populism often emerges as an alternate narrative to address particular

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political crises which the established political process cannot solve. Thus, as Kapferer says, “Trump’s openly cynical business-is-politics-is-business attitude is the perfect mirror to routine political cynicism in the population.”207 Judis defines populism not as an ideology but as a political logic, which is about the perception and language of government.208 With this description we can shift our gaze from populist leaders ranging from Reagan to Putin, and look instead at their supporters and the ambient discourse. Instead of forcing it into either a right-wing or left-wing ideology, populism has to be understood as a changed definition of government which resonates with people. Judis offers us a range of examples of prescriptions that are neither about limiting the role of government (conservative) nor using government power to deliver more goods to a greater number of people (liberal), but expecting a new role for government which may range from democratic (Sanders in the United States) to elitist (Evita Peron in Argentina) to racist (Le Pen in France) to promoting diversity (Evo Morales in Bolivia) to protectionism (Ross Perot in the United States) to economic growth (the BJP in India).209 The new wave of populism in America, which has offered space not only to the economically disgruntled but also to different groups of people who are racist and xenophobic, has been largely aided by the underlying philosophy of identity politics. According to Espejo, “Populism is an ideology that uses identity politics to capture the state through its electoral institutions. It turns parties into excluding peoples, which see themselves as having the unique right to control the state. They alone are the authentic people, and as such they have the right to exclude from equal citizenship anyone who is not a member. They will take back the state for the ‘true’ people, and those who are not members will get what is coming to them.”210 Populism may have resulted in the Trump presidency, but the American political crisis (where gridlock dominates the legislative agenda and partisan politics overwhelms all principles) and economic crisis (escalating income and wealth inequality, and a growing impoverished population) seem to have become unresolvable. The Trump voters from Middle America have suffered from loss of jobs, loss of living standards, and loss of future prospects. They may have vented their anger and apathy toward a mode of governance that has failed them, but they are still operating within the neoliberal economy which thrives on inequality. The Trump administration has passed a major tax plan which benefits the richest segment of society, adding more than a trillion dollars to the national debt211 and cutting back on remaining social services. This is the other clientele Trump is serving. Tur mentions the divergent audiences—those at the rallies and those in the ballrooms—as she tries to make sense of the diversity of Trump supporters. One attendee at a prestigious fundraising gala admits about the enthusiasm of the moneyed backers, “Because deep down, they know he’s one of them.”212 Indeed, after passage of his tax

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cut, sure to increase inequality, Trump boasted to his rich benefactors at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, “You all just got a lot richer.”213 Trump voters actually represent two very different groups. For one group, Trump has signaled his hostility against Mexicans, Muslims, immigrants, and so-called globalists, and initiated policies such as instituting a travel ban for Muslims, escalating deportation raids, detaining asylum seekers and their children in cages, and continuing to seek funding for the border wall. For the other group, to which he himself belongs, he is delivering massive tax cuts skewed heavily toward the rich and enacting other business-friendly policies such as expanding deregulation and privatization. It has been a difficult dance to attract and retain these contrasting sets of voters who demand very different, if not opposite, policies from Trump. The looming trade war with China (along with Canada, Mexico, and Europe) appeases his first group of followers who comprehend foreign relations through the simplistic notion of winning or losing, though they may not remain as enthusiastic when it is time to pay more for basic consumer goods. The second group of supporters, the business elite, stand to lose some of their profit margins in the tariff wars. So far, Trump has managed to pull off a merger between neoliberals (his elite base) and supporters of economic nationalism (a euphemism for white America, represented by his America First crowd) in the cultural arena, but keeping the two groups together when it comes to conflicting outcomes for the same economic policy may be more challenging. While the media and comedy have focused on the larger group that had been invisible and whose fear, anger, and desires have been magnified and portrayed throughout the campaign and post-election days, the smaller but more powerful supporters, the usual donors to Republican politicians, have remained missing from this scrutiny. As Altamirano-Jiménez holds, “Trump represents the fusion of the transnational capitalist class with reactionary political power.”214 His large group of voters, those responsible for electing him, have yet to figure this out. Trump’s rhetoric was based not only on lies, but also on a set of pragmatic truths. It was the lies—about Muslims, Mexicans, and the media—which captured the frustration of his supporters who were the older white working class. They responded to the symbolic (and often literal) messages of building the wall, establishing law and order, being rescued from their forgotten status, and winning again. But another segment of his supporters decoded very different messages, where the assurance given out was about the highly skewed tax cut and the dismantlement of the welfare state. I would argue that Trump succeeded at the same time in perpetuating two types of narrowcasting and providing different symbolic intimations which were properly understood by both parts of his base, the aggrieved new voters as well as the regular donors. Meyers mentions the code represented by the “law and order president,”215 a

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Nixonian phrase that signifies controlling the renegades (read the minorities), and is intuitively grasped by Trump supporters. After Trump was criticized for retweeting three anti-Muslim propaganda videos from a British hate group,216 press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended her boss by using the same logic: “The threat is real, what the president is talking about, the need for national security and military spending, those are very real things, there’s nothing fake about that.” She also argued that the president wanted to elevate the conversation on such dangers.217 Trump is delivering real policy changes to his large support base—getting the Supreme Court to rubber stamp his immigration ban for Muslim countries, ratcheting up the volume of deportations, and dehumanizing asylum seekers—so that his symbolic innuendos are now becoming transformed into reality. Satire made the error of treating his highly charged allusions as limited to symbolism, and stands exposed now because it is the new reality that has absorbed new streams of symbolism, such as Melania Trump’s jacket mentioned above. The torchlit Nazi procession was a half-imagined nightmare, until it actually happened, but for satire to address it as lunacy on the part of some outsiders—the only way modern satire can treat it—ignores the reality that this manifestation of a time-worn symbolic act stems not from the fringes anymore but from the center, where policies (such as the immigration ban) are formulated and implemented. Trump presents himself as an admirer of strength and of strong men—Putin, Mussolini, et al.—and this language is perfectly understood by his converts. When the president tweets a GIF of him punching CNN,218 the head of wrestling CEO Vince McMahon replaced with the CNN logo, it may appear unprecedented and Comedy Central may erupt in snickering disbelief, but to Trump devotees it is a symbol of strength and of the fighting spirit they want to see. Note the changed definition of strength. The sharper the invective that is hurled at Trump and the more offensive the exchanges he is engaged in, the more it is interpreted as strength. In President Ford’s time, Earl Butz, his secretary of agriculture, was asked to resign for telling an off-color joke about the sexual pleasures of black men, and Ford himself was criticized for being slow to ask for his resignation.219 Meanwhile, Trump has backed accused child molester and Alabama senatorial candidate Roy Moore (appearing at rallies, making robocalls, and tweeting on his behalf), defiantly arguing that he’d prefer any Republican over a Democrat for the coveted senate seat. Trump also tweeted a message to CNN on Christmas Day, 2017, with its bloodstained logo under his shoes and a caption that said simply, “Winning.”220 The symbolic communications exchanged between Trump and his disciples are being broadcast throughout the general media. The neo-Nazi rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia included groups of people comparable to those who attend the regular Trump rallies. Tur explains that when she talked to such Trump followers, they often echoed his sentiments, uttering “It’s a wise

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Image 3.3  Trump Wrestling with CNN. Trump, Donald J. Twitter Post. July 2, 2017, 6:21 AM. https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/881503147168071680.

decision” or “Ship them all back” after the proposed Muslim ban, or chanting “Build the wall” after his proposal to take a hard line on immigration.221 Trump rallies have had a number of violent eruptions, where minorities have been beaten or forced to leave, as Trump himself has encouraged his supporters to take matters into their own hands by promising to pay for legal costs or lamenting how the protesters would have been dealt with in earlier times. Slogans like “Go Back to Africa” or “Go to Auschwitz” are common at his barn-burning rallies, which have continued apace during his presidency. The anti-immigration bile reaches the highest ranks of his fan base. Hardcore Trump apologists like Steve Bannon and Ann Coulter erupted in fury after just a perceived slight wavering of Trump’s harsh position on the Dreamers.222 Minhaj contends that open racism should be a deal breaker,223 but he forgets that the people on the other end of that deal with Trump actually believe in the racist, xenophobic positions, more passionately than, or at least as passionately as, Trump himself. ​Trump’s combative style of intimidation appeals to his defenders, who speak the rote language of the culture wars. According to Tur, “They’ve decided that this menacing, indecent, post-truth landscape is where they want to live for the next four years.”224 As the space for political gain diminishes, the only space the former outcasts from the liberal sphere can claim as their own is the cultural space. They feel the acknowledgment of their existence only on right-wing radio, blogs, and podcasts, or on Fox News

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Image 3.4  Trump with Bloodstained Shoe. Shaw, Gerald. Twitter Post. December 23, 2017, 2:45 PM. https://twitter.com/shawgerald4/status/944700607624970240/photo/1.

in the mainstream media, and they are energized by the possibility of being visible in the American mediascape because it is their only hope for a policy revolution. Their quest to be conspicuous has certainly been resoundingly successful. The Trump presidency has ushered in an open exploration of the white supremacist ideology’s significance to American society, ranging from condemnation to trying to understand it,225 and extending to more serious theoretical analysis of American society itself.226 The Onion had a picture of a cross-burning on the White House lawn, captioned “White House Begins Christmas Season with Ceremonial Lighting of Cross,”227 while The Economist presented Trump in Klan clothing after his failure to denounce white supremacists for the murder of Heather Heyer at the Charlottesville rally.228 Trump may quite possibly be the perfect face of neoliberalism, courting one group of supporters over their cultural and economic anxieties, and yet delivering policies to help out another group whose prosperity is based on the exploitation of the first group.229 Trump has presented trade in a language that his economically marginalized cohort can follow and understand, in terms of “winning” and “losing,” while stripping the issue of nuances and complexities. If we have a trade deficit with a country, the explanation is that the other country is winning, and furthermore that they are not winning fairly. This narrative arc justifies trade wars with China, Europe, Canada, and Mexico, framing tit-for-tat rounds of escalating tariffs as a game where only one party can conquer by destroying the others. While Trump continues to profit from his global business empire, he has promised to take on countries that have been major trade partners like Mexico, as well as historic allies like NATO participants for not paying what he calls their fair share. Trump vilified China

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on the campaign trail, but soon changed his position after his first visit to the region, before starting a serious trade war; the back-and-forth condemnation and admiration operates in a cyclical pattern to capture our attention and keep us tense and waiting for the next episode to follow. In his tax plan the benefits go to his big donors, the billionaires and the corporate class, while most government programs and subsidies are slashed, which will be catastrophic for the bulk of his supporters. Trump promised to restore manufacturing and coal to benefit his followers, involving large investments that would be very difficult to get approved in any budget. Trump voters believe that the economic policies of the United States are skewed toward the elites, and they trust a self-financed and self-made candidate (neither presumption is true) to challenge that dynamic. They treat New Deal and Great Society programs such as Social Security and Medicare as American by nature and the legitimate right of citizens, even as they are distrustful of new programs like the ACA230 (though they did warm up to “Obamacare” when it was seriously threatened). This is not about logic but perception. Anything passed by a Democratic congress and especially President Obama in their worldview has to be anti-American and harmful. This perception is aptly captured by the New Yorker’s Andy Borowitz: “Trump Voters Celebrate Massive Tax Cuts for Everyone but Them.”231 Judis argues that Trump is different from his right-wing predecessors, George Wallace and Pat Buchanan, who attempted to cover their bigotry with politically acceptable language (states’ rights for Wallace, anxiety for the middle-class for Buchanan). In contrast, Trump is very comfortable with his heinous messages by threatening to beat up protesters at rallies and even pushing his partisans to do so.232 In August 2017, despite the precedent of hundreds of police killings of unarmed civilians, he urged the police, “please don’t be too nice [with the criminals].”233 Connolly summarizes Trump in this manner: He [Trump] is a neo-fascist who pursues hyper-aggressive nationalism, a law and order President that gives way too much power to the police, a proponent of white triumphalism, and the practitioner of a rhetorical style that regularly smears opponents to sustain the Big Lies he advances to energize his constituents and deflect them from hearing critical perspectives. His targets of choice are the media, the judiciary, and the intelligence services.234

The problem didn’t manifest to such an extent during the second Bush administration, because Bush spoke the language of moderate Republicanism for the most part (though his policies contradicted it), a language that Trump, in dismissing Jeb Bush and other Republican party stalwarts, has explicitly rejected. Thus the old satirical style, which worked from Bill Clinton to Obama, has been rendered obsolete. The Republican Party had already made its fatal pseudo-populist compromise with the Tea Party, therefore Trump was the inevitable conclusion. Judis has summarized the findings in this regard:

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70.1 percent of Trump voters in the ANES survey were not college graduates, compared to 45.1 of Republican establishment favorite John Kasich’s voters. In income, half of Trump voters made less than fifty thousand dollars a year, while only 35.3 percent of Kasich’s voters made that little. These Trump voters can be characterized as the descendants of those white working-class voters who began leaving the Democrats in the 1960s. Already alienated from Washington and the changes they have seen around them since 1972, they have become even more so in 2016, as the Great Recession seems like the final blow to their economic prospects in an economy that disproportionately favors the upper middle-class and very rich.235

The messages that appear as lies, fabrications, and alternative truth in the eyes of satirists, the media, and most of their audience actually appear to the intended recipients as signs of the strength of a born leader, the courage to challenge the elite narrative, and the sympathy of one who understands their afflictions from a position of power. Here is Meyers right after the inauguration, commenting on Trump’s false claim about the number of inauguration attendees. Meyers is correct in his assertions and brilliant in his takedown of Trump, but to Trump voters not only does Meyers appear disrespectful to the presidency, but by mocking the parts of the address where Trump is painting a dire picture of America—a bleak portrayal which resonates with many of them—Meyers seems cut off from the reality where Trump voters reside: Meyers: Trump lost the popular vote by almost three million and enters office with the lowest approval rate in modern history. His approval ratings—true story—are almost as low as his tie. So you think he might use his inaugural address to unite the country and provide an uplifting vision of the future. Instead, he opted for a nightmarish dystopian hellscape. Cut to Trump: Rusted out factories, scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation. The crime and the gangs and the drugs. America’s infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay. This American carnage stops right here and stops right now. Meyers: Trump is saying it’s morning in America, but early morning, when you wake up hungover in a cold sweat and you realize you’re in Thailand and there’s a dead body in the bed next to you. Cut to Trump: We had a massive field of people, you saw that, packed. I get up this morning, I turn on one of the networks and they show an empty field. I said, “Wait a minute. I made a speech. . . . It looked like a million, million and a half people. They showed a field where there was practically no one standing there.” Cut to Press Secretary Sean Spicer: Photographs of the inaugural proceedings were intentionally framed in a way, in one particular tweet, to minimize

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the enormous support that gathered on the National Mall. Inaccurate numbers involving crowd size were also tweeted. No one had numbers, because the National Park Service, which controls the National Mall, does not put any out. This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration—period. Meyers: Period? I think you mean double question marks. And what’s going on with that big jacket? Do you use the same tailor as Tom Brady? Of course, there are lots of ways to fact-check obvious lies. But you might have noticed that Spicer actually disproved his own lie in a matter of seconds. Cut to Spicer: No one had numbers. This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration—period. Meyers: There was no way of knowing how many people were there but there were definitely more people there than ever before. No, he is right. He’s right that there are no hard numbers because the National Park Service does not release crowd estimates, but the Washington Area Transit Authority does release ridership numbers and according to those numbers, “Friday’s Metro ridership was the lowest in at least two presidential inaugurations, and it was also lower than that of an average weekday.” So Trump did worse than an average weekday. That means people called in sick to work to not go to the inauguration.236

One of the binding characteristics of Trump supporters is their own perceived loyalty to America, a kind of nationalism that is daily becoming passé with greater diversity, more immigrants, and intensifying globalization. Trump has been rightly condemned for failing to denounce white supremacist rallies, their violent slogans, and the resulting death of a protester by such groups. His infamous claim that there are good people on both sides was widely seen as repellant. Contrast this reaction with how he has been expressing his disgust for NFL players who have been kneeling during the national anthem in protest of police killings of unarmed black men. Here is Noah calling out Trump for his double standard and hypocrisy, but what escapes Noah—though not Trump voters—is not what the Confederate and U.S. flags are supposed to represent but the meaning those flags convey to particular sets of people. At one of his rallies, Trump physically embraced the U.S. flag before his speech. This was a signal of solidarity with a particular faction, which remains steadfastly devoted as Trump gives the appearance of delivering his campaign promises to them one after the other: Noah: When Nazis were protesting in Charlottesville, Trump said [mimics Trump], “Some of these were very fine people, very fine people.” But then, when black football players protest peacefully by taking a knee during the anthem, he calls them sons of bitches. Who should be fired! . . . And also, if

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Donald Trump’s greatest concern is the disrespecting of the American flag, you know what should really piss him off? The Confederate flag. That’s what should piss him off. Because that’s basically waving a picture of your ex around. That’s what that is. That flag is disrespect. . . . So on the one hand, you have sons of bitches. On the other hand, you have the president of the United States saying a private citizen should be fired for expressing an opinion that the president doesn’t like, which sounds very dictatorial to me. Because when Trump tells the NFL owners “You should fire these players,” if they don’t fire the players, they’re basically going against the president, right? And if the players take a knee, now they’re going against the president. But you realize until this weekend, the knee had nothing to do with the president. Nothing at all to do with Trump. At all. Cut to Trump: When you get on your knee and you don’t respect the American flag or the anthem, that’s not being treated with respect. This has nothing to do with race. I’ve never said anything about race. This has nothing to do with race or anything else. This has to do with respect for our country and respect for our flag. I think it’s very disrespectful to our country. Noah: These players aren’t trying to disrespect the country. Let’s start with that. They’re trying to peacefully protest police treatment of black people in America, right? If they wanted to disrespect the country, they wouldn’t kneel silently. They would do crazy things, like insult Gold Star families or make fun of POWs like John McCain or say that America is morally equivalent to Putin’s Russia. That’s the kind of **** [bleep] they would do if they were trying to disrespect the country. Like, did you know that Colin Kaepernick used to sit on the bench during the anthem? That’s what he used to do, sit on the bench during the anthem, until a former NFL player who is also a veteran, Nate Boyer, told Kaepernick, “Look, man, there’s a better way to do this.” Kaepernick changed his protest to take a knee, because, clearly, he does respect the troops. And still President Trump called him out in a way that he never did to the Nazis in Charlottesville. So in my opinion this has everything to do with race.237

In the early months of the Trump presidency, Stephen Miller, one of Trump’s most influential advisers, became locked in a verbal skirmish with a television journalist. Here is part of the transcript where the label “rootless cosmopolitan,” a standard fascist slur against liberals, is used as an open insult. The real audience for this drama was Trump supporters who might feel that even when their chosen representatives are in power they can understand and talk in their language. Again, the journalist appears as the enemy of the people: CNN Correspondent Jim Acosta: This whole notion of, they have to learn English before they get to the United States, are we just going to bring in people from Great Britain and Australia?

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Senior Policy Adviser Stephen Miller: I have to say, I am shocked at your statement that you think that only people from Great Britain and Australia would know English. It reveals your cosmopolitan bias to a shocking degree that in your mind—this is an amazing moment. That you think only people from Great Britain or Australia would speak English is so insulting to millions of hardworking immigrants who do speak English from all over the world. Have you honestly never met an immigrant from another country who speaks English outside of Great Britain and Australia?238

Below is a tweet from Trump to former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, after Romney publicly criticized Trump’s candidacy. Romney read the tweet on Jimmy Kimmel Live! and responded to it. In turn, Kimmel followed up with a few tweets from Trump supporters addressed to him. Trump’s adherents are indeed closely following his own script: Donald J. Trump ✔@realDonaldTrump 9:36 AM—March 8, 2016 Mitt Romney had his chance and blew it. Lindsey Graham ran for president, got ZERO, and quit! Why are they now spokesmen against me? Sad!239

Romney: The only people I know who got zero are the ones who paid twenty-five grand to be at Trump University!240 Kimmel: Last night on our show, if you missed it, I had a message for those who voted for Donald Trump. I explained that I understood why they did it, but encouraged those who deep down feel like . . . they . . . made a mistake to just admit it and move on. And I think I have to say that it might have worked. I really think I’ve made a breakthrough, and I base that on the thoughtful responses I got on Twitter and Facebook from people like Thomas who wrote, “@jimmykimmel Why don’t you go somewhere else like a different country if you don’t like our president and stop you’re crying on tv snowflake.” This response is from Douglas: “@jimmykimmel Jimmy give me a break Jimmy. Nobody cares what you think you sound like a whining baby does Baby Jimmy want his bottle?” And Twitter user Codrin wrote: “I hate them all to be honest but if you’re down for some mind numbing retardation I guess @jimmykimmel has got that down pact.”241

It should be conceded that it is very difficult to analyze the rationale and logic of Trump’s well-wishers as they demand contradictory roles from politicians and government. Alexandra Pelosi’s documentary about Tea Party supporters—who presumably voted for Trump—in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy provides some apt examples. The documentary shows the impact of the hurricane on New Jersey. A background voice keeps asking questions of one man: “So if this whole town votes Republican and everyone I talk to says

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I hate government and we have to cut government, why should you be getting sixty billion dollars in Sandy relief?” The man responds: “I am a staunch Republican and I think the government needs to make cuts. There’s got to be cuts in Washington where it is not going to hurt us.” When asked what programs he would like to see cut—veterans benefits, Social Security, education, Sandy relief, Medicare, health care, military, unemployment benefits—all the answers are a resounding “no.” There follows a repetition of the questions and answers with two more persons who also say no to all the questions. The background voice asks: “Then what should we cut?” One of the respondents finally concedes, “We should cut their pay in Washington D.C. We should cut foreign aid to other countries.”242 But unlike his supporters, Trump himself cannot be made fun of. Maher was exasperated in this futile venture in May 2017, barely five months into the Trump presidency: And then this to cap it all off, later in the day, same day, he meets with the Prime Minister of Australia and he says to him, “You have better health care than we do.” They have government-funded single-payer health care. The very thing he just signed off the opposite of. Any other president, this would be the stupidest thing he said all week. With this guy, it doesn’t even crack the top one hundred.243

THIS ELECTION DID NOT TAKE PLACE What Baudrillard claims in The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (1991) is not that it did not happen (he is not refuting the occurrence literally), but rather he is questioning where and how it took place. I would like to argue that in a similar vein the 2016 election took place on a different plane of reality: the reality which we experience as authentic but where reality, simulation, and entertainment have actually converged to an extent where they cannot be differentiated anymore; the reality where the media promotes entertainment to such a magnitude that there are no meaningful distinctions between satire and news; and the reality where campaigns and presidencies function primarily as diversions, thereby fundamentally altering the rules of the political game. Let me turn to a satirist impersonating Trump for an explanation of this phenomenon: Trump Impersonator Anthony Atamanuik: Fake news! Isn’t it true that the problem that generally people have at a level that is almost underneath their consciousness is the fact that mainstream media, at this point, is a scandalto-scandal breaking news collage. . . . [This] has created a problem where real stories get covered up, by these kinds of scandals, and then I can come in, label it fake news and rob us of a real dialogue about the responsibilities of the Fourth Estate.244

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I have discussed the structural changes in the media which allowed it to set the rules of entertainment, but as politics became fused with entertainment, the same rules which had relied on narrowcasting to reach and cultivate a support base—the obsession with ratings above all else, and the skill to draw attention through absurdity—are the norms of politics now. Trump and his administration have usurped these strategies from the entertainment industry and applied them to the world of politics, with impressive success. Meyers rebuked Representative Peter King for using a satirist’s methodology in his denigration of Steve Bannon: Meyers: Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon was an early and vocal backer of Roy Moore in Alabama. Bannon went to war with the GOP establishment and managed to lose a senate seat in Alabama, arguably the most Republican state in the country. And that has led to many Republicans turning on him, like New York Republican Congressman Peter King who did not hold back in an interview on CNN on Wednesday. Cut to Peter King: This guy [Steve Bannon] does not belong to the national stage. He looks like some disheveled drunk that wandered onto the political stage. Meyers: Hey! Peter King, you doing my job now? I will do the “looks like” jokes around here. Steve Bannon looks like a cop who went undercover to solve a case and then they forgot to tell him that the case was solved, so he just stayed undercover for another ten years.245

Baudrillard perceived the Gulf War from a unique lens to make sense of what it said about the reality where it took place. According to him, the Gulf War was largely a production for entertainment, without the usual baggage of war, and it changed what wars meant in the American subconscious. While wars are manifestations of power relations and contests over resources, modern warfare has emerged as a contestation over the discourse surrounding power conflicts. Baudrillard deconstructed the Gulf War as a mega-spectacle that took place in the digital media rather than the way we have historically understood war.246 Wars have been enveloped in the garb of patriotism, self-defense, and righteousness, and even as tragedies (the Vietnam War), but with the Gulf War the most important conversation surrounding the war concerned its staging. We often forget how the vast amounts of resources, people, and time spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have been measured and justified, but it is difficult to forget the simulations and night-time attacks, the journalists and the military merging as one team, and the general pornography of the display of military might which first emerged in the initial Gulf

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War and remain constants for future American wars. War, Baudrillard contended, now takes place in the form of simulation on the television screens in our living room, as people cheer for their home team and the combat becomes a source of entertainment.247 He further cautions us, “Simulation threatens the difference between ‘true’ and ‘false,’ between ‘real’ and ‘imaginary.’”248 The first Gulf War was different from past imperial wars where the focus had been occupying territory, subjugating people, vanquishing a particular ideology, or expanding commercial horizons. America’s involvement on behalf of Kuwait against Iraq was related to its oil interest in the Middle East, a stake which probably could have been upheld without the use of military might. The Gulf War was more of a visual demonstration of the technological superiority of America on the world stage. As Best and Kellner state: The Gulf spectacle was “postmodern” in that, first, it was a media event that was experienced as a live occurrence for the whole global village. Second, it managed to blur the distinction between truth and reality in a triumph of the orchestrated image and spectacle. Third, the conflict exhibited a heightened merging of individuals and technology, previewing a new type of cyberwar that featured information technology and “smart weapons.”249

The success of framing war as entertainment is tied to the pivotal status of technology and media in contemporary culture. Baudrillard situates the media at the core of cultural institutions, mores, and even interpersonal relations. The media stands between us and the real, so that even if the real represents actual experiences, the media represents the technology through which those experiences derive meaning. Television produces what Baudrillard calls “a transitive message,” where viewers only assimilate the meaning of signs and do not have control over the interpretation of the message.250 He elaborates on the concepts of the “pseudo-event” and “neo-reality,” where the meaning lies in the drama that is produced by each event, and this meaning is irrelevant to what is true or false.251 Reality appears to be rooted in consensus or common experience, rather than fact. The repeated construction of reality through images in the digital media leads to hyperreality where these constructions take on a new meaning of their own, which overshadows reality. We start believing the cultural codes which become thoroughly accepted by repeated presence even when they negate our own knowledge and experience.252 Images dominate our worldview as we are dependent upon them to perceive and make sense of the world. From being the reflection of reality, images free themselves from it, emerging with their own meaning—the process of simulacrum, as Baudrillard teaches us.253 When images signify only themselves, they are unmoored and their meanings become unstable. The question then arises as to who can participate in the forging of the new meanings. The Gulf War was exhibited on the

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television screen as a war without history but with a simple storyline of good versus evil, with the enemy handily being vanquished. In this exhibition, the American military easily exited the war front to return home victorious, while the follow-up of the impact, especially its human consequences, remained absent from the audience’s minds. They had become spectators of an enjoyable warlike game, and their side having won, they cheered and moved on to the next spectacle. Best and Kellner walk us through this process of the new formulation of meaning. The Gulf War media spectacle took place with simulation models and war games that projected U.S. military intervention against Iraq in a bloodless technological display of power. They write, This computer modeling continued to play a significant role throughout its programming, execution, and results. The theater of war was reduced to data on computers and the war itself exhibited a new level of implosion between humans and machines. Once within the actual war zone, combatants existed in a cyberspace somewhere between the physical world and virtual reality. Pilots interacted with computers that chose their targets. Air traffic control crews punched in computerized commands. Gulf warriors became cyborgs, part human, part machine, nodes with highly sophisticated communication systems.254

Why were citizens so mesmerized by the Gulf War that they became a willing audience glued to the TV screen? The answer to this question lies partly in the addictive quality of simulacra, where the anesthetic war in its technological glory replaced the real agony and bloodshed, becoming not only palatable but a desired event to be enjoyed from the safe distance of the television broadcast. Another part of the answer lies in the manufacture of infotainment, a process that had just started gaining steam, with the Gulf War presenting itself as the perfect test case where all the disturbing aspects could be stripped off or downplayed, while glorifying the theatrics that captivate people’s attention.255 With only two hundred and ninety-four dead and eight hundred and forty-nine wounded American soldiers,256 it was relatively easy not to focus on the casualties of war; without dead soldiers, the war was packaged as a pain-free exercise, taking place in a faraway universe, just as the spooky video streams suggested. Imagine this example of war becoming entertainment and replace the notion of war with politics. Unlike war, politics has always had a performative part which was easy to disentangle with satire. Political analysis and satire have a necessarily symbiotic relationship, but what recently occurred in the media—when deregulation lessened the need for competition across audience bases while globalization expanded the scope of the overall audience— was to redefine and customize all programs as entertainment. Satire and news have coalesced as a similar way of understanding events. Infotainment has not only changed the media, it has also changed politics. Trump acceded to

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the presidency by capitalizing on the logic of the entertainment business, and we have to give him credit for understanding the media’s game better than the media experts. Trump has tweeted angrily at the New York Times and the Washington Post for reporting that he watches television from four to eight hours daily. The Times has also reported that “Before taking office, Mr. Trump told top aides to think of each presidential day as an episode in a television show in which he vanquishes rivals” (emphasis added).257 Since coming to power, Trump has expelled a huge number of his staff in a perpetual firing squad, and a number of his close confidants have been interrogated for having inappropriate ties with Russia during the campaign and for hiding that information during Senate hearings and security clearances. SNL needled Trump by showing him decorating his Christmas tree with the ornaments of losers who were fired or had left the administration, such as James Comey, Sean Spicer, Steve Bannon, Anthony Scaramucci, Mike Flynn, and the like. Meanwhile, Omarosa (Omarose Onee Manigault Newman), the fired communications strategist who experienced a dramatic exit, lurks around to sneak inside the White House. Kellyanne Conway, the presidential adviser, claims she is so drunk she ended up speaking the truth for once (an homage to her skill for bending the truth and never answering direct questions). Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, appears as an elf and claims that he cannot snitch as he does not recall who has been naughty and who has been nice (he used the phrase “I do not recall” in his Senate hearing ad nauseum).258 Is this spectacle an escape from reality or a window to it? When the Washington Post refers to the memorable press briefings of 2017,259 and The President Show presents a charade260 played out with Trump’s trusted people—Mike Pence, Bannon, and Scaramucci—who act out such statements (all real, by the way) as “Trump dictated Don Jr.’s misleading statements on the Russian lawyer,” or “the Justice Department fights for white college applicants,” or “Trump reportedly calls the White House ‘a real dump,’” then there is no difference between what is being reported by one of the nation’s most prestigious newspapers and what is telecast on a program on Comedy Central showcasing a president running a reality TV show. The tumultuous ten-day career of Scaramucci as communications director—during which we heard him use extreme profanities to discuss his colleagues Bannon and Reince Preibus in the White House—would not have been approved if it was a script written as satire. When Scaramucci lookalike Mario Cantone appears alongside him on television’s The View,261 it is difficult to tell the two men apart, as it has become exhausting to distinguish politics from entertainment and entertainment from politics. The role of television historically has not always been to provide simulation and unreality. Television used to expose hypocrisies and controversies too. Hart contends that McCarthyism and the Vietnam War were both confronted

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after television allowed the mass audience to judge what was going on in their names.262 It is true that the media exposure was never benign in reflecting world affairs, as events were always being reimagined even as they were being presented. This inherent power of the media is well understood, but we have now entered a new phase where these reconstructions are informing events in real time, and the cyclical give-and-take between reality and simulation is happening on an accelerated scale.263 According to postmodern theory, this configuration alters our manner of perceiving, and eliminates the possibility of directly experiencing information. As Bean notes, “The Daily Show and The Colbert Report . . . perfectly enact Baudrillard’s theory of media, and they seem at times to be designed specifically to prove his notions correct.”264 The logic of creating advertisements solely for enhancing consumption has been adopted by the media in its designs for disseminating political information like any other entertainment programming. One can argue that elections and campaigns are now primarily projected as entertainment. In the real political world, campaigns have usurped much of the space, energy, and time that had historically been allocated to statecraft. George C. Edwards III has accused the second Bush presidency of campaigning the whole time. He summarizes the Bush presidency as governing by campaigning. After taking office, within five months Bush had already campaigned in twenty-nine states to promote his priority initiatives with an extensive domestic travel schedule.265 Later, as Edwards notes, the significance of language in message discipline—in other words, propaganda—became paramount: “Regime change was ‘liberation,’ not ‘occupation.’ The paramilitary Fedayeen were ‘death squads.’ Iraqi groups and fighters were ‘thugs.’ The Hussein government was a ‘regime.’ . . . Those fighting the United States in Iraq were not ‘insurgents’ but ‘terrorists.’”266 Baudrillard’s deep concern about the media’s ability to stage-manage anything, even war, rings true when applied against these examples. Baudrillard is not denying the reality of war, but showing what takes place at the level of image and sign.267 Baudrillard further cautions us that illusion and reality are not opposed to each other. He uses the example of photography as a mode of capturing reality which often ends up representing more than what can be understood from the reality itself. When an object turns into an image it loses much of its dimensions and background but new meanings sprout up from its new context and delivery. This, for Baudrillard, is the seduction of illusion.268 While we are being captivated by the unceasing shenanigans of the Trump presidency, the synergistic connections between reality and illusion point to the real policy impacts of this administration within a short period of time. While the much discussed immigrant child separation policy was underway, that same week huge chunks of funding were proposed to be cut from Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security,269 and public lands protected for national

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parks were opened up to mining companies.270 This is why Noam Chomsky, who considers Trump one of the biggest threats to America, also labels him a distraction. He clarifies the effect of the presidency as a two-level wrecking ball: “Whether this is conscious or not, I don’t know. Trump’s role is to ensure that the media and the public attention are always concentrated on him. So every time you turn on a television set, it’s Trump. Open the front page of the newspaper: Trump. . . . And while this show is going on in public, in the background the wrecking crew is working. Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, the guys in the cabinet who write his executive orders, what they’re doing is systematically dismantling every aspect of government that works for the benefit of the population.”271 The only thing I would like to add to Chomsky’s analysis is that, yes, it is a conscious process. And that perhaps “distraction” might not be the best choice of words from the postmodern perspective, because everything is in the open so there’s nobody whose consciousness needs to be elevated. The real and the hyperreal are occurring simultaneously at this time, and we are unable to capture either one, because by the time we resist or protest, the third-order simulacra changes the meaning of both the real and the hyperreal. This process of continuous elaboration of new meaning is not limited to Trump or his aides who have legitimized alternate facts as a way to comprehend reality. Time magazine’s July 2018 cover depicts a crying toddler as the epitome of Trump’s hardline immigration policy, enhanced by the ironic headline, “Welcome to America.”272 This particular toddler, in fact, was not separated from her mother, as many have pointed out. Nevertheless, the original picture does convey the actual plight of immigrant children taken away from parents, the photographer managing to capture the essence of our zero-tolerance policy. The Colbert Show then presented a modification of the picture on its Facebook page, where the crying toddler kicks Trump, suddenly gaining agency, which satisfies viewers. This copy is the construction of the hyperreal, where the meaning—Trump being hurt by the toddler—is almost opposite to what the original photograph conveyed. We may also connect it to the relief or release theory of laughter. There is a third picture that has been widely shared on social media, where President Obama consoles the toddler and, by extension, consoles us. While this picture tries to connect the toddler with a “real president,” “normal times,” and the “ideal father,” it refutes the reality of immigration policy which was not too different during the Obama presidency. The production of the last two images, while sympathetic to the plight of the children separated from their parents, shifts the discourse away from the real issues of “criminalizing asylum seekers,” “the historic immigration debacle,” and “violation of human rights,” just to name a few. In contrast, Michael Moore posted another picture on social media, comparing the same toddler with a character from Schindler’s List, Steven Spielberg’s 1993 movie on the Holocaust based on a true story. The girl in the red coat, who is being taken away by the Nazi, may be a fictitious character, yet she gets the

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point across subtly but clearly as the two seem to be reverse images of past and present, both girls mirroring similar situations. It cannot be underscored enough that these constructions of simulacra did not start with the Trump presidency, though I would concede that he engages in it with perfect pitch. As I mentioned earlier, one of the most spectacular events during the Bush presidency was the declaration of the end of war with the president himself at the helm of an aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, with the “Mission Accomplished” banner in the background, even though the war continued for years after the much choreographed event.273 The fact that Bush’s career as a pilot in the Texas Air National Guard was marred by allegations that he did not fulfill his obligations during the Vietnam War was an ironic backdrop to this carefully designed performance. Much like a theatrical show, the lighting, the make-up, the stage, everything for this event was managed by professionals from network television.274 Members of the Bush administration (particularly adviser Karl Rove) were often criticized for attempts to downplay negative news from the war front or to sell it as the inevitable cost of warfare. When the Bush administration was inundated with the abuse scandal at the Abu Ghraib prison, it shifted the blame to “a few bad apples” who were said to be responsible for the outrageous treatment of prisoners. Though journalists challenged the superficial framing, the connection between the torture of enemy combatants and the treatment of domestic prisoners was not stressed, neither was the U.S. history of direct involvement in human rights abuses in Latin American countries and elsewhere to put Abu Ghraib in the appropriate historical setting. The format of the election campaign, where issues are covered at dizzying speed, has replaced nuanced discussion of policy even after the formal end of campaigning. Trump has continued to have campaign-like rallies throughout his presidency, where shocking new pronouncements are delivered at a bewildering rate. With the advent of the Tea Party, the primaries in U.S. elections have turned more sleazy, gaudy, and comical than ever before. The implicit understanding seems to have been that anything could pass in the primaries because the candidates were only courting their most fervent supporters, and that things would revert back to normal when the time came for the general election. Except in 2016, they didn’t. As noted earlier, Palin as the vice presidential candidate in 2008 can take credit for making the general election as entertaining as the primary. This practice of giving attention to candidates who have extreme views is what pushed along Trump in his successful primary campaign. The difference is that Trump was much more skillful than any Tea Party candidate, but had it not been for the custom of treating the primary as entertainment we might not have had Trump as the nominee or the president. Danielle Sarver Coombs has examined the media framing of the 2012 campaign, and found that instead of eliminating unelectable candidates, the primaries functioned as yearlong entertainment without the compulsion to

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weed out the unqualified. Instead of peripheral candidates being brushed off, they emerged as surprise forerunners, only to lose their support and vibrancy at the very end (which did not, however, happen with Trump in the next presidential cycle). One structural reason for this change has to do with the rise of PACs and Super PACs, with candidates needing to persuade deep-pocketed donors rather than the party in the new landscape of unregulated campaign contributions. In the 2012 campaign, Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty got hardly any attention from the media despite being labeled as a successful chief executive, while Michele Bachmann, the congresswoman from Minnesota who had embraced the Tea Party’s radical agenda, captured the attention of journalists. She could excite her supporters and raise funds only because of the media attention splurged on her.275 In 2012, it was believed that the “Tea Party and its candidates were better suited for local and state elections than national contests,”276 but learning from their tactics Trump proved everyone wrong. The 2012 Republican primary was a game-changer, in that it transformed campaigns into revelries. The Citizens United decision has had a role to play in the excessive number of candidates, which changes the dynamics of the race. As Coombs explains, “Unlimited donations to candidate-affiliated super PACs . . . [mean] a wealthy true believer . . . [can] keep a candidate in the mix long after his sellby date.”277 The length of the primary also provides enough time to compete with other extended modes of diversion, and the more it establishes itself as a prime-time show, the more it transforms itself into a reality show, as we witnessed in 2016.278 To quote Coombs again, In the 2012 campaign, these debates were notable for their emphasis on entertainment. Candidates who could perform well in this context earned substantial bumps in the polls, capitulating them into the top tier. Those who did not excel were lost; debates undermined the candidacy of both Pawlenty and [Texas Governor Rick] Perry. Catchphrases (including [Herman Cain’s] 9-9-9) and one-liners became water cooler topics, distracting from more substantive discussions among the candidates.279

Newcomers with extreme ideologies, contradicting the Republican Party’s traditional stances, were designated the new idols, emerging as frontrunners despite spiking worries about their electability. Bachmann and Cain usurped the spotlight from familiar politicians like Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum with their style that energized the conservative base, though they had little to offer in terms of policy substance.280 The Republican establishment won in 2012, but 2016 was their year of loss. Trump caught the Republican Party establishment off-guard, and they have yet to figure out a way to deal with him, though the consensus seems to

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be to go along as long as they can get their preferred policies enacted. The Democratic establishment sided with Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders, and paid a heavy price with the loss of young voters at the polling booth, a factor that might well have caused them to lose in the general election. The loss of party control over the primary process is an additional development which confirms that politics has become entertainment. The parties allowed campaigns to be framed as extended festivities, and were caught flat-footed when the licentiousness took over politics. Here is Maher on Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, who now occupies so many theoretical designations and responsibilities as to give nepotism a bad name. The language is not too different from Joe Scarborough on his MSNBC show Morning Joe describing Trump and U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley’s reaction to the nonbinding U.N. resolution against the American position on shifting the embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem: “Nikki Haley and Donald Trump engaged yesterday in something that is in between a schoolyard taunt and a mob boss’s threat.”281 USA Today issued this sharp rebuke on a different issue but with similar disdain: “A president who would all but call Senator Kirsten Gillibrand a whore is not fit to clean the toilets in the Barack Obama Presidential Library or to shine the shoes of George W. Bush.”282 Maher: They call Jared Kushner Trump’s Boy Wonder because what anyone sees in him, boy, really makes you wonder! Trump thinks so highly of his son-in-law that he didn’t just give him one important job, he gave Jared all of them. . . . Who better to earn the trust of the Palestinians than an orthodox Jew who specializes in aggressively acquiring real estate? Bringing peace to the Middle East was only the beginning of Jared’s assignments. You remember the list. Reinventing government Renegotiating old trade deals Resetting relations with Mexico and China and Canada Solving the opioid crisis Reimagining the Veterans Administration Rebuilding highways, bridges, dams, sewers, and power lines, and providing broadband Internet to everyone in America And then on Tuesday . . .283

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Let’s turn to Meyers commenting on two events of the Trump presidency. One is about the press secretary shifting the discussion from serious accusations to a lighthearted development, and the other is about key personnel in the administration being involved with Russian officials during the election, which they failed to disclose under scrutiny. One issue is amusing but the other is weighty. When politics and entertainment become synonymous, satire seems to be the only tool left, but it loses its edge because it must be deployed against all aberrations regardless of their gravity. We feel that we are aware of all the excesses of the Trump presidency, but all these acts, ranging from mischief to perjury, have to be processed with the same laughter. Satire, as we have seen in the canonical cartoons and literary models, relies on a hierarchy of values; flattening this hierarchy seems to have been a conscious goal of the Trump ascendancy, thereby rendering satire moot. Meyers: With his historically low approval numbers, the White House has been looking for ways to humanize Trump. And one of those ways involves reading letters from kids to the president. Last month, a ten-year-old boy named Frank wrote a letter offering to mow the White House lawn, and today, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced that Frank will get his wish. Cut to press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders: On a slightly lighter note, I’d like to announce that Frank from Falls Church, Virginia, whose letter I read last month, offering his services to mow the White House lawn, will be here on Friday. He’ll work with the groundskeeping crew here at the White House and will help cut the grass in the Rose Garden. Meyers: That’s right . . . Frank is actually going to mow the White House lawn. That’s almost as amazing as the fact that there’s a ten-year-old boy named Frank. Apparently, he wants to get famous because he’s got a big crush on his classmate Joan. . . . Trump’s lawyer Ty Cobb—and that’s his real name—apparently fell for an email prank last week when a prankster posing as the White House social media director, Dan Scavino, emailed him and asked him questions about the Russia scandal. And Cobb seemed to essentially admit that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn may have broken the law.284

Even more problematic is that the media and satire are porous and borrow from each other so greatly that their distinct identities have all but disappeared. To put Baudrillard’s views on this a little differently, hyperreality results when the political and media spheres converge. This third space of hyperreality is the simulacra of the media, possible only because it mirrors the values of the political system as absolute. The alternate space of hyperreality,

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where media and politics collide and combine, is the only available space for discourse.285 Elsewhere, Baudrillard has made an important point about time, explaining that the consumer society measures it by its use-value. Use-value can be multiplied by filling time with drama so that time is not wasted. The only way to enjoy leisure is to fill it up with consumption that can be displayed.286 The related concepts of simulacra and leisure time explain why entertainment has become the sole mode of dissemination of information on television, aided by the parallel processes of globalization, media concentration, and neoliberalism. In This Is Not a President: Sense, Nonsense, and the American Political Imaginary (2008), Rubenstein, mentioned earlier, examines the vernacular styles of the American presidency, applying Baudrillard’s frame of simulacra. Looking at Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton, Rubenstein discovers the characteristics of simulacra—signs becoming disconnected from reality and assuming their own meaning—in all their campaigns.287 She classifies Reagan as hyperreal, a copy of a copy, where the real becomes distant from the copy. She finds the great communicator fake and engaged in the construction of “Hollywood on the Potomac.”288 Indeed, Reagan established a fictitious perception of liberal America where welfare mothers drove expensive cars and took advantage of the system. The imagination of welfare recipients gaming the system was not only an alternate explanation of poverty (blaming the poor), but this false narrative replaced other explanations and continues to dominate the rhetoric surrounding poverty. Even when we know it is not true, simulacra dominates our engagement with reality. Rubenstein uses the example of Disneyland, a fictitious space capable of providing real experience to a substantial number of people participating in creating the meaning. Likewise, in the context of fake news, Robert T. Tally Jr. argues that The Daily Show and The Colbert Report have repeatedly substituted the media’s news and imagery with simulacra.289 Replacing the real with pseudo-events is made possible with the new technological apparatus, while simulacra gains acceptance as the real.290 This has evolved into a full-fledged industry. Politico reports that Congressman Devin Nunes has created a fake news website, The California Republican—which looks and acts like a real news site and is listed on Facebook as such—to bypass the scrutiny of the media.291 Nunes served as the chair of the House Committee on Intelligence that has been investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. He had to step down when it was revealed that he was sharing information with Trump and his administration. His memo about the alleged prejudice of both the FBI and special counsel Mueller has emerged as a dominant theme in the investigation of Russian collusion. The narrative thread of the investigation is besieged by these stories or nonstories, so that regardless of the ultimate conclusion reached by the special

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counsel, these pseudo-events will dominate how we understand the whole accusation. Allcott and Gentzkow have provided an economic analysis of fake news in the 2016 election. Looking at one hundred and fifteen fake stories about Trump that presented him positively and were shared on Facebook thirty million times, and forty-one fake news stories about Clinton which presented her positively and were shared 7.5 million times, they contend that fake news was tilted in Trump’s favor.292 Facebook has acknowledged that it was paid to promote three thousand Russian-backed advertisements which were untrue and divisive. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg had to face a congressional hearing for sharing data with a third party (Cambridge Analytica, a data mining firm hired by the Trump campaign), and had to apologize for breach of consumer trust and invasion of privacy.293 Along with paid content, there were eighty thousand Facebook posts which can be linked to Russian operatives, and this fake news was consumed by a hundred and twenty-six million Americans during the election.294 Trump has redefined what we understand by fake news. Here is Bee exploring the birth and life cycle of fake news: A social media campaign calling itself the “Blacktivists” and linked to the Russian government used both Facebook and Twitter. The bogus Facebook account had three hundred and sixty thousand likes. That’s more than the verified Black Lives Matter Facebook page. . . . Of course, when white people appropriated Black Lives Matter it got more likes. It’s Miley Cyrus all over again. They even used these fake Black Lives Matter accounts to trick activists into organizing and attending real-life protests. And sometimes, they arranged the counter-protests too. . . . The. . .life cycle is complex and putrid, like if a flower grew out of a stiff nightstand’s sweat sock. Start with a seed of controversy. Trolls begin by targeting something Americans already hate. Mostly Americans hate other Americans. Trolls post about it. Bots amplify it till they get lots of real people to start arguing online. And we argue and argue and argue. And that amplification of pain is called trending. Then Russian media reports on the rumors Russians created. And they creep through the media cesspool till they get on real news. Americans see the rumor they were posting about on the news, which makes it true. Well, trueish. It feels true and that is what matters. And this works because they are exploiting divisions that already exist in our society. The Russians wouldn’t have succeeded if they were trying to convince us all to turn on American cheese. On this we are united. You will never convince us to give up our orange sandwich vinyl. But turn on each other? No problem.295

We don’t yet know how to process this information, so we turn to humor. SNL (Michael Che) reports on how the Trump administration responded to the news that Russia influenced the election in favor of Trump: “It is being reported that the CIA believes Russia influenced our presidential election

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in favor of Donald Trump. . . . Trump’s team then dismissed the CIA claim saying that these are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Now, first of all, Trump, damn, that’s a good comeback!”296 The politicization of news is not novel for the media, especially for a recent player such as Fox News. But with Trump, there is a whole new signification of fake news, which is not only biased or embellished but often pulled out of thin air. To me the 2016 election seems to have been a spectacle that largely took place in the media. It was a celebration of hyperreality, the pure convergence of politics and entertainment. Since the value of news is measured by how provocative it is, fake news has acquired an edge over real news. It feels more genuine as it now enjoys the luxury of enacting surreal events occurring in actual political reality. There is no need to spin the news to expose the reality, because the reality itself is now haphazard, absurd, and disconnected, unfolding in real time in front of our eyes. In this new reality, what seems more authentic is the fake, as the fake focuses on incongruity and hypocrisy, while the real has to be situated in a rational framework, and the rational perspective seems to have become a forced gaze in deciphering meaning and relating it to our experiences. In Travels in Hyperreality (1986), Umberto Eco calls America “a country obsessed with realism, where, if a reconstruction is to be credible, it must be absolutely iconic, a perfect likeness, a ‘real’ copy of the reality being represented.”297 This song, featured on The President Show, depicts the interdependent relationship between the media and the presidency, illuminating how satire and the media on the one end and political performance on the other end are now reciprocal and virtually indistinguishable: Journalist Bebe Neuwirth: You are like a powerful narcotic, But our relationship is symbiotic. Anthony Atamanuik as Trump: Ain’t it the truth? The news was a snooze before you found me! Now I am all ornament on your Christmas tree. When you unwrap your present on December 25th, You remember who’s going to pay for those gifts. Together: We need each other, like a barnacle needs a boat.

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We need each other like a parasite needs a host. We feed each other, we know. That’s why I love you so. Atamanuik: I need you to scream “Breaking News.” Neuwirth: And I need you for big ad revenues.298

I want to refer to another point made by Baudrillard, where he argues that Watergate was not a scandal; it was not a radical divergence from the system, rather it was “only a trap set by the system to catch its adversaries.”299 When satire becomes part of the mainstream media, it not only provides journalistic services like real information but it also continually formalizes the aberrations of the system. Satire thrives on absurdity, and absurdity must stand out from normalcy; therefore, satire must laugh off any misgivings as part of life and move on to the next topic. While this formula is not enervating for satire, it becomes problematical when we digress from a problem before addressing it. As both satire and the media now deal with aberrations, with each new eccentric development events in the immediate past are quickly catalogued and put away. We the citizens are now the captive audience of this unfolding drama, and as consumers we want more absurdity. This cultural routine has become the central force driving a society that requires consumers, not citizens, for its continued reproduction.300 The distinction, or lack thereof, between politics and entertainment is exemplified in the parody of former press secretary Sean Spicer, performed by Melissa McCarthy (who won an Emmy for her performance) on SNL. Here are some excerpts from Sean Spicer, and Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer, for the sake of comparison: Spicer: I believe that we have to be honest with the American people. I think sometimes we can disagree with facts. This is the silliest thing I have ever heard. Okay, this is silly. Okay, next. Okay, you don’t get to just yell out questions. We are going to raise our hands like big boys and girls. Don’t make me make the podium move. You have got Russia. If the President puts Russian salad dressing on his salad tonight, somehow that becomes a Russian connection.

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First of all, it is not a travel ban. He is using the word the media is using, but at the end of the day it can’t be [a ban]. You know, you had someone as despicable as Hitler, who didn’t even sink to using chemical weapons.301

McCarthy as Spicer: Before we begin I know that myself and the press have gotten off to a rocky start. In a sense when I say rocky start, I mean it in the sense of Rocky the movie because I came here to punch you in the face! I don’t talk so good. I’d like to begin today by apologizing on behalf of you, to me, for how you have treated me in the last two weeks. And that apology is not accepted. When he [President Trump] entered the room, the crowd greeted him with a standing ovation, which lasted a full fifteen minutes. You can check the tape. Everyone was smiling. Everyone was happy. The men all had erections. And every single one of the women were ovulating left and right. That is a dumb question. The travel ban is not a ban which makes it not a ban. . . . He [President Trump] is quoting you. It’s your words. He is using your words and when you use the words and he uses them back, it’s circular using of the word and that’s from you.302

Matt Taibbi has raised the question whether Trump is an oddity of the system or very much a part of it. Mentioning America’s past, he says: We’re also a bloodthirsty Mr. Hyde nation that subsists on massacres and slave labor and leaves victims half-alive and crawling over deserts and jungles, while we sit stuffing ourselves on couches and blathering about our “American exceptionalism.” We dumped twenty million gallons of toxic herbicide on Vietnam from the air, just to make the shooting easier without all those trees, an insane plan to win “hearts and minds” that has left about a million still disabled from defects and disease—including about one hundred thousand children, even decades later, little kids with misshapen heads, webbed hands, and fused eyelids writhing on cots, our real American legacy, well out of view, of course.303

This is the role the media has played by distancing particular policies (the Iraq or Afghanistan wars) from the defining principles (American foreign

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policy), or presenting troublesome aggressions (the drone wars and the killing of civilians) as necessary ills (collateral damage) that have to be swallowed for the greater good, never analyzing them as acts of war. The semantics used to shrug off blame and get on with regular life are not new, but the language games postmodernism espouses have enhanced escapism. We have become so used to viewing the unpalatable parts as anomalies that we are applying the same frame to Trump, treating his campaign and his presidency as a fluke, a Russian conspiracy, or just our bad luck. We are unable to see the reality in the reflecting glass, as neither the media nor satire perform that function anymore. Baudrillard has an interesting take as he calls this condition the creation of a new postmodern silent majority that refuses to be represented. Gabardi labels it “hyperconformity,” or political silence, which I have been referring to as the process of normalization.304 Predictably, this silence is accompanied by a great deal of noise and fury. Here is a relevant explanation from the world of satire: Anthony Atamanuik as President Trump: Is it that we have entered into a period of corporate feudalism where governments are actually like the dukes and duchesses who report to the king which is the corporation and therefore our democratic system has actually been usurped by multinationals? So there is no possible way to actually govern because everything is controlled by private interests?305

And here again is Taibbi’s take on the Trump presidency: This is the paradox of Trump. He is damaged, unwell, and delusional, but at critical moments he’s able to approximate a functioning human being just long enough to survive. He is the worst-case scenario: embarrassing, mentally disorganized, and completely inappropriate, but perhaps not all the way insane. Maybe crimes will soon be discovered and he’ll be impeached, or maybe he’ll run naked down Pennsylvania Avenue . . . or nuke someone, and be declared unfit. Until then, he’s just the president we deserve, dragging our name down where it belongs. He is miserable, so are we, and we’re stuck with each other. Karma really is a bitch.306

John Oliver did a piece on immigration courts on Last Week Tonight, where he pointed out the disorder, mismanagement, and unfairness of immigration cases before the crisis rose to the top of public consciousness. At the end of the episode, he had a skit, “Tot Bench,” which he labeled “the stupidest new court show imaginable.” In the skit everyone—the judge, the lawyer, the bailiff—is three to four years old, except for the defendant who is an adult. The defendant becomes exasperated with the kids and their meaningless but entertaining babble and ends up pleading guilty to every charge.307 Here Oliver is using incongruity as a way for us to fathom the serious implications of a real issue. This skit has since been performed in real life as the Trump

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administration has ruled that children who are undocumented do not qualify for legal counsel. Toddlers are facing judges on their own and their asylum status depends on how they represent themselves. A three-year-old, separated from his parents and facing a deportation hearing, started climbing on the table.308 Oliver probably never imagined the cruel twist of humor that would make his skit a sanctioned alternative to reality. This is simulacra at its best, where reality is imitating satire but its meaning is opposite to what the satire was insinuating. What was deemed unreal becomes real; it still feels unreal, but has real consequences. One lawyer (working pro bono) representing a child who has been separated from her parents and is facing the judge at her deportation hearing tweeted: Laura Barrera, Esq. @abogada_laura 9:38 AM—February 26, 2018 Today my client was excited to push the elevator buttons on the way to her first deportation hearing. Afterwards I congratulated her on tying her shoes by herself. She’s six and @TheJusticeDept thinks she should only get a lawyer if she can pay for one.309

While satire is superb at highlighting the absurd, it becomes helpless when reality turns entirely into a theater of the absurd. In the Trump era, satirists are competing with him to make him appear more grotesque than he actually is. Colbert, Meyers, Oliver, Bee, Noah, and even Trump impersonator Atamanuik now fulfill the role of journalists, as the distinction between real news and satire erodes day by day. I would argue that in their adopted role as journalists, as part of the mainstream media, satirists have provided us with new information and trenchant analysis along with humor. Their role has shifted or expanded as the outré has become the new normal, despite their disregard for their own newly assumed role as journalists. In this new environment, their process of spotlighting and regulating the outrageous actually conforms to existing social and political norms rather than threatening them. Piers Morgan has reminded Maher that Bush’s policies were devastating and monstrous, even as Maher has argued that Bush was normal compared to Trump. Satire is molded by the same factors that have forged the media and politics, so that policy decisions seem to be dissevered from political engagement. Trump has two sets of voters, his donors and his enthusiastic base, and he delivers real rewards as policy (tax cuts) to his donors while appeasing his base with efforts (the promise of building the wall or banning Muslims) that may or may not materialize. It is also possible that his voters have made peace with cultural victories over economic gains, as cultural superiority does pay dividends in American society.310 Neoliberal principles dominate both the media and politics, but the continuing rituals in the media and the

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political process keep alive the illusion of meaningful democracy. Unlike authoritarian regimes where no dissent is allowed, maximum vocalization is permitted in the American political extravaganza but with very few avenues open to effect positive change by voters. The expectations of “hope and change” have died a spectacular death, and the gruesome accident is being televised in front of the live audience—with satirists as the most sincere morticians and pallbearers. NOTES 1. “Seth Meyers Remarks on the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner.” CSPAN, YouTube video, 20:48, April 30, 2011. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​ v=7YG​ITlxf​T6s. 2. “Seth Explains Teen Slang.” Late Night with Seth Meyers, YouTube video, 4:35, September 13, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=7aN​5slFs​4m4. 3. “Seth Meyers Offers ‘Sincerest Apologies’ for Trump.” MBNBC, YouTube video, 5:30, October 16, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=wvD​lMxGN​e74. 4. “Watch John Oliver Urge Trump to Run for President” CNN, YouTube video, 1:28, November 7, 2016. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=vk_​QnKtB​H8w. 5. Peter M. Robinson, The Dance of the Comedians: The People, the President, and the Performance of Political Standup Comedy in America (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010): 16. 6. Ibid., 37–48. 7. https​://en​.wiki​pedia​.org/​wiki/​Will_​Roger​s. 8. Peter M. Robinson, The Dance of the Comedians: The People, the President, and the Performance of Political Standup Comedy in America (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010): 64–79. 9. Ibid., 13. 10. Ibid., 8–9. 11. Amber Day, Satire and Dissent: Interventions in Contemporary Political Debate (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2011): 45–50. 12. The Korean War did inspire one of the longest running TV serials, M*A*S*H, a comedy set in Korea during the Korean War. The war lasted for three years and the show lasted over twelve years, in many ways making war palatable, heroic, and part of life in popular culture. 13. Peter M. Robinson, The Dance of the Comedians: The People, the President, and the Performance of Political Standup Comedy in America (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010): 12. 14. Ibid., 182. 15. Ibid., 12. 16. Gerald Gardner, All the President’s Wits: The Power of Presidential Humor (New York: Beech Tree Books, 1986): 157. 17. Ibid., 207. 18. Ibid., 138.

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19. Ibid., 139. 20. Peter M. Robinson, The Dance of the Comedians: The People, the President, and the Performance of Political Standup Comedy in America (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010): 186. 21. See Marvin Kitman, The Making of the Prefident 1798: The Unauthorized Campaign Biography (New York: Harper and Row, 1989) for a hilarious biography of President George Washington, which interprets the factual events in a way that shatters all our notions and historical knowledge of the first president. Not only has George Washington been brought down to human scale but he is portrayed as an incompetent general who lost wars, and as a manipulative politician to boot. Treating Washington’s modesty as a false veneer, his love for the bottle, the fairer sex, and his extravagance are highlighted, in order to counter the narratives where such character traits have been glossed over by historians, a process which Kitman refers to as historical vandalism. 22. Gerald Gardner, All the President’s Wits: The Power of Presidential Humor (New York: Beech Tree Books, 1986): 210. 23. Ibid., 171. 24. Gerald Gardner, The Mocking of the President: A History of Campaign Humor from Ike to Ronnie (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1988): 71. 25. Gerald Gardner, All the President’s Wits: The Power of Presidential Humor (New York: Beech Tree Books, 1986): 101–2. 26. Gerald Gardner, The Mocking of the President: A History of Campaign Humor from Ike to Ronnie (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1988): 109–10. 27. Gerald R. Ford, Humor and the Presidency (New York: Arbor House, 1987): 37–8. 28. Ibid., 159. 29. “SNL Ford Skits.” December 16, 2015. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​ v=tF9​8Nkct​XDU. 30. Russell L. Peterson, Strange Bedfellows: How Late-Night Comedy Turns Democracy Into a Joke (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2008): 36–7. 31. Gerald Gardner, All the President’s Wits: The Power of Presidential Humor (New York: Beech Tree Books, 1986): 128–9. 32. Ibid., 92. 33. “Ask President Carter.” SNL, March 12, 1977. https​://ww​w.nbc​.com/​satur​ day-n​ight-​live/​video​/ask-​presi​dent-​. 34. Austin Scott, “‘Ask President Carter:’ A Two-hour, Toll-free Call-in.” The Washington Post. March 4, 1977. https​://ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​t.com​/arch​ive/p​oliti​cs/ 19​77/03​/04/a​sk-pr​eside​nt-ca​rter-​a-two​-hour​-toll​-free​-call​-in/6​aae02​8a-ce​3a-40​a0-94​ ed-09​3e947​3cf06​/?utm​_term​=.963​49e8a​8274.​ 35. Robert Scheer, Playing President: My Close Encounters with Nixon, Carter, Bush I, Reagan, and Clinton—and How They Did Not Prepare Me for George W. Bush (New York: Akashic Books, 2006): 49–50. 36. Anne Rawley Saldich. Electronic Democracy: Television’s Impact on the American Political Process (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1979): 84. 37. Gerald Gardner, The Mocking of the President: A History of Campaign Humor from Ike to Ronnie (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1988): 94–5.

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38. Diane Rubenstein, This Is Not a President: Sense, Nonsense, and the American Political Imaginary (New York: New York University Press, 2008): 5. 39. Ibid., 25–6. 40. Ibid., 25–49. 41. Robert Scheer, Playing President: My Close Encounters with Nixon, Carter, Bush I, Reagan, and Clinton—and How They Did Not Prepare Me for George W. Bush (New York: Akashic Books, 2006): 135. 42. “Understanding the Two Sides of Ronald Reagan.” PBS News Hour, YouTube video, 6:06, August 13, 2015. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=kCO​snFw5​wlc. 43. Gerald Gardner, All the President’s Wits: The Power of Presidential Humor (New York: Beech Tree Books, 1986): 24. 44. Robert Scheer, Playing President: My Close Encounters with Nixon, Carter, Bush I, Reagan, and Clinton—and How They Did Not Prepare Me for George W. Bush (New York: Akashic Books, 2006): 165. 45. Gerald Gardner, All the President’s Wits: The Power of Presidential Humor (New York: Beech Tree Books, 1986): 46. 46. Gerald Gardner, The Mocking of the President: A History of Campaign Humor from Ike to Ronnie (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1988): 61. 47. Ibid., 62. 48. “Stupid Watergate.” Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), YouTube video, 17:49, June 10, 2018. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=mOV​PStnV​gvU. 49. Jean Baudrillard, The Ecstasy of Communication (New York: Semiotext(e), 1988): 79–80. 50. Felicia Somnez, “Trump Mocks #MeToo Movement in Montana Rally.” The Washington Post. July 5, 2018. https​://ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​t.com​/poli​tics/​trump​mock​s-met​oo-mo​vemen​t-in-​monta​na-ra​lly/2​018/0​7/05/​fad40​ce2-8​0b3-1​1e8-b​660-4​ d0f9f​0351f​1_sto​ry.ht​ml?no​redir​ect=o​n&​;utm_​term=​.bcca​a3cf9​60e. 51. Gerald Gardner, The Mocking of the President: A History of Campaign Humor from Ike to Ronnie (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1988): 67. 52. Gerald Gardner, All the President’s Wits: The Power of Presidential Humor (New York: Beech Tree Books, 1986): 35. 53. Peter M. Robinson, The Dance of the Comedians: The People, the President, and the Performance of Political Standup Comedy in America (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010): 13. 54. Ibid., 222. 55. Mark K. McBeth and Randy S. Clemons, “Is Fake News the Real News? The Significance of Stewart and Colbert for Democratic Discourse, Politics, and Policy,” in The Stewart/Colbert Effect: Essays on the Real Impacts of Fake News, edited by Amarnath Amarasingam (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2011): 82. 56. Newton N. Minow, John Bartlow Martin, and Lee M. Mitchell, Presidential Television (New York: Basic Books, 1973): 8. 57. “President Bill Clinton at McDonald’s.” SNL, YouTube video, 5:53, October 4, 2013. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=eYt​0khR_​ej0. 58. “First Presidential Debate: Al Gore and George W. Bush.” SNL, YouTube video, 10:29, September 12, 2013. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=zDg​RRVpe​ mLo&a​mp;t=​97s.

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59. Peter M. Robinson, The Dance of the Comedians: The People, the President, and the Performance of Political Standup Comedy in America (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010): 214. 60. Ibid., 210. 61. Ibid., 1. 62. Ibid., 2. 63. Ibid., 4. 64. “President Obama and his Anger Translator Luther, 2015 WHCD.” YouTube video, 5:07, April 26, 2015. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=xoI​LnwQv​_R8. 65. Maureen Dowd, The Year of Voting Dangerously (New York: Twelve, 2016): 148. 66. Wendy M. Weinhold and Alison Fisher Bodkin, “Homophobic Masculinity and Vulnerable Femininity: SNL’s Portrayals of Trump and Clinton.” Feminist Media Studies 17, no. 3 (2017): 520–3. 67. Michael L. Ferguson, “Trump is a Feminist, and Other Cautionary Tales for Our Neoliberal Age.” Theory and Event 20, no. 1 (January 2017 Supplement): 57. 68. Ibid., 58. 69. Ibid., 60. 70. “People Who Laughed at Trump and Said He Would Never Be President: Funny Compilation.” YouTube video, 6:07, December 25, 2016. https​://ww​w.you​ tube.​com/w​atch?​v=Z6O​czyk6​nCw. 71. Katy Tur, Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History (New York: HarperCollins, 2017): 283. 72. “Too Stupid To Be President.” Real Time with Bill Maher. YouTube video, 6:33, June 9, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=nLU​O2vTJ​3Yw. 73. Chris Cillizza, “The Huffington Post Is Moving Its Donald Trump Coverage to the ‘Entertainment’ Section. That’s a Bad Idea.” The Washington Post. July 7, 2015. https​://ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​t.com​/news​/the-​fix/w​p/201​5/07/​17/th​e-huf​fingt​ on-po​st-is​-movi​ng-it​s-don​ald-t​rump-​cover​age-t​o-the​-ente​rtain​ment-​secti​on-th​ats-a​ -bad-​idea/​?utm_​term=​.9b44​237ac​990. 74. Hadas Gold, “Huffington Post Ending Editor’s Note that Called Donald Trump ‘Racist.’” Politico, November 9, 2016. https​://ww​w.pol​itico​.com/​blogs​ /on-m​edia/​2016/​11/th​e-huf​fingt​on-po​st-en​ding-​its-e​ditor​s-not​e-abo​ut-do​nald-​trump​ -2310​44. 75. “Customer Service.” SNL, YouTube video, 3:49, October 14, 2017. https​:// ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=sfa​Bf3EY​YIw&a​mp;ap​p=des​ktop.​ 76. “Trump Divorce Cold Open.” SNL, YouTube video, 4:40, October 4, 2013. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=G1g​C912L​Uq0. 77. “Donald Trump: A Man of Characters.” The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, YouTube video, 5:36, October 13, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=Fws​ 2FgQb​7BM. 78. Glenn Kessler and Salvador Rizzo, “A Guide to President Trump’s Latest Round of Fact-challenged Tweets.” The Washington Post. April 3, 2018. https​:// ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​t.com​/news​/fact​-chec​ker/w​p/201​8/04/​03/a-​guide​-to-p​resid​ent-t​ rumps​-late​st-ro​und-o​f-fac​t-cha​lleng​ed-tw​eets/​?utm_​term=​.c29b​e95f4​cc2.

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79. Sophia Tesfaye, “Trump’s Daughter-in-Law Pushes His Propaganda: Lara Trump Launches ‘Real News’ Show to Praise the President.” Salon, August 2, 2017. http:​//www​.salo​n.com​/2017​/08/0​2/tru​mps-d​aught​er-in​-law-​pushe​s-his​-prop​agand​ a-lar​a-tru​mp-la​unche​s-rea​l-new​s-sho​w-to-​prais​e-the​-pres​ident​. 80. Jimmy Fallon is the highest ranked satirist on the list, just behind Trump with fifty million followers. 81. Jodi Dean, “Not Him, Us (and we aren’t populists).” Theory and Event 20, no. 1 (January 2017 Supplement): 38–44, 40–1. 82. https​://ww​w.nyt​imes.​com/2​017/0​7/13/​us/po​litic​s/tru​mp-ai​r-for​ce-on​e-exc ​ erpt-​trans​cript​.html​. 83. Roderick P. Hart, Verbal Style and the Presidency: A Computer-Based Analysis (Orlando, FL: Academic Press, 1984): 30. 84. Ibid., 91. 85. Ibid., 61. 86. Trump, Donald. Twitter Post. May 31, 2017. 3:09 AM. https​://tw​itter​.com/​ reald​onald​trump​/stat​us/86​98583​33477​52345​8. 87. Trump, Donald. Twitter Post. June 6, 2017. 7:58 AM. https​://tw​itter​.com/​ reald​onald​trump​/stat​us/87​20599​97429​02272​2. 88. John Blistein, “‘Daily Show’ Details Trump Presidential Twitter Library.” Rolling Stone, June 13, 2017. http:​//www​.roll​ingst​one.c​om/tv​/news​/dail​y-sho​w-det​ ails-​trump​-pres​ident​ial-t​witte​r-lib​rary-​w4878​29. 89. “Hasan Minhaj at 2016 RTCA Dinner.” CSPAN, YouTube Video, 22:51, June 16, 2016. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=NUy​mQKZq​P6w. 90. Trump, Donald. Twitter Post. July 1, 2017. 3:41 PM. https​://tw​itter​.com/​reald​ onald​trump​/stat​us/88​12817​55017​35526​4. 91. Trump, Donald. Twitter Post. August 6 2012. 1:23 AM. https​://tw​itter​.com/​ reald​onald​trump​/stat​us/23​25725​05238​43379​4. 92. “Bill Maher vs. Donald Trump: The Full Story.” YouTube video, 14:20, May 15, 2014. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=vuP​1e0RN​F-0. 93. “Jon Stewart: Twitter War with Donald Trump.” YouTube video, 5:06, November 2, 2016. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=GEE​gplXw​NWk. 94. Trump, Donald. Twitter Post. April 24, 2013. 8:09 AM. https​://tw​itter​.com/​ reald​onald​trump​/stat​us/32​70767​20425​45152​3. 95. The Daily Show. Twitter Post. May 3, 2013.10:28 AM. https​://tw​itter​.com/​ TheDa​ilySh​ow/st​atus/​33037​32926​51315​201. 96. Trump, Donald. Twitter Post. May 3, 2013. 9:37 AM. https​://tw​itter​.com/​ reald​onald​trump​/stat​us/33​03605​56362​01881​6. 97. Trump, Donald. Twitter Post. May 3, 2013. 9:37 AM. https​://tw​itter​.com/​ reald​onald​trump​/stat​us/33​03603​51726​11686​4. 98. “Fighting Trump (2011), Residents Opposing Donald Trump’s Scottish Golf Course.” YouTube video, 14:33, March 2, 2011. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​ v=ADe​cI4xw​-yg. 99. “The Trump Presidency.” Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), YouTube video, 23:50, November 12, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=1ZA​Pwfrt​AFY. 100. “Coal Lawsuit.” Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), YouTube video, 1:03, June 25, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=C6a​HwA8W​dAk.

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101. “Coal.” Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), YouTube video, 24:20, June 8, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=aw6​RsUhw​1Q8. 102. “Salt in the Wound.” Real Time with Bill Maher, YouTube video, 7:02, October 20, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=VXa​Uz8nm​FH8. 103. McKay Coppins, “Stephen Miller: Trump’s Right-Hand Troll.” The Atlantic. May 28, 2018. https​://ww​w.the​atlan​tic.c​om/po​litic​s/arc​hive/​2018/​05/st​ephen​-mill​ er-tr​ump-a​dvise​r/561​317. 104. “Billy Bush Believes the Women Accusing Trump of Sexual Assault.” The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, YouTube video, 12:52, December 5, 2017. https​:// ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=Yvc​IeSfa​B3c. 105. “Trump’s Hanukkah Reception, Starbuck’s ‘Christmas Tree Frappuccino.’” Late Night with Seth Meyers, YouTube video, 2:47, December 8, 2017. https​://ww​ w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=utv​LQKLE​m3s. 106. “At This Point, Do Republicans Even Care about Sexual Assault?” The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, YouTube video, 6:23, December 11, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​ tube.​com/w​atch?​v=h0C​hlY8m​R5k. 107. Trump, Donald. Twitter Post. November 29, 2017. 4:16 AM. https​://tw​itter​ .com/​reald​onald​trump​/stat​us/93​58448​81825​76332​8?lan​g=en.​ 108. Trump, Donald. Twitter Post. December 3, 2017. 3:17 AM. https​://tw​itter​ .com/​reald​onald​trump​/stat​us/93​76419​04338​06336​1. 109. Camila Domonske and Richard Gonzalez, “What We Know: Family Separation and ‘Zero Tolerance’ at the Border.” NPR, June 19, 2018. https​://ww​w.npr​.org/​ 2018/​06/19​/6210​65383​/what​-we-k​now-f​amily​-sepa​ratio​n-and​-zero​-tole​rance​-at-t​ he-bo​rder.​ 110. “Sanders Insults CNN Reporter at White House Briefing.” CNN, YouTube video, 9:50, June 14, 2018. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=BJ0​ls4rf​dKQ. 111. Karen Attiah, “Melania Trump Wears Her Husband’s Administration on Her Sleeve.” The Washington Post, June 21, 2018. https​://ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​t.com​ /news​/act-​four/​wp/20​18/06​/21/m​elani​a-tru​mp-we​ars-t​he-he​art-o​f-her​-husb​ands-​ admin​istra​tion-​on-he​r-sle​eve/?​utm_t​erm=.​fe18e​b5b03​4b. 112. “Late-night Show Hosts Eviscerate Melania for Her Tone-Deaf Jacket.” 24/7 News, YouTube video, 4:20, June 27, 2018. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=3fX​ UOKAm​GTE. 113. “Melania Trump Has an Entire ‘Hidden Message’ Wardrobe.” The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, YouTube video, 5:50, June 27, 2018. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​ com/w​atch?​v=8cr​pSnfl​6Hs&a​mp;fe​ature​=yout​u.be.​ 114. Giovanni Tiso, “A Brief (Fascist) History of ‘I Don’t Care.’” Overland, June 22, 2018. https​://ov​erlan​d.org​.au/2​018/0​6/a-b​rief-​fasci​st-hi​story​-of-i​-dont​-care​. Also see this clip from the Italian movie propaganda organization L.U.C.E. (L’Unione Cinematografica Educativa) for a visual rendition of Me Ne Frego in a fascist ceremonial context: http:​//www​.cine​citta​.com/​IT/it​-it/n​ews/4​5/505​7/me-​ne-fr​ego-i​l-fas​ cismo​-e-la​-ling​ua-it​alian​a.asp​x. 115. Matt Keeley, “Was Melania’s ‘I really don’t care, do you?’ Zara Jacket an Innocent Mistake? We Don’t Think So.” Hornet, June 23, 2018. https​://ho​rnet.​com/s​ torie​s/mel​anias​-jack​et-za​ra-i-​dont-​care-​two.

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116. Julia Conley, “Detained Children Forced to Recite Pledge of Allegiance ‘Out of Respect’ for Country That Tore Them Away from Parents.” Common Dreams, June 25, 2018. https​://ww​w.com​mondr​eams.​org/n​ews/2​018/0​6/25/​detai​ned-c​hildr​ en-fo​rced-​recit​e-ple​dge-a​llegi​ance-​out-r​espec​t-cou​ntry-​tore-​them-​away.​ 117. Nick Cohen, “The Tories Are the Masters of ‘Vice Signaling.’” The Spectator, May 25, 2018. https​://bl​ogs.s​pecta​tor.c​o.uk/​2018/​05/th​e-tor​ies-a​re-th​e-mas​ters-​ of-vi​ce-si​gnall​ing. 118. Anne Applebaum, “In Trump World, Morality Is for Losers.” The Washington Post. June 20, 2018. https​://ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​t.com​/news​/glob​al-op​inion​s/wp/​ 2018/​06/20​/in-t​rumps​-worl​d-mor​ality​-is-f​or-lo​sers/​?utm_​term=​.aa22​dd44e​eb0. 119. McKay Coppins, “The Outrage Over Family Separation Is Exactly What Stephen Miller Wants.” The Atlantic, June 19, 2018. https​://ww​w.the​atlan​tic.c​om/po​ litic​s/arc​hive/​2018/​06/st​ephen​-mill​er-fa​mily-​separ​ation​/5631​32. 120. Adam Serwer, “Trumpism, Realized.” The Atlantic, June 20, 2018. https​:// ww​w.the​atlan​tic.c​om/po​litic​s/arc​hive/​2018/​06/ch​ild-s​epara​tion/​56325​2. 121. Katy Tur, Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History (New York: HarperCollins, 2017). 122. Damian Paletta and Joel Achenback, “Trump Accuses Canadian Leader of Being ‘Dishonest’ and ‘Weak.’” The Washington Post. June 10, 2018. https​://ww​ w.was​hingt​onpos​t.com​/poli​tics/​trump​-atta​cks-c​anada​-to-s​how-n​orth-​korea​-hes-​stron​ g-aid​e-say​s/201​8/06/​10/af​c16c0​c-6cb​a-11e​8-bd5​0-b80​389a4​e569_​story​.html​?utm_​ term=​.6530​f936a​437. 123. Katy Tur, Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History (New York: HarperCollins, 2017): 54. 124. Ibid., 56. 125. Ibid., 91. 126. Ibid., 276. 127. Ibid., 273. 128. Ibid., 27. 129. Ibid., 28. 130. Ibid., 141–2. 131. Ibid., 159. 132. Ibid., 161–2. 133. Ibid., 224. 134. Richard A. Grusin, “Donald Trump’s Evil Mediation.” Theory and Event 20, no. 1 (January 2017 Supplement): 86–99, 93 135. Michael D’Antonio, Never Enough: Donald Trump and the Pursuit of Success (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2015): 277. 136. John B. Judis, The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics (New York: Columbia Global Reports, 2016): 63. 137. Katy Tur, Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History (New York: HarperCollins, 2017): 148. 138. Ibid., 150. 139. Ibid., 146. 140. Ibid., 155.

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141. Ibid., 4. 142. Ibid., 157. 143. “The White House Comes Down on ESPN’s Jemele Hill.” The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Comedy Central video, 6:47, September 14, 2017. http:​//www​.cc. c​om/vi​deo-c​lips/​ouktw​7/the​-dail​y-sho​w-wit​h-tre​vor-n​oah-t​he-wh​ite-h​ouse-​comes​ -down​-on-e​spn-s​-jeme​le-hi​ll?xr​s=syn​d_fac​ebook​_0915​17_td​s_32.​ 144. “President Crazypants.” Real Time with Bill Maher. YouTube video, 7:51, March 17, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=1Xb​AqreF​6i4. 145. https​://ww​w.the​guard​ian.c​om/us​-news​/2017​/aug/​04/fu​ll-tr​anscr​ipt-o​f-tru​ mps-p​hone-​call-​with-​austr​alian​-prim​e-min​ister​-malc​olm-t​urnbu​ll. 146. Alex Ward, “Trump’s Latest Tweet Storm called Kim Jong-un ‘Short and Fat.’” Vox, November 12, 2017. https​://ww​w.vox​.com/​2017/​11/12​/1663​9462/​trump​ -kim-​north​-kore​a-rus​sia-t​witte​r. 147. Trump, Donald. Twitter Post. September 17 2017. 4:53 AM. https​://tw​itter​ .com/​reald​onald​trump​/stat​us/90​93848​37018​11200​0. 148. Trump, Donald. Twitter Post. November 11, 2017. 4:48 PM. https​://tw​itter​ .com/​realD​onald​Trump​/stat​us/92​95110​61954​29785​7. 149. “Farewell Address: Back to Complete Chaos.” The President Show. Comedy Central, YouTube video, 1:44, August 13, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​ v=C51​LLAz7​kJU. 150. “#Denture Donald Slurs Through the White House Address.” The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, YouTube video, 5:09, December 6, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​ com/w​atch?​v=2b3​6m9_Q​CIQ. 151. Jennifer Hassan, “‘I’m just Waiting for a Call from White House with an Apology’: Britiain’s ‘Wrong’ Theresa May Speaks Out.’” The Washington Post. November 30, 2017. https​://ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​t.com​/news​/worl​dview​s/wp/​2017/​ 11/30​/dona​ld-tr​ump-b​laste​d-the​resa-​may-o​n-twi​tter-​unfor​tunat​ely-h​e-got​-the-​wrong​ -woma​n/?ut​m_ter​m=.ea​9fa2a​96839​. 152. Trump, Donald. Twitter Post. June 5, 2017. 6:49 AM. https​://tw​itter​.com/​ reald​onald​trump​/stat​us/87​17257​80535​06252​8. 153. Trump, Donald. Twitter Post. November 29, 2017. 5:02 PM. https​://tw​itter​ .com/​reald​onald​trump​/stat​us/93​60375​88372​28339​2. 154. Katy Tur, Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History (New York: HarperCollins, 2017): 81. 155. Ibid., 64. 156. Richard A. Grusin, “Donald Trump’s Evil Mediation.” Theory and Event 20, no. 1 (January 2017 Supplement): 90. 157. Ibid., 91. 158. Ibid. 159. Maureen Dowd, The Year of Voting Dangerously (New York: Twelve, 2016): vii. 160. https​://tw​itter​.com/​realt​imers​/stat​us/10​10344​10733​86332​16. 161. “President Trump Addresses Families Who Lost Children to Crimes By Undocumented Migrants.” NBC News, YouTube video, 1:21, June 22, 2018. https​:// ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=A-_​nOwfn​UW8.

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162. Laura Ingraham, “Migrant Children Detention Centers Are ‘Summer Camps.’” Huffpost, YouTube video, 1:11, June 19, 2018. “http​s://w​ww.yo​utube​.com/​watch​ ?v=1x​rh03m​jz5Q.​ 163. Manny Fernandez, “Inside the Former Walmart That Is Now a Shelter For Almost 1,500 Migrant Children.” The New York Times, June 14, 2018. https​ ://ww​w .nyt​imes.​com/2​018/0​6/14/​us/fa​mily-​separ​a tion​- migr​ant-c​h ildr​en-de​tenti​ on.ht​ml. 164. Ronald Reagan, “Radio Address to the Nation on Welfare Reform.” The American Presidency Project, February 15, 1986. http:​//www​.pres​idenc​y.ucs​b.edu​/ws/?​ pid=3​6875.​ 165. Gene Demby, “The Truth Behind the Lies of the Original ‘Welfare Queen.’” NPR, December 20, 2013. https​://ww​w.npr​.org/​secti​ons/c​odesw​itch/​2013/​12/20​/2558​ 19681​/the-​truth​-behi​nd-th​e-lie​s-of-​the-o​rigin​al-we​lfare​-quee​n. 166. https​://en​.wiki​pedia​.org/​wiki/​Welfa​re_qu​een. 167. Eli Rosenberg, “‘The Snake’: How Trump Appropriated a Radical Black Singer’s Lyrics for Immigration Fearmongering.” Washington Post, February 24, 2018. https​://ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​t.com​/news​/poli​tics/​wp/20​18/02​/24/t​he-sn​ake-h​ ow-tr​ump-a​pprop​riate​d-a-r​adica​l-bla​ck-si​ngers​-lyri​cs-fo​r-ref​ugee-​fearm​onger​ing/?​ utm_t​erm=.​cdb1f​fce39​b5 168. Richard A. Grusin, “Donald Trump’s Evil Mediation.” Theory and Event 20, no. 1 (January 2017 Supplement): 91. 169. Ibid., 91. 170. Jodi Dean, “Not Him, Us (and we aren’t Populists).” Theory and Event 20, no. 1 (January 2017 Supplement): 42. 171. Ibid., 39–40. 172. Ibid., 40–1. 173. Ibid., 41. 174. Trump, Donald. Twitter Post. September 25, 2017. 5:45 PM. https​://tw​itter​ .com/​reald​onald​trump​/stat​us/91​24782​74508​42316​8. 175. Trump, Donald. Twitter Post. September 30, 2017. 5:07 AM. https​://tw​itter​ .com/​realD​onald​Trump​/stat​us/91​40992​95963​55379​2. 176. Trump, Donald. Twitter Post. September 30, 2017. 4:26 PM. https​://tw​itter​ .com/​reald​onald​trump​/stat​us/91​40890​03745​46841​7. 177. Armando Lannucci, “How Do you Write Political Satire When Politics Are a Farce?” The Washington Post, March 29, 2018. https​://ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​t.com​ /outl​ook/h​ow-do​-you-​write​-poli​tical​-sati​re-wh​en-po​litic​s-are​-a-fa​rce/2​018/0​3/29/​ 76897​978-3​206-1​1e8-9​4fa-3​2d484​60b95​5_sto​ry.ht​ml?ut​m_ter​m=.88​af8de​27c50​. 178. Mollie Hemingway, “How Jon Stewart and ‘The Daily Show’ Elected Donald Trump.” The Federalist, November 11, 2016. http:​//the​feder​alist​.com/​2016/​11/11​ /how-​jon-s​tewar​t-and​-the-​daily​-show​-elec​ted-d​onald​-trum​p. 179. Robert Traciniski, “Donald Trump is Jon Stewart’s True Successor.” The Federalist, August 16, 2016. http:​//the​feder​alist​.com/​2016/​08/16​/dona​ld-tr​ump-i​s-jon​ -stew​arts-​true-​succe​ssor/​. 180. Jason Zengerle, “The Voices in Blue America’s Head.” The New York Times, November 22, 2017. https​://ww​w.nyt​imes.​com/2​017/1​1/22/​magaz​ine/t​he-vo​ices-​ in-bl​ue-am​erica​s-hea​d.htm​l.

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181. Matt Latimer, “Want to Know Why Roy Moore Might Win? Blame the Media.” Politico, November 25, 2017. https​://ww​w.pol​itico​.com/​magaz​ine/s​tory/​ 2017/​11/25​/want​-to-k​now-w​hy-ro​y-moo​re-mi​ght-w​in-bl​ame-t​he-me​dia-2​15863​. 182. Robert Traciniski, “Donald Trump Is Jon Stewart’s True Successor.” The Federalist, August 16, 2016. http:​//the​feder​alist​.com/​2016/​08/16​/dona​ld-tr​ump-i​s-jon​ -stew​arts-​true-​succe​ssor.​ 183. Mollie Hemingway, “How Jon Stewart and ‘The Daily Show’ Elected Donald Trump.” The Federalist, November 11, 2016. http:​//the​feder​alist​.com/​2016/​11/11​ /how-​jon-s​tewar​t-and​-the-​daily​-show​-elec​ted-d​onald​-trum​p. 184. The reality TV show hosted by then business tycoon Donald Trump for fourteen seasons (2004–2016), where two groups of contestants compete to prove their business skills, and each episode ends with an elimination, with the catchphrase uttered by Trump: “You’re Fired.” 185. Ronald Kapferer, “Trump as Singularity.” Arena Magazine (online) 143 (August/September 2016): 44. 186. Ibid., 44. 187. Ibid. 188. “The Don.” The President Show. Comedy Central, YouTube video, 4:45, July 21, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=VPi​-xZCv​P2A. 189. “Trump Is Turning Pardon Power Into Reality TV.” The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, YouTube video, 6:57, June 6, 2018. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​ v=r5N​1OFwq​FKU. 190. https​://ww​w.jus​tice.​gov/p​ardon​/pard​ons-g​rante​d-pre​siden​t-don​ald-t​rump.​ 191. https​://en​.wiki​pedia​.org/​wiki/​The_T​ruman​_Show​. 192. “City Mouse and Country Mouse.” Real Time with Bill Maher. YouTube video, 4:54, September 22, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=S3a​ QYfmB​V_A. 193. “Bill Maher on Trump Voters.” Secular Talk, YouTube video, 10:05, October 17, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=Dmj​kubhI​DJM. 194. “Trump Voters are F—ing Drug Addicts.” Real Time with Bill Maher. YouTube video, 6:57, January 29, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=DO7​ O1z8Y​tTY. 195. “Donald Trump: ‘I Could Shoot Somebody and I Wouldn’t Lose Any Voters.’” The Guardian, January 24, 2016. https​://ww​w.the​guard​ian.c​om/us​-news​/2016​/ jan/​24/do​nald-​trump​-says​-he-c​ould-​shoot​-some​body-​and-s​till-​not-l​ose-v​oters​. 196. Jenna Amatulli, “Trump Supporter Says He’d Trust the President Before Jesus Christ.” Huffpost. November 20, 2017. https​://ww​w.huf​fingt​onpos​t.com​/entr​ y/mar​k-lee​-dona​ld-tr​ump-j​esus-​chris​t_us_​5a131​9b6e4​b0c33​5e996​4d7c?​ncid=​inbln​ kushp​mg000​00009​. 197. “No Regrets: How a Trump Supporter May Have Voted to Destroy His Own Career.” The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, YouTube video, 4:21, February 16, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=MKF​2twer​qvY. 198. “Trump Voters Explain Their Unshakable Faith.” CBS Sunday Morning, YouTube Video, 6:57, September 11, 2016. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=RxH​ p8Hug​hd0.

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199. Katy Tur, Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History (New York: HarperCollins, 2017): 250. 200. Joanna Weiss, “How Trump Inspired the ‘Roseanne’ Reboot.” Politico, March 26, 2018. https​://ww​w.pol​itico​.com/​magaz​ine/s​tory/​2018/​03/26​/rose​anne-​ reboo​t-tru​mp-vo​ters-​21771​1. 201. Meagan McCluskey, “‘Racism Is Not a Known Side Effect.’ Company Behind Ambien Responds to Roseanne’s Claim She Was ‘Ambien Tweeting.’” Time, May 30, 2018. http:​//tim​e.com​/5295​405/r​osean​ne-ba​rr-am​bien-​tweet​ing-r​ espon​se. 202. “Bill Maher: Roseanne Has Multiple Personalities and One of Them Is ‘Quite a Racist.’” Deadline Hollywood, June 1, 2018. https​://de​adlin​e.com​/2018​/06/b​ill-m​ aher-​rosea​nne-b​arr-h​bo-re​al-ti​me-ra​cist-​tweet​-vale​rie-j​arret​t-120​24021​14. 203. Abby Ohlheiser, “Roseanne Barr Launched Her New YouTube Career by Yelling an Explanation for her Valerie Jarrett Tweet.” The Washington Post. June 20, 2018. https​://ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​t.com​/news​/the-​inter​sect/​wp/20​18/07​/20/r​osean​ ne-ba​rr-la​unche​d-her​-new-​youtu​be-ca​reer-​by-ye​lling​-an-e​xplan​ation​-for-​her-v​aleri​ e-jar​rett-​tweet​/?utm​_term​=.d50​b9895​bc60.​ 204. https​://ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​t.com​/grap​hics/​2018/​opini​ons/a​mp-st​ories​/repu​ blica​ns-an​d-tru​mp-a-​visua​l-his​tory-​by-ca​rtoon​ist-a​nn-te​lnaes​/?hpi​d=hp_​no-na​me_op​ inion​-card​-e%3A​homep​age%2​Fstor​y. 205. Trump, Donald. Twitter Post. February 17, 2017. 1:48 PM. https​://tw​itter​ .com/​reald​onald​trump​/stat​us/83​27082​93516​63206​5?lan​g=en.​ 206. “Translator.” SNL, YouTube video, 4:50, March 12, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​ tube.​com/w​atch?​v=yfC​CwEf_​J5A. 207. Ronald Kapferer, “Trump as Singularity.” Arena Magazine (online) 143 (August/September 2016): 44–48, 44. 208. John B. Judis, The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics (New York: Columbia Global Reports, 2016): 14. 209. Ibid., 15–20. 210. Paulina Ochoa Espejo, “Populism and the People.” Theory and Event 20, no. 1 (January 2017 Supplement): 92–9, 98. 211. Heather Long, “Why It’s Such a Big Deal That the Senate Tax Bill Would Add $1 Trillion to Debt.” The Washington Post. November 30, 2017. https​://ww​ w.was​hingt​onpos​t.com​/news​/wonk​/wp/2​017/1​1/30/​senat​e-gop​-tax-​plan-​would​-fall​ -1-tr​illio​n-sho​rt-of​-trum​p-adm​inist​ratio​ns-pr​omise​s-con​gress​-tax-​analy​st-sa​ys/?u​tm_ te​rm=.b​111b1​c19c1​5. 212. Katy Tur, Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History (New York: HarperCollins, 2017): 158. 213. Daniel Politi, “Trump Celebrates Tax Bill with Mar-a-Lago Friends: ‘You All Just Got a Lot Richer.’” Slate, December 24, 2017. https​://sl​ate.c​om/ne​ws-an​ d-pol​itics​/2017​/12/t​rump-​celeb​rates​-tax-​bill-​with-​mar-a​-lago​-frie​nds-y​ou-al​l-jus​t-got​ -a-lo​t-ric​her.h​tml. 214. Isabel Altamirano-Jiménez, “Trump, NAFTA, and Indigenous Resistance in Turtle Island.” Theory and Event 20, no. 1 (January 2017 Supplement): 4. 215. “What Donald Trump Really Means When He Talks About ‘Crime’: A Closer Look.” Late Night with Seth Meyers, YouTube video, 11:03, December 6, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=tyh​BmsLC​-JY&a​mp;ap​p=des​ktop.​

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216. On November 30, 2017, President Trump retweeted three videos from Britain First, a far-right and ultra-nationalist political group. These were videos of Muslims attacking people, videos which had already been proven as false. Sarah Wildman and Jen Kirby, “Trump Retweeted Anti-Muslim Propaganda Videos from British Hate Groups.” Vox, November 30, 2017. https​://ww​w.vox​.com/​polic​y-and​-poli​tics/​2017/​ 11/29​/1671​4788/​trump​-retw​eet-b​ritai​n-fir​st-is​lamop​hobia​. 217. Cristina Wilkie, “White House: It Doesn’t Matter if anti-Muslim Videos Are Real Because ‘The Threat Is Real.’” CNBC, November 29, 2017. https​://ww​w.cnb​ c.com​/2017​/11/2​9/whi​te-ho​use-i​t-doe​snt-m​atter​-if-a​nti-m​uslim​-vide​os-ar​e-rea​l-the​ -thre​at-is​-real​.html​. 218. Daniela Silva, “President Trump Tweets Wrestling Video of Himself Attacking ‘CNN.’” NBC News, July 2, 2017. https​://ww​w.nbc​news.​com/p​oliti​cs/do​nald-​ trump​/pres​ident​-trum​p-twe​ets-w​we-vi​deo-h​imsel​f-att​ackin​g-cnn​-n779​031. 219. Gerald Gardner, The Mocking of the President: A History of Campaign Humor from Ike to Ronnie (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1988): 89. 220. Amy B. Wang, “Trump Retweets Image Depicting ‘CNN’ Squashed Beneath His Shoes.” The Washington Post. December 24, 2017. https​://ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​ t.com​/news​/the-​fix/w​p/201​7/12/​24/tr​ump-r​etwee​ts-im​age-d​epict​ing-c​nn-sq​uashe​ d-ben​eath-​his-s​hoe/?​hpid=​hp_hp​-more​-top-​stori​es-2_​fix-t​rumpc​nn-84​2am%3​Ahome​ page%​2Fsto​ry&am​p;utm​_term​=.bb5​bf11a​11ac.​ 221. Katy Tur, Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History (New York: HarperCollins, 2017): 73. 222. “Amnesty Don.” Real Time with Bill Maher, YouTube video, 6:02, September 15, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​time_​conti​nue=1​&​v=vEc​ uStqc​FwE. 223. “Why Wasn’t Donald Trump’s Bigotry a Deal-Breaker?” The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, YouTube video, 4:10, April 13, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/ w​atch?​v=ZsH​wtfcZ​oY4. 224. Katy Tur, Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History (New York: HarperCollins, 2017): 4. 225. The Atlantic has been condemned for normalizing Nazis. James Hamblin, “Nazis Are Just Like You and Me, Except They’re Nazis.” The Atlantic, November 25, 2017. https​://ww​w.the​atlan​tic.c​om/te​chnol​ogy/a​rchiv​e/201​7/11/​a-naz​i-coo​ks-pa​ sta/5​46737​. 226. Anis Shivani, “Origins of the Alt-right Part 2: White Supremacy Is Deeply Enmeshed in Our Culture.” Salon, December 10, 2017. https​://ww​w.sal​on.co​m/201​ 7/12/​10/or​igins​-of-t​he-al​t-rig​ht-pa​rt-2-​white​-supr​emacy​-is-d​eeply​-enme​shed-​in-ou​ r-cul​ture.​ 227. https​://po​litic​s.the​onion​.com/​white​-hous​e-beg​ins-c​hrist​mas-s​eason​-with​-cere​ monia​l-lig​-1820​91728​4. 228. Callum Borchers, “A Nazi salute, KKK Hoods and Trump: Magazine Covers after Charlottesville Are Jarring.” The Washington Post. August 17, 2017. https​ ://ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​t.com​/news​/the-​fix/w​p/201​7/08/​17/a-​nazi-​salut​e-a-k​kk-ho​ od-an​d-tru​mp-ma​gazin​e-cov​ers-a​fter-​charl​ottes​ville​-are-​jarri​ng/?u​tm_te​rm=.5​5afe5​ 1bb18​2.

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229. Maureen Dowd, The Year of Voting Dangerously (New York: Twelve, 2016): 50. 230. John B. Judis, The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics (New York: Columbia Global Reports, 2016): 77. 231. Andy Borowitz, “Trump Voters Celebrate Massive Tax Cuts for Everyone but Them.” The New Yorker, November 16, 2017. https​://ww​w.new​yorke​r.com​/humo​ r/bor​owitz​-repo​rt/tr​ump-v​oters​-cele​brate​-mass​ive-t​ax-cu​t-for​-ever​yone-​but-t​hem?m​ bid=s​ocial​_face​book.​ 232. John B. Judis, The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics (New York: Columbia Global Reports, 2016): 63. 233. “President Trump: Don’t Be Too Nice.” CNN, YouTube video, 0:47, July 28, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=1eV​PKpBK​GCE. 234. William E. Connolly, “Trump, the Working Class, and Fascist Rhetoric.” Theory and Event 20, no. 1 (January 2017 Supplement): 23–37, 24. 235. John B. Judis, The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics (New York: Columbia Global Reports, 2016): 75. 236. “Trump, ‘Alternative Facts,’ and the Women’s March: A Closer Look.” Late Night with Seth Meyers, YouTube video, 10:25, January 23, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​ tube.​com/w​atch?​v=lg9​Tu79F​4qE. 237. “The NFL Takes a Knee in Protest of Donald Trump.” The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, YouTube video, 8:13, September 25, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/ w​atch?​v=t2k​qHuOn​iv0. 238. Charles P. Pierce, “The Historical Significance of ‘Cosmopolitan’ as an Insult.” Esquire, August 2, 2017. http:​//www​.esqu​ire.c​om/ne​ws-po​litic​s/pol​itics​/ news​/a567​82/st​ephen​-mill​er-ji​m-aco​sta/.​ 239. Trump, Donald. Twitter Post. March 8, 2016. 9:36 AM. https​://tw​itter​.com/​ reald​onald​trump​/stat​us/70​72585​82501​30227​2. 240. “Mitt Romney Reads Mean Donald Trump Tweets.” Jimmy Kimmel Live, YouTube video, 2:30, March 9, 2016. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=zi_​ tuMjl​8DY. 241. “Jimmy Kimmel Reads Mean Comments from Trump Supporters.” Jimmy Kimmel Live, YouTube video, 2:19, August 17, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​ atch?​v=A6a​EmKmP​Nmg. 242. “Interviewing New Jersey Tea Party Supporters on Government Cuts.” Real Time with Bill Maher, YouTube video, 5:42, March 24, 2013, 2017. https​:// ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=5i-​dli-K​F9U. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=POw​ eJigp​UN8. 243. “The Day the Presidency Died.” Real Time with Bill Maher, YouTube video, 5:27, May 5, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=5i-​dli-K​F9U. 244. “S.E. Cupp: The Media’s Obsession with Non-Scandals.” The President Show. Comedy Central, YouTube video, 5:51, May 26, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​ com/w​atch?​v=qPQ​nXw1q​3OI.

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245. “FCC Votes to Repeal Net Neutrality, Omarosa Drama Continues: A Closer Look.” Late Night with Seth Meyers, YouTube video, 8:20, December 14, 2017. https​ ://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=noU​H5aYU​Bx4. 246. Steven Best and Douglas Kellner, The Postmodern Adventure: Science, Technology, and Cultural Studies at the Third Millennium (New York: The Guilford Press, 2001): 72–3. 247. Jean Baudrillard, The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991): 30–2. 248. Jean Baudrillard, Simulations (New York: Semiotext(e), 1983): 5. 249. Steven Best and Douglas Kellner, The Postmodern Adventure: Science, Technology, and Cultural Studies at the Third Millennium (New York: The Guilford Press, 2001): 72–3. 250. Jean Baudrillard, The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures (London: Sage Publications, 1998): 124. 251. Ibid., 125. 252. Steven Best and Douglas Kellner, The Postmodern Adventure: Science, Technology, and Cultural Studies at the Third Millennium (New York: The Guilford Press, 2001): 73. 253. Kellie Bean, “Keeping It (Hyper) Real: Anchoring in the Age of Fake News,” in The Ultimate Daily Show and Philosophy: More Moments of Zen, More Indecision Theory, edited by Jason Holt (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2013): 72. 254. Steven Best and Douglas Kellner, The Postmodern Adventure: Science, Technology, and Cultural Studies at the Third Millennium (New York: The Guilford Press, 2001): 74–5. 255. Ibid., 75–8. 256. https​://en​.wiki​pedia​.org/​wiki/​Unite​d_Sta​tes_m​ilita​ry_ca​sualt​ies_o​f_war​. 257. Maggie Haberman, Glenn Thrush, and Peter Baker, “Inside Trump’s HourBy-Hour Battle for Self-preservation.” The New York Times, December 9, 2017. https​ ://ww​w.nyt​imes.​com/2​017/1​2/09/​us/po​litic​s/don​ald-t​rump-​presi​dent.​html.​ 258. “SNL Wishes You ‘Merry Christmas’ from the White House.” SNL, YouTube video, 1:46, December 18, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=4jS​ AA6Fy​zg0. 259. Callum Borchers, “10 Memorable White House Press Briefing Moments of 2017.” The Washington Post. December 27, 2017. https​://ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​t.com​ /news​/the-​fix/w​p/201​7/12/​27/10​-memo​rable​-whit​e-hou​se-pr​ess-b​riefi​ng-mo​ments​ -of-2​017/?​hpid=​hp_hp​-more​-top-​stori​es-2_​fix-1​0whpr​ess-7​pm%3A​homep​age%2 ​ Fstor​y&​;utm_​term=​.599c​6d16f​bc9. 260. “The President Plays Charades.” The President Show. Comedy Central, YouTube video, 4:03, August 4, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=mNJ​ 8g2e2​WLk. 261. “Mario Cantone Surprises Anthony Scaramucci.” The View, YouTube video, 5:30, September 22, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=3xv​yHSf2​NRo. 262. Roderick P. Hart, Seducing America: How Television Charms the Modern Voter (Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications, 1999): 125. 263. Jean Baudrillard, Simulations (New York: Semiotext(e), 1983): 53.

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264. Kellie Bean, “Keeping It (Hyper) Real: Anchoring in the Age of Fake News,” in The Ultimate Daily Show and Philosophy: More Moments of Zen, More Indecision Theory, edited by Jason Holt (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2013): 70. 265. George C. Edwards III, Governing By Campaign: The Politics of the Bush Presidency (New York: Pearson, 2007): 29. 266. Ibid., 35. 267. Kevin Hart, Postmodernism: A Beginner’s Guide (Oxford: Oneworld, 2004): 62. 268. Jean Baudrillard and Marc Guillaume, Radical Alterity (New York: Semiotext(e), 2008): 145–6. 269. David Groves, “GOP Plans Big Social Security, Medicare Cuts.” The Stand. June 20, 2018. http:​//www​.thes​tand.​org/2​018/0​6/gop​-targ​ets-s​ocial​-secu​rity-​medic​ aid-f​or-cu​ts. 270. https​://wi​ldern​ess.o​rg/bl​og/mi​ning-​compa​ny-no​w-sta​king-​claim​-inva​de-gr​ and-s​tairc​ase-e​scala​nte-n​ation​al-mo​numen​t. 271. Noam Chomsky, “Donald Trump Is a Distraction.” YouTube video, 8:08, March 3, 2018. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=uQv​ig0Kv​UaE. 272. Avi Selk, “‘I Wanted to Stop her Crying’: The Image of a Migrant Child That Broke a Photographer’s Heart.” The Washington Post. June 18, 2018. https​:// ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​t.com​/news​/post​-nati​on/wp​/2018​/06/1​8/i-w​anted​-to-s​top-h​er-cr​ ying-​the-i​mage-​of-a-​migra​nt-ch​ild-t​hat-b​roke-​a-pho​togra​phers​-hear​t/?ut​m_ter​m=.b4​ 935d0​650fb​ 273. George C. Edwards III, Governing By Campaign: The Politics of the Bush Presidency (New York: Pearson, 2007): 43–4. 274. Ibid., 42–3. 275. Danielle Sarver Coombs, Last Man Standing: Media, Framing, and the 2012 Republican Primaries (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2014): 19–20. 276. Ibid., 167. 277. Ibid., 169. 278. Ibid. 279. Ibid. 280. Ibid., 31. 281. “What Nikki Haley Did at the U.N. Was an Embarrassment.” Morning Joe. MSNBC, YouTube video, 10:28, December 22, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​ atch?​v=lpg​lttVY​eu0. 282. Editorial Board, “Will Trump’s Lows Ever Hit Rock Bottom?” USA Today. December 12, 2017. https​://ww​w.usa​today​.com/​story​/opin​ion/2​017/1​2/12/​trump​ -lows​-ever​-hit-​rock-​botto​m-edi​toria​ls-de​bates​/9459​47001​. 283. “New Rules: Checking in on Jared.” Real Time with Bill Maher, YouTube video, 6:15, November 10, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=JUC​ dSF-V​McM. 284. “Mueller Goes for the Kill, Trump Pushes for Tax Cuts: A Closer Look.” Late Night with Seth Meyers, YouTube video, 8:30, September 13, 2017. https​://ww​ w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=Wgy​dZwHE​3yA&a​mp;ap​p=des​ktop.​ 285. Jean Baudrillard, Simulations (New York: Semiotext(e), 1983): 125.

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286. Jean Baudrillard, The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures (London: Sage Publications, 1998): 151–8. 287. Diane Rubenstein, This Is Not a President: Sense, Nonsense, and the American Political Imaginary (New York: New York University Press, 2008): 12–13. 288. Ibid., 42–3. 289. Robert T. Tally, Jr., “I Am the Mainstream Media (and So Can You!),” in The Stewart/Colbert Effect: Essays on the Real Impacts of Fake News, edited by Amaranth Amarasingam (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2011): 152. 290. Steven Best and Douglas Kellner, The Postmodern Adventure: Science, Technology, and Cultural Studies at the Third Millennium (New York: The Guilford Press, 2001): 73. 291. David Siders, “David Nunes Creates his Own Alternative News Site.” Politico, February 11, 2017. https​://ww​w.pol​itico​.com/​story​/2018​/02/1​1/dev​in-nu​nes-a​ ltern​ative​-news​-site​-4020​97. 292. Hunt Allcott and Matthew Gentzkow. “Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election.” The Journal of Economic Perspectives 31, no. 2 (Spring 2017): 211–35, 212. 293. Tony Romm, “Facebook’s Zuckerberg Just Survived 10 Hours of Questioning by Congress.” The Washington Post. April 11, 2018. https​://ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​ t.com​/news​/the-​switc​h/wp/​2018/​04/11​/zuck​erber​g-fac​ebook​-hear​ing-c​ongre​ss-ho ​ use-t​estim​ony/?​utm_t​erm=.​bffd5​9ca34​66. 294. Ryan Grenoble, “Here Are Some of the Ads Russia Paid to Promote on Facebook.” Huffpost. November 1, 2017. https​://ww​w.huf​fingt​onpos​t.com​/entr​y/rus​ sian-​faceb​ook-a​ds-ex​ample​s-ele​ction​_us_5​9fa16​d1e4b​01b47​4047d​7a5?n​cid=i​nblnk​ ushpm​g0000​0009.​ 295. “Russian Bots and Trolls.” Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, YouTube video, 5:45, August 9, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=_dh​neCO4​YEE. 296. “Weekend Update.” SNL, YouTube video, 8:35, February 25, 2017. https​:// ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=aPJ​PXHx1​ROo. 297. Robert T. Tally, Jr., “I Am the Mainstream Media (and So Can You!),” in The Stewart/Colbert Effect: Essays on the Real Impacts of Fake News, edited by Amaranth Amarasingam (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2011): 150. 298. “The President and the Press Need Each Other.” The President Show. Comedy Central, YouTube video, 3:03, November 30, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​ atch?​v=SFL​PyUlw​zy0. 299. Jean Baudrillard, Simulations (New York: Semiotext(e), 1983): 30. 300. Wayne Gabardi, Negotiating Postmodernism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001): 20. 301. “Sean Spicer’s Greatest Hits as the Press Secretary to President Donald Trump.” Time. YouTube video, 4:59, May 31, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​ atch?​v=9zf​ZrfKk​9lY. 302. “Sean Spicer Press Conference.” SNL, YouTube video, 8:06, February 5, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=UWu​c18xI​SwI. 303. Matt Taibbi, “The Madness of Donald Trump.” Rolling Stone, September 19, 2017. https​://ww​w.rol​lings​tone.​com/p​oliti​cs/po​litic​s-fea​tures​/the-​madne​ss-of​-dona​ ld-tr​ump-1​97853​.

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304. Wayne Gabardi, Negotiating Postmodernism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001): 20. 305. “The President Interviews Matt Taibbi.” The President Show. Comedy Central UK, YouTube video, 4:54, July 14, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​ v=TQT​FoSCN​ySw. 306. Matt Taibbi, “The Madness of Donald Trump.” Rolling Stone, September 19, 2017. https​://ww​w.rol​lings​tone.​com/p​oliti​cs/po​litic​s-fea​tures​/the-​madne​ss-of​-dona​ ld-tr​ump-1​97853​. 307. “Immigration Court.” Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), YouTube video, 17:51, April 1, 2018. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=9fB​0GBwJ​2QA. 308. “More Toddlers Appear Alone in Court for Deportation Under Family Separation.” PBS News Hour. June 28, 2018. https​://ww​w.pbs​.org/​newsh​our/h​ealth​/more​ -todd​lers-​appea​r-alo​ne-in​-cour​t-for​-depo​rtati​on-un​der-f​amily​-sepa​ratio​n. 309. Barrera Laura. Twitter Post. February 26, 2018. 9:38 AM. https​://tw​itter​.com/​ aboga​da_la​ura/s​tatus​/9681​78427​65520​0768.​ 310. Joshua Zeitz, “Does the White Working Class Really Vote Against Its Own Interests?” Politico, December 31, 2017. https​://ww​w.pol​itico​.com/​magaz​ine/s​tory/​ 2017/​12/31​/trum​p-whi​te-wo​rking​-clas​s-his​tory-​21620​0.

Conclusion

One of the most pressing issues in understanding satire is to take into account how it has evolved over the years: in form, from fiction to cartoons to performance, and in norms, from being a renegade to a more mainstream presence. This transition is far from being linear; cartoons, for example, have remained part of popular culture even as stand-up comedians have emerged and comedy shows have flourished on television. An exploration of its evolution from the belletristic to the performative seems important to understand the historic roots of satire as well as to appreciate the factors that have modulated it at different political and social junctures in America. Political cartoons share a common thread of history with pre-Revolutionary America which had a strong anti-British, anti-government, and anti-authoritarian streak. Satire’s trait of being anti-establishment was a common theme throughout American history, with occasional phases during external crises (mostly foreign wars) when cartoonists might abandon the spirit of lampooning their own government and instead undermine enemies by touting government positions. One of my aims in this book has been to uncover whether this role of satirists— being reliable internal critics of political and social dynamics—remains a vital narrative applying to current satirists, or if this narrative has been superseded, then what are the factors that have influenced contemporary satire in digital media. Satire branched out from its literary roots to the performative sphere with the help of new technological advancements during its transition. Just as the invention of the modern printing apparatus made satire widespread in the print media, television brought stand-up comedy directly to American households. During the days when stand-up comedy was the main outlet for satirists, the ideal of insurrection remained an important thread, and satirists often adopted this role as their persona. Satire on television, however, relied 267

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on institutions and investments which were not conducive to satirists’ natural compulsions, such as defying social conventions and shocking people. The presentation of satire on television was determined by extrinsic factors, particularly the expansion, suitability, and retention of audiences. Instead of the hypercriticality intrinsic to satire, which exposes the hypocrisy and layered meanings of social and political transactions, the entertaining element assumed dominance. Political satire finally established itself as an essential and mainstream presence on American television in the 1990s. The decade of the 1990s unleashed a new form of political punditry with a strong dose of humor, which found increasingly receptive audiences as media conglomeration allowed the cultivation of selective niches of viewers. Within the short span of a decade, American political conversation experienced a major transition. After a brief hiatus in response to the September 11 attacks, satire claimed the mantle of being one of the powerful modes capturing the philosophical anomalies and providing thought-provoking analyses, with a new generation of satirists on late-night television establishing themselves as indispensable to the discussion of politics. Satire on television has become so prominent that the last two decades of political rhetoric cannot be understood without a discussion of satire and its major voices. These satirists are not only entertainers, but often treated as reliable sources of new information, making it feel at times that political reality can only be captured through the admittedly irrational frame of satire. While I wholeheartedly agree with the contribution of satirists in keeping political disputation alive, the question that has intrigued me is why this space has opened up for satirists and how actual journalists have responded to their new counterparts. It cannot be mere coincidence that shortly after news started appearing 24/7 and was reimagined mostly as entertainment, satire surfaced as a major element on American television. The timing of media consolidation, globalization, and the rise of the neoliberal economy are all major factors in the alteration of news, satire, and the media, and the presentation on television of both real news and fake news. I find it illuminating that in the last two decades, satire performed on late-night television (also accessible through the Internet) has fused with conventional political colloquy, making it necessary to view satire in this new reality. My analysis rests on the premise that it is not only our expectations of satire or the methods of satirists that have experienced a sea change, but that this conversion is a manifestation of a much larger revolution that has substantially altered the media as much as the political philosophy underlying our economy. I have relied on postmodernism as the language to explicate the changes that have occurred in the media. The reason I have chosen this particular orientation is because postmodernism allows many contradictions to exist and flourish together. As the very rationale of postmodernism counts on

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disjointment, this framework seems to capture the underlying connections between seemingly chaotic elements. Postmodernism also appears as the exemplary angle to understand satire, because the multiframes of simultaneous projection of real news along with its interpretations (or the simulations that create hyperreality) are very much prevalent in satire. I believe that the reason why satire has become so popular and mainstream is tied to the fact that for a long time most media presentations have adopted the same principles and prepared us not to look for meaning, asking us instead to enjoy the moment and move on to the next topic. Postmodernism thrives on multiple storylines, accepting that truth cannot be definitively understood, so that irony becomes a way to digest paradoxes. In that regard, satire may be the most appropriate posture for the postmodern generation, leading us to natural questions about the extent to which our political structure can be accessed through postmodern irony and lack of objectivity. Undoubtedly, satire has reached a whole new younger generation and made them more aware, but are they only viewers, or voters and activists as well? Satire lashes out at deviations from the ideal of political and social morality, and it also fulminates against the manipulation of reality for nefarious ends. But how does it adapt to the postmodern creed of multiple realities? I have explored how the language of postmodernism has changed our expectations as audiences, our definitions of engagement, and our roles as citizens. The cultural stance of globalization allows leeway for different worldviews to coexist, while the economic logic of globalization strives to dictate market principles prioritizing only profits while smoothing over political and cultural differences. Beginning in the 1990s, fewer corporations came to be in control of the American media industry, though the range of audiences expanded beyond the national boundary. This transformation echoed a fundamental transition, namely the shift from a capitalist to a neoliberal economy, which can be defined as a kind of hypercapitalism where financial payoffs dominate all other factors to the extent that national interests take a back seat. Neoliberal arguments for fighting ambiguous wars or dismantling the safety net can often be garbed in a language of national greatness, though this is harmful to the health of the real economy. The implicit acceptance of neoliberal principles is discernible when, for example, both journalists and satirists raise the specter of fiscal irresponsibility to attack Bernie Sanders’s proposal for tuition-free college during the 2016 presidential campaign but fail to raise the same anxiety with equal fervor when analyzing the Trump tax cut (passed in December 2017), which will make the annual deficit reach $1 trillion by 2020.1 Why is the media, which is so aggressive in criticizing Trump, so weak in its analysis of policy and even more so when it comes to ideology? An easy way to reconcile the hesitation of the media with regard to neoliberal policies is to connect the dots of who owns the media and who benefits from such

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policies. The larger problem, however, is that it has now become acceptable to passionately blame the misdeeds of individual politicians, without probing the underlying structure. Trump has faced much scathing criticism, and the broadcast networks have repented giving him undue airtime during the election campaign, but politics was being sold as recreation long before Trump appeared on the scene. In this book I have tried to analyze the different factors that led television networks to prioritize amusement and to repackage most social and political issues as performance rather than as sober topics deserving more than peremptory attention. If we look at how breaking crime news is presented on television—the psychology of perpetrators, the tense drama, and often the police chase—enthrallment gets precedence over the reasons for crime and its impact on society. This is an example of how most issues are framed in terms of holding attention and gratifying audiences, while shunning nuances and complications. The policies of media deregulation and concentration made the media give all the more attention to maximizing viewership, so that all the programs began to be bundled as distracting spectacles to attract and retain audiences. The regulations of the 1990s were manifestations of the advancement of technology, along with the spread of globalization and the overriding profit motive of neoliberalism. Just as the political vista feels superficially open to all comers, the media uses the language of multiculturalism to promote an illusory sense of inclusiveness. At the same time, intractable issues like poverty, mass incarceration, wayward foreign interventions, and the retreat of social justice, all of which affect the majority of people, have been taken off the menu as worthwhile topics in and of themselves and have been refashioned as entertaining theater. For example, MSNBC launched a show called To Catch A Predator (2004–07), where adult police officers posed as underage girls online, in order to trap adults who sought out sex with such girls. While the people who were caught were deplorable, their thought crimes might not have been the most heinous challenge facing society; however, the show garnered a lot of viewers, and despite the suicide of one of the entrapped offenders and the show’s resulting cancellation, it has recently been revived on another channel.2 The forerunners of such shows started appearing in the late 1980s, and took off in the cable channel proliferation of the 1990s, each with the intent to turn crime into personalized drama feeding into voyeurism. If we apply the postmodern logic of “catching predators” to national and international issues such as protest movements or terrorism, without questioning the elemental logic of empire and economic unfairness, then we establish the principle of voyeuristic enjoyment by way of feeling unearned moral superiority. But what sells most is unreality, and this goes a long way toward explaining the popularity of satire on mainstream television. The problem arises when the unreality of satire permeates the reality itself;

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when actual politics becomes entertainment, how can we define the purpose of satire? Media deregulation and concentration helped create an avalanche of new programming from the 1990s onwards, yet most of the new programming was very similar to each other at the broad level. Instead of competing with each other, the media channels began creating programs geared toward loyal audience niches, and the resulting narrowcasting has substantially impacted the explosion of satire on late-night TV. As explained in this book, satire which is popular tends to cater to a particular liberal segment, making little attempt to cross partisan lines. I have described how, in an ironic turn, Trump used this mode of narrowcasting to nurture his own base, propelling himself to electoral victory. At this point, the shortcomings of satire become evident, because it lacks the resources to take on the true nature of the politics represented by Trump. Another major accomplishment of Trump has been to thwart the framing adopted for him by the mainstream media and to expertly utilize the competing technology of Twitter to reach out to his fan base and spread his message to the global audience. I have argued that Trump used the same techniques that are used by the media to popularize their own programs to keep and grow loyal audiences. What worked for the media to draw spectators and keep them attached to their television sets is what worked for Trump to appeal to his supporters and sustain them throughout his ascendancy. It is the turmoil itself—whether in the form of constantly “breaking news,” the droll repartee on Comedy Central, or the astute deflection of outrageous tweets or shocking scandals—that preserves the audience. The failure of journalists to anticipate the probability of the Trump presidency, and their inability to analyze the Trump voters (most analysis is patronizing even when it is empathetic) and to accept them as an essential part of American values, is also a manifestation of the technique of narrowcasting, since these are the audiences the mainstream media never cared to reach anyway. Satirists have echoed the same blindness because they function in a similar manner. As I have discussed, Colbert’s shock on national television at Trump getting elected was an unintended exposé of where and for whom satire now performs. British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen’s seven-part series for Showtime, Who Is America? (2018), has created quite a stir. The first episode3 shows him duping a number of politicians who agree with the outrageous positions of the character he plays. Colonel Erran Morad is an Israeli anti-terrorism expert proposing a program called “Kinderguardians,” which trains children as young as three to shoot with “puppy pistols.” A number of lobbyists and politicians concur with Cohen and enthusiastically echo his position—Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League (“They [toddlers] haven’t quite developed what we call conscience, where you feel guilty about doing something wrong. . . . If they haven’t developed that yet,

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they could be very effective soldiers.”); Larry Pratt, Executive Director, Gun Owners of America (“Toddlers are pure, uncorrupted by fake news or homosexuality. They don’t worry if it’s politically correct to shoot a mentally deranged gunman, they’ll just do it.”); Representative Joe Wilson, South Carolina (“Our founding fathers did not put an age limit on the Second Amendment.”); and Representative Joe Walsh, Illinois (“In less than a month, less than a month, a first-grader can become a first grenader . . . . Happy shooting, kids!”)—without the slightest bit of irony. Here Cohen is using incongruity to create a bridge between the politicians’ absurd positions and the logical rationale for gun control. As we see representative after representative voicing his support for arming toddlers with guns, we realize that what we are seeing is actually a reflection of us in the mirror. Perhaps Cohen’s position as an outsider allows him to regard the whole American ideology as ridiculous, whereas his satirical colleagues within America remain earnest and committed to preserving American exceptionalism by identifying problems only as anomalies. The American media has been up in arms about Cohen’s alleged strategy of conning Sarah Palin by disguising himself as a disabled veteran (a charge both Showtime and Cohen have denied),4 claiming that he crossed a line of decency,5 while the position of arming three-year-olds with guns is being regarded as more uproarious than loathsome. In the postmodern era, engaging with fake news as play and joining in the game may be the only recourse to counter it,6 whereas taking it seriously may lead to inadvertently conceding to the new rules of the game. As I have shown in this book, satire today is not only humorous and sophisticated but can often come across as being as informative and analytical as real news. Journalists in the mainstream media, whether or not they acknowledge it, have for a long time been playing the role of performers to tempt audiences rather than abiding by the conventional standards of their profession. The way political news is presented in the media is becoming similar day by day to any program explicitly calling itself a diversion. This trend has been evident in coverage of the primaries since 2012. On the one hand, these have provided an audition to increasingly outlandish characters with radical views (the Tea Party must take a lot of the blame), but on the other hand, the candidates have only been able to get media coverage if they emphasize their pet radical causes. It has become a self-reinforcing loop with no end in sight. Both the media and politicians used to imagine that the grotesquery would work only in the primaries, but Trump has upended that calculation. My discussion of the relationship between media frames and the presidency tries to capture this pivotal moment when the media was overpowered from setting the rules. The postmodern game shifted to a celebrity more adept than media performers, upon which he seized the highest political office; once he strong-armed the media, he strong-armed the political establishment too.

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This is another indication that politics takes its cues, even in matters of policy orientation, from entertainment. Political satire is penetrating when it adopts an internal gaze, aims at systemic lapses, and vocalizes social and political taboos. It kicks the audience in the gut but also connects with them through a common realization of the imperfection of political and cultural codes. When the focus is on outward targets, satire may well be flamboyant and alluring, but it can easily create a safe distance between the audience and the butt of laughter. This distance becomes irreversible when satire hardens its target as being irrational and farcical. The more the disassociation between the audience and the person or event that is being caricatured, the less the probability that satire will lead to any sort of action through shame, self-analysis, or reevaluation of moral values. A number of structural reasons, economic and cultural alike, provide the impetus for political satire to have become normalizing rather than interrogating, as satirists, who have secured their places in the mainstream media, assimilate the neoliberal postmodern milieu where their performance is measured only in terms of how entertaining they can be. Satire has lately been overflowing on our bountiful digital channels, but there is a price to be paid for going mainstream. The price that satirists seem to have agreed to is that they now behave much like the mainstream media. While their sallies are more amusing than ever, there is a distinct change in the way they satirize politics. They seem to accept the political establishment and point only to its deviations and oddities, thereby making peace with the system. The whole point of satire used to be to find the connecting threads between the absurdity and the normal. As I have detailed in this book, most satirists today are informed by a partisan as opposed to an ideological bias, so that the displeasure appears to be directed against particular political figures or actions rather than widespread behavior patterns. I have also freely acknowledged, despite this criticism, the instances when political issues have been presented in a wider historical or political context by satirists, despite journalists having often neglected their obligation. But even when satirists (particularly Oliver) show some skill at connecting systemic breakdowns, they mostly use their art to rebuke the targeted wrongdoers rather than to reflect the ills back to us. As I have often suggested in this book, when the gaze remains outwards the preservation of the existing structure has probably been internalized. I have tried to explain how satirists are shaped by the same economic and political values which decide the anatomy and operation of the media. Any defiance of the mainstream interpretation of issues is crushed with silence or indifference. The movie War Machine, released in 2017, is an extended parody of General Stanley A. McChrystal’s gung-ho leadership style in the Afghanistan war, at the same time questioning the necessity of the very

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idea of that war and satirizing the discourse around it as cynical and selfserving on the part of all concerned parties. Interestingly, the fall of General McChrystal came through an article published in Rolling Stone (depicted in the movie with irony piling upon irony), where the general dared to reveal his honest assessments of war and politicians. Here are two excerpts from a long and nuanced notice of the movie, which received generally negative reviews from the press: “We may not like to think of ourselves as barbaric—[but] in fact, War Machine is a persistent deconstruction of all the ways we like to fool ourselves that we’re not,” and “War Machine . . . focuses . . . on sharpening awareness of the current bedlam by delving into the character of one individual . . . [General McChrystal], and how he embodies a certain line of thinking that keeps getting us in the same sort of trouble, because it emanates from the same structural formations of empire.”7 It might also be relevant to evoke a better-known movie, Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, which was released in June 2004 and was one of the first serious indictments of the Bush administration, but focused mostly on the contested electoral victory and the administration’s foreign policy entanglements and vested interests, ignoring the systemic design and architecture of foreign policy. Moore can be regarded as a highly visible public intellectual, yet he presented the Bush administration as an abnormality rather than a continuation of American political priorities.8 This trend of treating any unpalatable policy or personality as a peculiarity or as un-American, rather than examining the issues with reference to the American political configuration, is a way to write off the distinct characteristics of American politics by treating the unsavory manifestations as glitches or unorthodoxies and tacitly allowing them to exist as long as it is permissible to criticize them. Satire, since it has gone mainstream, has fallen into the same trap. Keeping in mind the role of globalization, let me mention another movie— an obscure one this time and a satire again—that protested the mainstream conceptualization of terrorism, Tere Bin Laden9 (which now has a sequel). Produced in India in 2010, it understandably did not generate much enthusiasm in the U.S. market, though it is available to see on YouTube. The premise of the movie is that an unemployed young man who needs money in order to leave Pakistan comes across a bin Laden look-alike and hatches a plan to hand him over to the U.S. government in return for the bounty on bin Laden’s head. In typical Bollywood fashion things go awry, but the movie generates poignant questions about terrorists and the role of states in producing and sustaining terrorism. Recently there has been a lot of curiosity and enthusiasm about Bollywood on American television and in Hollywood, but a parallel exposition that does not parrot official statements regarding terrorism, in a tone most Americans can identify with, has been left untouched by Hollywood.

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The transitions experienced by satire—attaining mainstream presence and demeanor, being informative as well as entertaining, managing to be outlandish yet stabilizing—follow a pattern that has overwhelmed all of the media and many aspects of politics, a pattern that is in place because of changes in our political and economic system, namely the domination of the philosophy of neoliberalism which I have discussed at length. Neoliberalism is generally understood as a perverse form of capitalism, where the market dominates political and social transactions to such an extent that it results in severe cutbacks of social programs, and political participation becomes ritualistic rather than leading to policy changes. Neoliberalism shrinks meaningful political space but opens up cultural space where political discussion is enacted; even though politics, culture, the media, and the market are porous, the margin for substantive political action remains impenetrable. Engagement is often illusionary, though it embodies a procession of different voices, their grudges and anger in full flow, with negligible potential for political transformation. Contemporary political satire enhances this form of ceremonial participation. Neoliberalism erases differences in ideologies and upholds the existing arrangement as the only legitimate system of statecraft or governance.10 In the political arena, Trump supporters were drawn to him because their anger—stemming from lack of ability to impact economic policies in their favor for many decades—had reached a boiling point. Low-skilled workers are considered redundant in the neoliberal economy, and it is no coincidence that the media hasn’t had much use for them either. Their anger was enough for them to overlook policies which might hurt them, particularly the shrinkage of the social welfare net, but the cultural programming Trump produced for them seemed to be enough compensation. Delivering on the theatrics by making them translate into real policy—such as instituting the travel ban for Muslim countries, criminalizing asylum seekers and refugees, and keeping up the pressure on Congress for a border wall—represents a departure from centrist Republicans paying lip service to cultural anxieties, yet not endangering the neoliberal economy. In accordance with the postmodern relationship of politics and the media, the most important policy change so far, the massive tax cut—with adverse effects for economic equality, hurting Trump’s own base the most—has not been a centerpiece of the regularly scheduled alternate programming, delivered in the form of frequent Trump campaign-style rallies and constant Twitter updates. When neoliberalism takes over politics, political ideology loses salience, as we saw in the coverage of the 2016 election. The media mostly treated the economic discontent of Trump and Sanders supporters in a similar vein during the primaries and the general election, often ignoring or downplaying their ideological differences. While economic injustice spurred both groups, the Trump supporters wanted to remove fellow Americans—immigrants,

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minorities, and cultural elites—whom they identified as benefiting from the existing arrangement and hence worthy of being considered their enemies. The Sanders supporters had a much better understanding of how the neoliberal economy works, and they wanted meaningful policy changes that would have improved the economic condition of the poor and the middle class of all races. Instead of excluding particular groups from being beneficiaries of neoliberalism, they wanted to dismantle it and its supporting political structure. It is not lack of political shrewdness that led journalists to label the two ideologically opposed groups as both being “against the establishment.” Any serious scrutiny of these groups would have led to a discussion about the political, and hence the media, establishment. I have argued that postmodernism plays a crucial role in the staging of political issues, by decontextualizing and fragmenting them so as to focus on the micro elements rather than unearthing the macro narrative. While Sanders supporters wanted to attack neoliberalism at its core, the Trump supporters articulated their fury through coded cultural demands. White supremacists are now working overtime to bring such clamor to fruition. Their desire to elevate themselves from forgotten Americans to “real” Americans, and to treat others as unworthy of being Americans, is playing out in violent incidents likely to escalate. The rise of extreme free-market capitalism or neoliberalism has reshaped the public sphere by transforming the idea of the common good. The privatization of social life is reflected on the airwaves by the takeover accomplished by right-wing fundamentalism, which emerged during the Reagan-Bush era but has been gaining power ever since; regardless of overt political changes, the economy continues moving toward neoliberal principles, irrespective of the party or president at the helm. The re-energized sphere of political satire, which tacitly embraces the principles of liberalism endorsed by the Democratic Party, is a reflection of that phenomenon. In the 2016 election, the supporters of Sanders were accorded only limited cultural space to articulate their demands, being featured in the media for their outpouring of support which energized the Democratic Party primary and added excitement to the high-stakes political game. The Democratic Party establishment crushed this excitement with a heavy hand to facilitate the nomination of Hillary Clinton, who went on to suffer a devastating electoral loss. The Trump presidency has been so unusual that the Democrats only have to attack him and his policy whims of the moment without paying attention to the reasons for his popular appeal. A few electoral victories (especially in the special election for the Alabama senate) have given them hope, but as a party they are yet to describe a real policy alternative instead of slightly more palatable options based on the same ideological principles. Satire, operating in this environment of a lack of ideological clarity, seems curiously denatured and fantastical, despite having Trump as the broadest target it will likely ever have.

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As described extensively in this book, Trump has eroded a distinction that is a core aspect of satire, namely the difference between the real and fake news. It might appear that he has done so single-handedly by accusing the mainstream media of being fake. But this credit does not solely belong to him. The media over the years has become increasingly biased toward sensational news. By often treating news and non-news with equal significance, by promoting only what seduces the audience, and finally by elevating candidate Trump with unparalleled airtime as he uttered shocking statements, the media shares in the complicity. After shedding the requirements of the fairness doctrine, cable networks became openly partisan, which meant that the expectation of equal time all but evaporated. The term “truthiness,” coined by Colbert to capture the irrational justifications of various Bush administration policies relying on emotional triggers, gave birth to the term “alternative facts,” which is how Trump’s adviser Kellyanne Conway defends the administration’s transparent lies. While “truthiness” was envisioned as a concept to shine light on the manipulation of truth by way of irony, “alternative facts” attempts to smooth over the differences between the real, the fake, and satire. Trump embodies truthiness—recognizes it and celebrates it—which means that the line of attack presumed by truthiness is no longer available to expose him. This has been a large part of his strategy, as he deploys a form of trolling that preempts satire’s attempts to capture him as a fixed target. This has profound consequences for governance in the future as other politicians take the lead from him. To remain within the mainstream, to enjoy the adoration of faithful audiences, and to feature their jarring new material, satirists engage in a cyclical enterprise, aggravating us with preposterous exposures but also soothing us by downplaying them. If the media had been doing its job all along by holding government accountable, the role of satire in normalizing failings would not have been as prominent. But mainstream news and satirists are operating along the same continuum, often borrowing from each other’s style, as I have discussed in this book. The process of humanization becomes indispensable, because after doing that no specific actions, events, or persons can be excluded from civilized discourse. This all-inclusivity is a strange feature of modern satire, and leads to the implication that if everything can be normalized then nothing will remain human. But the inclusivity must have pragmatic limits, and so the sharp edge of satire turns merely partisan. Satire must humanize the “enemies” to include them within the circle of civil conversation, retaining a fond hope in the power of communication to turn people around. Such an expectation must rest on a willful ignorance of ideology’s role in forming social practices and behaviors, but television has never been invested in such categories. Satire—like government in neoliberalism, which pretends not to have an ideology—starts feeling apolitical or

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wants to do so, with the endless process of normalization. All the energy to dig up offences peters out into laughter, all the banter encouraging disdain ends up in fruitless despair, and all the angst mustered up against evil-doers collapses in hopelessness. Throwing up one’s hands and gesturing submission sometimes makes an explicit appearance. When Oliver ended his last show of 2016 with a “Fuck You” message to the year 2016,11 blaming it for our woes, it might be amusing but it is also escapist when we absolve ourselves from the collective responsibility of electoral choices (one also wonders, now that Oliver has already used up the strongest rebuke against 2016, what kind of insult he might be able to fling at future years proving equally depressing). While late-night satirists provided a valuable public service by trying to hold the Bush administration answerable, they laid down their arms during the Obama administration against similar domestic and international missteps, so that their accusations against the Trump administration now sound hollow and partisan. The problem is much bigger than any particular presidency. Satire in the Bush years had great fun with exotic characters like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and their ilk, rarely questioning the political logic which produces them. In the Obama era, while the drone wars, Guantánamo Bay, and police killings continued, there were no unpalatable politicians to blame. The only way to support Obama was to adore him as a person and not mention the continuation of heinous policies, while the only way to oppose him was to question his legitimacy and apprehend the imagined harm that his presidency was inflicting. The Trump administration has again supplied enough hideous politicians, from EPA administrator Scott Pruitt (who stepped down over corruption charges) to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos (determined to undermine public schools), and satirists have found easy targets once again—though Trump offers unique problems in being a serviceable mark, because his persona is all but immune to satire. Satire, historically, has aimed at external events or persons only in order to teach us something about ourselves. This is the mirror feature which reveals the unsaid. Satirists used to be able to utter what everyone understood intrinsically but was unable or too afraid to articulate. Satirists risked political wrath, sometimes getting away because of their elusive style, and were often considered not important enough to spark widespread conflict as they were rarely seen or heard in the mainstream. In the Trump era, satirists may be inundated with more material than ever before, but there is no need to disclose any hidden agenda or expose any hyperbole. Satirists like Meyers, Bee, and Oliver report actual political news which they pair or contrast with absurd notions, creating shallow laughter but rarely revealing anything new, as all policies and platitudes are now transparent and can claim proud ownership, regardless of how eccentric they are.

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A recent sketch by Michelle Wolfe12—who has been boosted by the controversy generated by her 2018 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner remarks—illustrates some of the points I have been making in this book. It purports to be an ICE recruitment video featuring several individuals dressed in the black ICE uniform, happy to have found fulfillment for their “anger issues” in ICE’s mission to keep the homeland safe. It also features Wolf as Department of Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, who has been under fire for implementing Trump’s inhuman policy of arresting and separating refugee families at the border. The blatant irony of the sketch consists in our noticing parallels between “ICE is” (spoken repeatedly throughout the two-and-a-half-minute sketch by the “blackshirts” speaking on its behalf) and “ISIS,” whom the media has already ingrained in our minds as dressed in black and engaged in a similar “holy war” to protect their own homeland. This is an example of superiority theory, because it isolates ICE, its individual agents, and then Nielsen herself—if the problem hadn’t been individualized enough—as objects of derision, as they hunt MS-13 gang members and destroy families. Except that no families, or individuals being hunted, are seen—and they cannot be seen, satire cannot see them. ICE agents run around while dummies representing hunted minorities stand in deserted compounds. The goons who are happy to have found ICE as an outlet for their frustration are meant to be laughable, posing no real danger to us because we can easily imagine them being goofy and incompetent when push comes to shove. The creation of DHS, and therefore ICE, was endorsed by Democrats under the Bush presidency, and while some insurgents in the Democratic party—such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, a twenty-eight-yearold former Sanders protégé who defeated powerful incumbent Joe Crowley— have been calling for its abolition,13 President Obama’s DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson wrote against such an idea.14 The sketch does not partake in relief or release theory; rather, it seems to have the effect of building frustration, because we know what our homegrown “blackshirts” have been up to, yet we are powerless in the face of its appeal to “sick” individuals. There is a nod to incongruity theory, when we see peaceful immigrants going about quintessential American rituals, with the voiceover pronouncing them invaders, but this is quickly eclipsed by a more linear exposition. The persistent human rights crimes against migrants—which also satisfy the private prison complex—thus become reduced to a momentary laugh, normalizing the sadists in our midst, because they are angry individuals who need help, while the bipartisan ideology of neoliberalism that permits across-the-board disciplinarity of migrants is far removed from the background of this sketch. The problem has been localized, externalized, delimited, removed from our own conscience, despite giving the appearance of wanting to jerk our conscience. The overall tone of the sketch is one of gentle fun, because presumably blackshirts have

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feelings too, and the bleakness, if any, is distant and satisfying. Furthermore, it rests on the worst liberal stereotypes of ISIS, as though that “organization” were a reality of fanaticism that had been swollen whole by satire. Reality is not distinguishable anywhere in this sketch, which seems intended to be a freestanding paean to unreality, much as Baudrillard’s concept of integral reality suggests. Satire often attacks the coverage of politics rather than actual missteps in policies, erasing the difference between the message and the messenger. At the same time, real news covers political issues with the tantalizing and shocking approach familiar from satire. The distinction between the real and the fake began to recede when simulations of performance dominated critical analysis of politics.15 It is in this porous environment of infotainment that we find a highly successful entertainer from reality TV dumbfounding pundits and satirists alike. Satirists on late-night television can indeed be said to have paved the way for a greater entertainer than any of them. Now that the lead performer is mesmerizing the national and global audience, satirists are facing stiff competition. Fake news can hardly keep up with the irrationality of real political events, and the self-identity of fake news has been absorbed and usurped by Trump as all news to him is fake. In January 2018, Trump declared (on Twitter, of course) that he would give out fake news awards for the year, prompting satirists like Colbert, Noah, and Bee to run real advertisements to pursue the president, but the recipients of the Trump fake news awards turned out to contain a list of real journalists, ranging from Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman (for wrongly predicting a stock market collapse in response to the Trump presidency) to CNN (for showing a video where it appeared that the president had overfed fish during his Asia tour) to the Washington Post (for publishing pictures of an empty arena before the crowd allegedly filled his rally in Pensacola).16 Satirists may have started out in America as public intellectuals (Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain, as I have described), and embraced the tribute of being renegades for a long time, but now they seem to have become an extension of conventional views and news. Twain never compromised his venom against social or political ills despite his amiable personal relations with President Theodore Roosevelt. He popularized the notion of the Gilded Age as surface glitter hiding underlying corruption, deeming it a lamentable era when the very rich sparkled while many went hungry.17 He is respected not only because of his comic style, but also for his uncompromising feel for social justice. Just as he attacked the Gilded Age, slavery, and imperialism with his dagger wit, he did not spare the growing power of the presidency under Roosevelt.18 Stewart and Colbert have a large following and have inspired a new generation of satirists who have made our political discourse much more engrossing. But often they deliver partisan boilerplate in the cloak of humor, rarely asking grueling questions beyond bursting personal

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bubbles. When satirists mostly target media and political celebrities, leaving the system’s underpinnings intact, then there is a danger that they can appear as inauthentic as the celebrities they are lampooning. The discourse of American political satire now bears close resemblance to television news. While satirists inform us of politics and engage us in the manner of real journalists, they only focus on outward criticism of whomever they have identified as the transgressors. That seems to me the great tragedy of American political satire. Whether or not satire inspires political participation seems a lesser question to me. What seems more important is whether satirists understand the new economic and political equations and their own position in the entertainment industry, so that they can challenge the norms as insiders with real power. This seems to me the most important question that will influence satire: will it remain a benign form of entertainment that evokes powerless joviality, or will it yet evolve into a genre that can uncover overlooked links, in order to express the taboo and bring new layers of meaning to the stories we are told? For example, should Trump be treated as part of the system rather than an anomaly? The insertion of satire as an important player in the political chaos, the abdication of real journalism, the troubling linkage of news and non-news, and the elevation of parody as real news have all led to the phenomenon of Trump, quite aside from his ideology that may or may not have appealed to particular constituencies. Satirists are not entirely unaware of this reality, as one of them reminds us about the unholy alliance of media and politics and warns us that “it’s not going to stop till you wise up,”19 but can they go farther than that and break the shackles they have imposed on their own art form? Satire was historically not burdened with the expectation of advocating political change, but to expose the fractures of our social and political organization to make us pause and rethink our own convictions. To reclaim its glory, satire has to function again as a mirror revealing adversaries and allies alike. It has to come up with material that makes us uncomfortable enough to question our own roles in the formation of political wrongdoings and to probe our minds to unearth the connections between the system and anomalies. It has to facilitate political insight by pushing the boundaries of what is acceptable to talk about while also revealing why we set such limits in the first place. Only then can it be a consequential tool of political enlightenment rather than an extension of the all-too-transparent political process. NOTES 1. Andrew Taylor, “Tax Cuts, Spending to Raise U.S. Deficit to $1 Trillion by 2020, CBO Analysis Shows.” Chicago Tribune, April 9, 2018. http:​//www​.chic​agotr​ ibune​.com/​news/​natio​nworl​d/ct-​analy​sis-t​ax-cu​t-def​i cit-​20180​409-s​tory.​html.​

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2. https​ : //ww​ w .the​ m arsh​ a llpr​ o ject​ . org/​ 2 017/​ 0 1/22 ​ / the- ​ r etur ​ n -of- ​ t o-ca ​ t ch-a​ -pred​ator.​ 3. “Who Is America (2018)?” First Look. Sacha Cohen SHOWTIME series, YouTube video, 10:50, July 15, 2018. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=QkX​ eMoBP​SDk. 4. Max Greenwood, “Showtime Says Sacha Baron Cohen Did Not Dress as ‘Disabled Veteran.’” The Hill, July 16, 2018. http:​//the​hill.​com/b​logs/​in-th​e-kno​w/in-​ the-k​now/3​97350​-show​time-​says-​baron​-cohe​n-did​-not-​dress​-as-d​isabl​ed-ve​t-dur​ing. 5. Travis M. Andrews, “Reactions to Sacha Baron Cohen’s ‘Who Is America?’: ‘One of the Bravest Uses of Comedy’ That ‘Sparks a Very Deep Moral Conversation.’” The Washington Post, July 16, 2018. https​://ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​t.com​/news​ /reli​able-​sourc​e/wp/​2018/​07/16​/reac​tions​-to-s​acha-​baron​-cohe​ns-wh​o-is-​ameri​ca-on​ e-of-​the-b​raves​t-use​s-of-​comed​y-tha​t-spa​rks-a​-very​-deep​-mora​l-con​versa​tion/​?utm_​ term=​.5c0d​f1bec​1e0. 6. Eric Wemple, “Sacha Baron Cohen Teaches the Right What Fake News Really Is.” The Washington Post, July 16, 2018. https​://ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​t.com​/blog​s/ eri​k-wem​ple/w​p/201​8/07/​16/sa​cha-b​aron-​cohen​-teac​hes-t​he-ri​ght-w​hat-f​ake-n​ews-r​ eally​-is/?​utm_t​erm=.​8a1ab​1675a​c4. 7. Anis Shivani, “‘War Machine’ Reveals the Mentality Behind America’s Longest War—and the Maddest of Them All.” Salon, July 9, 2017. https​://ww​w.sal​on.co​ m/201​7/07/​09/wa​r-mac​hine-​revea​ls-th​e-men​talit​y-beh​ind-a​meric​as-lo​ngest​-war-​ and-t​he-ma​ddest​-of-t​hem-a​ll. 8. Sophia A. McClennen and Remy M. Maisel, Is Satire Saving Our Nation? Mockery and American Politics (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 69–70. 9. https​://en​.wiki​pedia​.org/​wiki/​Tere_​Bin_L​aden.​ 10. As a common neoliberal slogan, ascribed to former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, has it: “There Is No Alternative” (TINA). 11. “Fuck You 2016!” Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO), YouTube video, 4:15, November 14, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=G9t​2H1fC​2hY. 12. “The Break with Michele Wolf. ICE IS.” Netflix, YouTube video, 2:34, July 20, 2018. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​v=dNF​6sVur​AuI. 13. Chantal Da Silva, “Ocasio-Cortez Calls for Occupation of Airports, ICE Offices: ‘We Have to Mobilize.’” Newsweek, July 17, 2018. https​://ww​w.new​sweek​ .com/​ocasi​o-cor​tez-c​alls-​occup​ation​-airp​orts-​ice-o​ffice​s-we-​have-​mobil​ize-1​02838​7. 14. Jeh Charles Johnson, “Abolishing ICE Is Not a Serious Policy Proposal.” The Washington Post, July 6, 2018. https​://ww​w.was​hingt​onpos​t.com​/opin​ions/​ice-n​ eeds-​refor​m-not​-abol​ition​/2018​/07/0​6/5d2​cec0e​-8133​-11e8​-b658​-4f4d​2a1ae​ef1_s​ tory.​html?​utm_t​erm=.​6ff99​bf5ef​78. 15. Robert T. Tally, Jr., “I Am the Mainstream Media (and So Can You!),” in The Stewart/Colbert Effect: Essays on the Real Impacts of Fake News, edited by Amarnath Amarasingam (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2011), 151. 16. https​://ww​w.gop​.com/​the-h​ighly​-anti​cipat​ed-20​17-fa​ke-ne​ws-aw​ards.​ 17. Angelique Haugerud, No Billionaire Left Behind (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013), 23.

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18. Peter M. Robinson, The Dance of the Comedians: The People, the President, and the Performance of Political Standup Comedy in America (Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Press, 2010), 48–49. 19. “Farewell Address—It’s Not Going to Stop.” The President Show. Comedy Central, YouTube video, 5:41, December 1, 2017. https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/w​atch?​ v=Qkd​PCHML​GNM&a​mp;li​st=RD​GDmQp​gp-gV​Y.

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Stewart, Patrick A. Debatable Humor: Laughing Matters on the 2008 Presidential Primary Campaign. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2012. Stratton, Matthew. The Politics of Irony in American Modernism. New York: Fordham University Press, 2014. Sutherland, Jr., W. O. S. The Art of the Satirists: Essays on the Satire of Augustan England. Austin, TX: The University of Texas, 1965. Taibbi, Matt. “The Madness of Donald Trump.” Rolling Stone, September 19, 2017. Tally, Jr., Robert T. “I Am the Mainstream Media (and So Can You!).” In The Stewart/Colbert Effect: Essays on the Real Impacts of Fake News. Edited by Amarnath Amarasingam, 149–163. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 2011. Thomas, Samuel J. “Mugwump Cartoonists, the Papacy, and Tammany Hall in America’s Gilded Age.” Religion and American Culture 14, no. 2 (Summer 2004): 213–250. Tower, Samuel A. Cartoons and Lampoons: The Art of Political Satire. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982. Tracey, Michael. The Production of Political Television. London: Routledge, 1977. Traugott, John, ed. Discussions of Jonathan Swift. Boston, DC: Heath and Company, 1962. Tur, Katy. Unbelievable: My Front-Row Seat to the Craziest Campaign in American History. New York: HarperCollins, 2017. Webber, Julie A. The Cultural Set Up of Comedy: Affective Politics in the United States Post 9/11. Chicago: Intellect, 2013. Weber, Cynthia. “The Trump Presidency, Episode 1: Simulating Sovereignty.” Theory and Event 20, no. 1 (January 2017 Supplement): 132–42. Weinbrot, Howard D. Eighteenth-Century Satire: Essays on Text and Context from Dryden to Peter Pindar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Weinhold, Wendy M. and Alison Fisher Bodkin. “Homophobic masculinity and vulnerable femininity: SNL’s portrayals of Trump and Clinton.” Feminist Media Studies 17, no. 3 (2017): 520–3. West, Richard Samuel. Satire on Stone: The Political Cartoons of Joseph Keppler. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1988. Whalley, Jim. Saturday Night Live, Hollywood Comedy, American Culture: From Chevy Chase to Tina Fey. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Wolff, Michael. Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2018. Wood, Marcus. Radical Satire and Print Culture, 1790–1822. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. Yates, Norris W. The American Humorist: Conscience of the Twentieth Century. Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1964.

Index

Affordable Care Act (ACA)/Obamacare, 30, 58, 68, 139, 227 Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, xxv, 159, 160 Anekdote/Anekdoty, 104 Animal Farm, 100 Antifa, 64, 65, 88nn195, 197, 136, 170n135 Atamanuik, Anthony, 56, 232, 245, 246, 248, 249 Baldwin, Alec, 47, 49, 145, 148 Barr, Roseanne, 26, 44, 82n82, 219, 220, 260nn200, 202, 203 Baudrillard, Jean, xvi, 7–9, 79n24, 149, 185, 232–4, 237, 243, 246, 248, 252n49, 263nn247, 248, 250, 263, 264nn268, 285, 265nn286, 299 Bee, Samantha, 2, 3, 20, 25, 54, 55, 57, 60, 61, 65, 67, 78n6, 96, 136–8, 141, 145, 171nn152, 208, 214, 244, 249, 278, 280; Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, xii, 2, 55, 78n6, 82n78, 87nn181, 183, 165n18, 170nn138, 139, 171n146, 265n295 Bierce, Ambrose, 125 Billionaires for Bush, 73, 158, 89n223

Black Lives Matter, 38, 49, 64, 71, 76, 88n196, 90n239, 140, 244 Bruce, Lenny, 36, 43, 61–3, 87n186, 88n191, 166n46, 167n67, 177 Bush, George H.W., 59, 182, 186 Bush, George W., xiv, xv, xvi, 4, 18–26, 28, 37, 44, 47–9, 52, 54, 57–60, 70, 76, 86n171, 87n178, 89n223, 98, 107, 133–6, 141, 142, 144, 147, 148, 150, 154, 158, 161, 171n146, 172n174, 187, 188, 193–5, 199, 200, 204, 207, 211, 227, 237, 239, 241, 243, 249, 251n35, 252nn41, 44, 58, 255n104, 264nn265, 273, 274, 276–9 Bush, Laura, 188 Carlson, Tucker, 28, 29, 82n86, 133 Carson, Johnny, 46, 178 Carter, Jimmy, 40, 181–3, 251nn33, 34, 35, 252nn 41, 44 Cartoon, xiii, xviii, xix, xxii, xxiv, 42, 45, 46, 93, 94, 105–10, 112–4, 116, 118–22, 125–32, 140, 151, 167n65, 179, 220, 242, 267 Chaplin, Charlie, 43,107, 167n64 Chomsky, Noam, 238, 264n271

293

294

Index

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 33, 70, 160, 240 Cleveland, Grover, 121, 122, 124 Clinton, Bill, 27, 44, 48, 96, 147, 148, 164n11, 182, 186, 187, 189, 200, 227, 243, 251n35, 251n41, 252nn41, 44, 57 Clinton, Hillary, 6, 64, 74, 90nn226, 227, 142, 148, 154, 155, 188, 189, 200, 204, 205, 216, 219, 241, 243, 244, 253n66, 276 Cohen, Nick, 203, 256n117 Cohen, Sacha Baron, 100, 271, 272, 282nn3, 4, 5, 6 Colbert, Stephen, xv, xvii, xxi, xxv, xxviin2, 3, 4, 5, 18, 20, 21, 22, 24, 25, 30, 31, 36–8, 40, 42, 45, 52, 55, 57, 60, 67, 76, 77, 78nn9, 10, 12, 13, 79n14, 81n71, 82nn90, 91, 83nn86, 108, 109, 84n122, 86n171, 87nn173, 184, 96, 98, 103, 135, 136, 149–51, 154, 159–61, 165n26, 170nn134, 140, 172nn174, 176, 173nn203, 209, 176, 179, 202, 208, 214, 220, 249, 252n55, 288, 265nn289, 297, 277, 280, 282n15; Colbert Report, 3, 4, 21, 36, 57, 61, 157, 237, 238, 243; Late Show with Stephen Colbert, 78nn12, 13, 79n14, 81n62, 63, 84n113, 173n187, 255nn104, 113, 259n189 Comedy Central, xv, xviii, xxvi, 4, 20, 49, 53, 56, 90n242, 171nn154–9, 159, 187, 196, 207, 209, 224, 236, 257nn143, 149, 259n188, 262n244, 263n260, 265n298, 266n305, 271, 283n19 Dagnes, Alison, xxi, xxviin6, 85nn130, 144, 151, 141, 168nn80, 81, 82, 93, 169nn99, 102, 114, 116, 117, 120, 171nn143, 147, 148, 149 Day, Amber, xxi, xxviin5, 34, 45, 57, 81nn64, 70, 83n103, 85n137,

87n176, 132, 148, 171n159, 172n166, 250n11 Democratic Party, 54, 65, 70, 72, 74, 78, 116, 138, 142, 155, 188, 218, 221, 276, 279 Dolphin People, 101, 166n39 Dowd, Maureen, 189, 211, 253n65, 257n159, 262n229 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 129, 177, 194 Election 2000 election, 28, 52, 187; 2008 election, 61, 66, 188; 2016 election, xiii, xx, xxv, 3, 12, 34, 48, 77, 80n40, 85n147, 138, 142, 149, 154, 155, 160, 172n185, 189, 204, 217, 220, 223, 232, 239–45, 265n292, 270, 275, 276 Facebook, 12, 39, 42, 67, 80nn39, 40, 153, 155, 192, 231, 238, 243, 244, 265nn293, 294 Fahrenheit 9/11, 22, 274 Fake news, 3, 37, 39, 40, 54, 56, 82n91, 83n109, 84n122, 87nn173, 184, 105, 133, 135, 141, 155, 157, 161, 170n134, 184, 192, 196, 198, 201, 204, 213, 221, 232, 243–5, 252n55, 263n253, 264n264, 265nn289, 292, 297, 268, 272, 277, 280, 282nn6, 15 Federal Communications Commission (FCC), 50, 51, 86nn156, 158, 87n172, 156, 263n245 Federal Election Commission (FEC), 160, 161 Fey, Tina, 47, 57, 85n149, 145–7, 171n161 First Responders’ Bill, 77 Ford, Gerald R., 40, 48, 49, 154, 180, 181, 224, 251nn27–9 Foucault, Michel, 8, 15 Fox News Channel, xv, 4, 10–2, 21, 28, 51, 54, 66, 68, 80n41, 135, 147, 148, 150, 190, 204, 211, 216, 225, 245

Index

Franken, Al, 86n170, 171n152, 180, 200 Franklin, Benjamin, 109, 167n68, 176, 179, 280 Gabardi, Wayne, 7, 10, 12, 14, 15, 79nn21, 28, 80nn35, 43, 44, 50, 84nn115, 118, 248, 265n300, 266n304 Globalization, xiii, xviii, xxii, xxvi, 1, 2, 9, 10, 12–4, 17, 22, 26, 39–41, 51, 78n4, 79n19, 155, 162, 217, 229, 235, 243, 268–70, 274 Gournelos, Ted, xxi, xxviin4, 17, 81nn57, 69, 72, 82n74 Graham, Seth, 95, 164n2, 167n52, Gulliver’s Travels, 100, 103, 166n38 Habermas, Jürgen, 8 Harper’s Bazaar,125 Harper’s Weekly, 119 Hart, Kevin, 2, 39, 78nn1, 7, 79n26, 84n126, 264n267 Hart, Roderick P., 194, 236, 254n83, 263n262 Hitler, Adolf, 69, 105, 106, 135, 247 Hyperreality, xvi, 7, 14, 23, 31, 63, 234, 242, 245, 269 Incongruity theory, xiv, xv, 24, 95, 96, 98, 107, 165n16, 189, 245, 248, 272, 279 Integral Reality, xvi, 8, 39, 220, 280 Irony, xxi, xxiii, 17–19, 22, 26, 28, 30, 36–8, 76, 98, 120, 125, 130, 132, 139, 142, 144, 149, 200, 214, 269, 272, 274, 277, 279 Jackson, Andrew, 116, 117, 120 Johnson, Lyndon B., 130, 179 Jones, Alex, 5, 15, 16, 21, 34, 79nn14, 80n54 Jones, Jeffrey, xxviin1, 12, 53, 80n41, 84nn121, 123, 85n150, 86n168, 87n175, 132, 155, 162, 170n127, 172n184, 173n192, 174n212 Jong-un, Kim, 137, 209, 257n146

295

Kennedy, John F., 57, 130, 178–80 Kimmel, Jimmy, 30, 55, 58–60, 231; Jimmy Kimmel Live!, 82n89, 87nn178, 179, 231, 262nn240, 241 Klepper, Jordan, 5, 16, 21, 34, 79nn15, 16, 81n55, 83n101, 145; Opposition, 5, 16, 21, 33, 79nn15, 16, 81n55, 145 Korean War, 43, 137, 250n12 Krol, Torsten, 101 Laugh-In, 46, 57, 177, 178 Life, 125, 126 Lincoln, Abraham, 119, 120, 176, 179, 239 MAD, 36, 129 Maher, Bill, xiv, xvii, xxiii, 18, 20, 45, 49, 52–4, 62–6, 69, 73, 81n66, 88n194, 103, 136, 139, 154, 161, 187, 190, 196, 197, 199, 208, 211, 214, 216–8, 220, 232, 241, 249, 259n193; Politically Incorrect, 49, 53, 62, 81n66, 87n190; Real Time with Bill Maher, 53, 83n104, 86n170, 88nn193, 196, 199, 206, 89nn216, 225, 170n142, 253n72, 254n92, 255n102, 257n144, 259nn192, 194, 260n202, 261n222, 262nn242, 243, 264n283 Mandvi, Aasif, 54, 66, 67 McCarthy, Joseph, 129 McCarthy, Melissa, 60, 246, 247 McClennen, Sophia A., xxi, xxviinn2, 4, 30, 32, 57, 70, 75, 78n9, 81n71, 82n90, 83n96, 87n174, 89nn218, 224, 91n243, 97, 132, 143, 161, 169n124, 171n150, 173nn191, 202, 205, 207, 209, 282n8 Media concentration/conglomeration, xiii, xviii, xix, xxii, 10, 16, 24, 27, 41, 44, 51, 55, 140, 163, 217, 243, 268, 270, 271

296

Index

Media deregulation, xviii, 1, 10, 13, 17, 22, 26, 50, 51, 52, 55, 86n159, 140, 155, 156, 182, 223, 235, 270, 271 Meyers, xvii, 5, 20, 25, 55, 56, 65, 74, 96, 136, 145, 175, 189, 200–2, 208, 214, 223, 228, 229, 233, 242, 249, 250n1, 278; Late Night with Seth Meyers, 79n15, 82nn79, 88, 90nn226, 227, 165n17, 250nn2, 3, 255n105, 260n215, 262n236, 263n245, 264n284 Minhaj, Hasan, 54, 67, 76, 77, 151, 196, 225, 254n89 Moore, Michael, 22, 77, 217, 220, 238, 274 Nast, Thomas, 118, 119 Neoliberalism, xvii, xxii, xxiii, 1, 11, 13, 14, 41, 51, 71, 80n38, 131, 136, 144, 161–3, 189, 211, 212, 217, 226, 243, 270, 275–7, 279 Neo-Nazis/Alt-Right, 64, 79n15, 88n197, 157, 198, 224, 261n226 Nessen, Ron, 48, 180 Nixon, Richard M., 40, 46, 47, 57, 130, 178–80, 251n35, 252nn41, 44 Noah, Trevor, 32, 49, 54, 64, 65, 67, 136, 157, 158, 163, 170n135, 195, 196, 200–2, 206, 208, 209, 229, 230, 249, 280; Daily Show with Trevor Noah, 80nn46, 47, 83n94, 88n197, 90n242, 91n244, 170n136, 173n197, 174n215, 253n77, 255n106, 257nn143, 150, 259n197, 261n223, 262n237 Normalizing (mode), xv, xvi, xix, 57, 58, 96, 97, 107, 131, 134, 154, 273, 277, 279 North Korea, 96, 137, 165n17, 170nn137, 138, 193, 209

O’Reilly, Bill, 21, 36, 69, 89n215, 161 Obama, Barack, 17, 21, 33, 48, 61, 63, 66–9, 82n82, 87n183, 134, 136, 138, 141, 144, 148, 151, 152, 163, 170nn139, 141, 172n180, 188, 197, 205, 208, 214,215, 218–20, 227, 238, 241, 253n64, 278 Occupy Wall Street, xxiv, 10, 38, 68, 71–3, 76, 162 Oliver, John, xvii, 10, 11, 15, 16, 18, 20, 32, 55, 57, 65, 136, 152, 153, 156, 175, 184, 189, 198–200, 214, 248, 249, 250n4, 273, 278; Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, 32, 80nn36, 37, 48, 49, 54, 82n87, 83n95, 88n198, 170n137, 172n183, 252n48, 254nn99–100, 255n101, 266n307, 282n11 Onion, 23, 79n25, 82nn74, 75, 140, 152, 157, 172nn181, 182, 226, 261n227 Orwell, George, 100, 166n38 Palin, Sarah, 47, 57, 70, 86nn165–7, 145–8, 171nn160–2, 172nn163–5, 215, 239, 272 Panopticon, 15 Parody, xvii, xviii, xix, 4, 17, 18, 20, 21, 35, 36, 37, 46, 55, 98, 100, 122, 130, 137, 145, 148, 149, 153, 154, 156, 158, 160–3, 165n25, 193, 195, 211, 246, 273, 281 Peterson, Jordan, 6, 79n17 Peterson, Russell L., xxi, xxviin7, 36, 78n11, 83n106, 85n140, 154, 155, 161, 172nn175, 178, 186, 173nn188, 211, 251n30 Postmodernism, xiii, xvi, xvii, xix, xxii, xxiii, 1–3, 6–10, 12–18, 21–3, 26, 35–8, 39–41, 64, 72, 76, 93, 131, 144, 161, 162, 194, 195, 248, 268, 269, 276 President Show, 56, 144, 171nn154–8, 209, 215, 236, 245, 257n149,

Index

259n188, 262n244, 263n260, 265n298, 266n305, 283n19 Primary 2008 primary, 188, 239; 2012 primary, 240; 2016 primary, 72, 74, 204, 210, 215, 217, 239, 276 Puck, 120–3, 125–7 Punch, 114, 115 Questioning (mode), xv, xvi, xix, 59, 96–8, 100, 102, 107, 122, 125, 131, 134, 135, 159, 187, 200, 214, 219, 273, 278 Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, 135 Reagan, Ronald, 51, 180, 182–6, 190, 194, 196, 211, 222, 243, 251n35, 252nn41, 42, 44, 258n164, 276 Reality TV, xx, xxv, 56, 147, 185, 190, 211, 215, 216, 236, 259nn184, 189, 280 Relief or release theory, xiv, 95, 96, 98, 106, 107, 238, 279 Republican Party, xxiv, 35, 67, 69, 71, 157, 220, 227, 240 Rogers, Will, 176, 177 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 126 Roosevelt, Theodore, 176, 280 Rubenstein, Diane S., 182, 243, 252n38, 265n287 Sanders, Bernie, 72, 74, 78, 89n211, 90n227, 142, 188, 212, 221, 222, 241, 275, 276, 279 Sanders, Sarah Huckabee, 20, 102, 166n44, 200, 207, 224, 242, 255n110 Saturday Night Live, xvii, xix, xx, xxv, 17, 34, 39–41, 45–9, 57, 60, 65, 83n102, 84n129, 85nn147, 148, 149, 86n170, 88n200, 115, 140, 141, 145–8, 154, 156, 177–81, 183, 184, 186–91, 221, 236, 244, 246, 251nn29, 33, 252nn57, 58,

297

253nn75, 76, 260n206, 263n258, 265nn296, 302 Scaramucci, Anthony, 25, 236, 263n261 Seinfeld, 26–8, 44, 82n83, 145 September 11 / 9/11, xiv, xviii, xx, xxi, xxii, xxiii, 4, 17, 18, 20–4, 26, 28, 33, 53, 57, 62, 77, 81nn57, 66, 69, 72, 82n74, 84n111, 98, 132, 140, 142, 165nn19, 21, 166n36, 174n216, 187, 213, 214, 268 Simulacra, xvi, 7, 25, 185, 203, 212, 235, 238, 239, 242, 243, 249 Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, 46, 177 Snark, 21, 26, 81n67, 95, 139 Social media, 6, 12, 39, 60, 80n39, 149, 155, 156, 162, 192, 195, 196, 212, 238, 242, 244, 265n292 Spicer, Sean, 8, 58–60, 79n25, 87nn179, 180, 205, 228, 229, 236, 246, 247, 265n302 Stewart, Jon, xiv, xvi, xxi, 3, 18, 20, 22, 24, 25, 31, 32, 40, 42, 49, 52, 54–8, 61, 67, 69, 76, 77, 82n91, 83n109, 84n122, 87nn173, 177, 184, 186, 88n191, 89n215, 91n244, 103, 133–6, 151, 152, 154, 159–61, 163, 170nn129, 131, 132, 133, 134, 179, 198, 213, 214, 252n255, 254n93, 258n178, 259n183, 265nn289, 297, 280, 282n15; Daily Show with Jon Stewart, 82nn76, 77, 92, 83n93, 164n15, 172n180 Super PACs, xxv, 33, 159–61, 173n203 Superiority theory, xiv, 36, 95, 98, 99, 107, 279 Swift, Jonathan, 100, 101, 103, 109, 166nn31, 38 Tea Party, xxiv, 55, 63, 68–73, 77, 89nn212, 213, 215, 216, 217, 161, 170n130, 220, 227, 231, 239, 240, 262n242, 272

298

That Was The Week That Was (TWTWTW), 46, 177 Tower, Samuel A., 111, 113, 130, 167n69, 168nn79, 83, 84, 85, 87, 92, 94, 96, 169n104–13, 118, 125 Trump, Ivana, 190, 191 Trump, Ivanka, 3, 25, 60, 61 Trump, Melania, 190, 201, 202, 224, 255nn111–3 Tucholsky, Kurt, 105 Tur, Katy, 203–6, 210, 219, 222, 224, 225, 253n71, 256n121, 256nn123–33, 256nn137–40, 257nn141, 142, 154, 260nn199, 212, 261nn221, 224 Twain, Mark, 122–4, 176, 280 Twitter, 39, 60, 191–3, 195, 196, 198, 200, 202, 204, 206, 207, 221, 225, 226, 231, 244, 254nn86–8, 254nn90, 91, 93–7, 255nn107, 108, 257nn147, 148, 257nn152, 153, 258n174–6, 260n205, 262n239, 266n309, 271, 275, 280

Index

Unreality, xvii, 31, 36, 203, 216, 236, 270, 280 Vanity Fair, 125, 176 Vietnam War, 39, 43, 46, 47, 58, 130, 178, 180, 233, 236, 239, 247 Vonnegut, Kurt, 129 Ward, Artemus, 176 Watergate, xix, xx, 44, 46, 47, 130, 178, 179, 246 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, 54, 67, 68, 86n171, 88nn209, 210, 102, 141, 151, 172n174, 175, 180, 188, 196, 250n1, 279 Wilmore, Larry, xxiii, xxiv, 33, 67 Wolf, Michelle, 151, 166n43, 279, 282n12 World War II, 42, 43, 45, 101, 126, 127, 129 Yes Men, 73, 89n222 Zenger trial, 109, 110, 168n74

About the Author

Mehnaaz Momen is Associate Professor of Political Science and Public Administration in the Department of Social Sciences at Texas A&M International University (TAMIU) in Laredo, Texas. Her book The Paradox of Citizenship in America: Ideals and Reality (published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2017) analyzes the meaning of citizenship in America from the multiple perspectives of history, politics, and policy. She is currently writing a book called Space, Memory, and Identity: Anatomy of a Border City, which explores Laredo by looking at the norms of expansion, inclusion, and exclusion through the city’s evolving public spaces and cultural practices. Her interest in political satire is informed by her personal and academic engagement with how satire, the media, and politics have influenced each other, and what this interconnectedness means for political discourse.

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