The Left Can No Longer Be Satirized

You notice how the old sketch comedy shows are dedicated almost full-time to satirizing Trump and his team? A major reason for this is of course that they are extreme liberals who hate Trump. But another reason is simply a matter of necessity. They have to satirize the right because the left doesn't leave much room for it. Satire means exaggerating the qualities of the subject to the point of logical absurdity. So how do you satirize that which is already logically absurd?

Examples

Robert Reich

The night of the riots in Sweden I made the following comment on social media in an attempt to ridicule the response of the left's supposedly intellectual guard to the Milo riots.

Well I checked some mainstream media sources and they're saying Trump's claims of problems in Sweden are false and "baffling." So what do we make of this video footage? Were they right-wing provocateurs staged by Steve Bannon to make the media look bad? Hopefully Robert Reich can sort this out for us in the morning.

This was of course meant to be a joke. And yet the next day Reich answered the call on his Twitter.

Again he was able to blame violent riots by the left (or in this case the left's favorite pet group, Muslim immigrants) on Trump. I tried to make a joke of the form, "watch Robert Reich try to blame this one on the right," and he goes and does it! This time using the old they are peaceful people but if you criticize them they will become violent bit of logical absurdity. His take on a Sweden rioter is something like this:

• Is happy grateful refugee. Practices religion of peace.
• Sees vague reference from Trump about some unstated event in Sweden.
• Rests 48 hours.
• Firebombs local police in response.

That is the Reich timeline.

Scorched-Earth Environmentalism

Recently I wrote Scorched-Earth Environmentalism which commented on the supposed environmentalists who left tons of trash at a camp on an Indian reservation. The phrase scorched-earth was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. A metaphor. A joke. I didn't mean for them to go and take it literally. In response to a deadline to clear out of the area, the environment lovers torched the camp and all the trash there along with it.

As with Reich they've stolen my cheeky quip by literally doing the thing I was joking about. Sheesh.

Rainbow Snatch

Millie the Millenial has a new mock SJW character that she took to the Alex Jones show yesterday.

I like the approach. I've said many times here that ridiculing the left is a more effective strategy than trying to reason with them. She does a good job of it, but something is a little awkward. Because it's satire, you expect her to somewhat exaggerate what they say; to amplify the absurdities. But mostly she's just talking exactly the way they do. "You're a racist. You're a bigot. Violence against Milo is okay because he's a Nazi. This pussy grabs back." That's what they say more or less verbatim. It's a weird situation where ridiculing the left basically means duplicating them as accurately as possible.

Tucker Brings on anti-Fascist SJW

Last night Carlson brought on a guest who believes that Trump is Hitler, literally a Nazi, and will incinerate the world in nuclear Holocaust. 

You can see he has trouble making any sort of logical counterarguments. And really how could he? He might as well bring on someone who believes in unicorns. Tucker's shtick is to ask very simple, straight-forward questions to expose the logical (or illogical) core of a person's beliefs. Similar to satire, he's trying to draw out the logical absurdities into plain view. How's he supposed to operate with this one? The logical absurdities are her primary arguments! The only way they could be exaggerated might be to get her to say Trump is literally Satan, I guess. Although I don't think most the public feels as negatively towards Satan as Hitler. It's degrees of absurdity here. I really question the value of Tucker even bringing people like this on the air given his format.

Conclusion

Irrationality has an interesting benefit: it insulates one from satirical ridicule. In that light I think Millie aka Rainbow Snatch is right on the money. She is ridiculing them simply by mirroring them. It's the strategy that should be adopted when the opponent is protected from satire by the logical absurdities of their core beliefs. Tucker should follow suit. Instead of trying to argue, let her run with it. Pace her, push her towards the absurd ends of her beliefs, and keep a running catalog of her beliefs and let the absurdities showcase themselves.