Of all years in recent memory, none have been richer in satire than 2016. Animated by the candidacy of a reality TV star and the deification of satire as a political tool among self-satisfied liberals–itself incubated by their trepidation regarding actual activism, the real condescension rich liberals have for poor and working class peoples, and their enjoyment of late-night political satire such as The Daily Show and The Colbert Report–satire has proliferated through liberal spheres, if often vulgarly and with little subtlety, especially when focused around the figure of Donald Trump. This, I think, is a poorly-thought-out strategy–and one which might bite the liberals back by making satire and its targets banal.
Satire is often treated by liberals as a worthy tool of propaganda. However, with our current electorate, people who respond positively to satire tend to be the people who already agreed with its stance before watching. People who did not already agree tend to instead grow more hostile towards this stance and become more defensive. Thus, satire is not an effective tool of political propaganda–it merely preaches to the choir. Remember the Kabarett, that Weimar-era institution of satire, that was so effective in preventing the rise of Hitler! Self-satisfied liberals often bemoan the “post-fact era” in American politics, but this presupposes an era before propaganda, which is naught more than myth.
Yet the myth that satire is effective remains widespread, and it breeds complacency. If the hostilities and contradictions within our society that produced figures like Donald Trump could be eliminated by merely calling him “Drumpf”, there would be no need for any other form of engagement. Furthermore, this makes things which liberals would like to show as real dangers, as real threats, into banal objects of mockery, which risks encouraging complacency.
Perhaps the epitome of this trend were the statues of Donald Trump unveiled, naked, in major American cities earlier this week. Despite clearly being in this tradition of satire, the actual message of this seems to lack any of the complexity or subtlety of proper satire. The message is quite straightforward: Donald Trump has no penis (something we can neither confirm nor deny), which, according to the normative (and highly misogynistic, intersexist, and transphobic) narrative robs him of masculinity and thus of any ability to be taken seriously. No longer is he something to be terrified of–now he is just some banal amusement, just a curiosity for the self-satisfied liberal to laugh at before preaching.
Yash's Blog 