Let’s just wait until he loses before we start gloating…. I don’t want to tempt fate

Satire like that only backfires in this day and age. It just adds to the ‘noise’ flavour that sounds convincing enough to the kind of people who wish to believe it at face value. When/if they discover it’s ‘satire’ (whut, like FAAKE??) they won’t be subsequently disillusioned with their Golden God (Trump), no – instead they’ll instantly pivot to ‘LiBrUls PoSt FaKe NewS ShOcKer’ and so double-down harder. And actually believe that it is both fake and true.

Trump will also claim that he’s being ‘sarcastic’ or some gobbledyshite, ie

‘fake news, fake news, I knew it was fake that’s why I posted. Where there’s smoke there’s fire folks. Libruls are very nasty people. Can’t trust them. You just can’t trust them. That’s why I tweeted it, to expose their lies which are unfortunately true. Unfortunately true. Are they? I don’t know? People are saying…you know, very high up and good people are saying it could be true. ’

Or he’ll just ignore it as his people will believe it anyway.

Unbelievable times we live in.

Let’s just wait until he loses before we start gloating

There is no way he will lose.

In fact his worshippers just tweet the next lie for him. Easyjob! Ready-cooked.

https://twitter.com/randymelder/status/1317075676810289152?s=20

There is no way he will lose.

Ho Ho.

trump is finished.

p7eavan,

It’s satire that got us here in the first place. Look how HIGNFY propelled the careers of BJ, Farage and JRM. I think it’s fair to say that without HIGNFY we wouldn’t have Brexit. Every time Hislop or the host sneered contemptuously at Farage he just rocked his head back and laughed, he didn’t need a riposte, he was just counting the votes he was accumulating during the exchange.

I remember the day after the Brexit referendum I was working with an artist who comes from Derry, (he wasn’t too concerned seeing as he still had an Irish passport). He said that he never watched HIGNFY when he was back home because his dad hated it, saying “nobody likes a smart arse” This is what the right wing knows but is beyond the intelligence of the Oxbridge mafia that has hegemony over the BBC.

Trump is a symptom not a cause, as are the mob in charge over here.The dangers of a Trump victory are obvious and immediate. The dangers of a Biden presidency are less obvious and might take a bit longer to become evident but a Biden presidency won’t be able to deal with the systemic problems that America is facing.

I was watching C4 news last night where there was a segment covering ‘black votes matter’ in a poor neighbourhood. It was heart breaking watching dirt poor African Americans casting their vote for Biden, the literal architect of mass incarceration. I wondered how many of the citizens casting their vote had a member of their family in prison as a direct result of the Clinton / Biden ‘three strikes’ policy.

I reflected upon the scenes at Ferguson a few years back, where we saw a police force armed to the teeth doing their best impression of Apartheid South Africa. Under Obama the police had turned into a paramillitary force, spending all the cash they’d extorted from the people they are supposed to serve via a tsunami of fines for traffic stops and code violations. (fines for code violations had increased 500% in the previous year, someone’s got to pay for all those tanks, gums and imperial stormtrooper costumes)

What a f**cking choice. The danger of a Biden presidency is that things will be just swept back under the carpet, Black Americans will be expected to stop their protests and be gratefull that at least they don’t have Trump as their president anymore. We might think that Biden will bring things back to normal but normal has always been s**t for some Americans, part of me wishes to see Trump return and the whole s**t show go up in flames.

It’s satire that got us here in the first place. Look how HIGNFY propelled the careers of BJ, Farage and JRM. I think it’s fair to say that without HIGNFY we wouldn’t have Brexit.

So it’s Merton & Hislop we should blame?

Seriously?!

We might think that Biden will bring things back to normal but normal has always been s**t for some Americans,

A rock & a hard place..

“So it’s Merton & Hislop we should blame? Seriously?”

Deadly serious. Whilst you were laughing at Farage he was laughing at you.

He’s still laughing, all the way to the bank. He turned the conservative party into the Brexit party. He couldn’t get elected to parliament yet was invited on to the show more frequently than any other politician. The BBC also invited him on to Question Time 34 times. Yes, 34 f***ing times for an un elected politician to rant away about politics.

You’re not laughing anymore are you? Still wondering why the country has gone s**t shaped? Its simple, the country and the media is run by a bunch Oxbridge educated f***wits. The BBC harks on about diversity but their idea of diversity is employing someone that didn’t go to Cambridge, (Lenny Henry joke I heard the other day)

If you hark on about diversity but show none yourself then you reap what you sow. HIGNY has constantly belittled the working classes and those less ‘educated’. Whilst it’s proved quite entertaining for some of us, its boiled the piss of half of the Country. If you can’t see that then I’m blaming you for Brexit too.

Watch the Grayson Perry 3 parter about Americas troubles on C4 catch up if you can, he came to pretty much the same conclusions that I have, basically that liberal complacency, smugness, self interest and virtue signaling has given birth to a monster.

WTF?

Noor bin Laden is on Tucker to complain about how hard it is to be a Trump supporter. pic.twitter.com/iPYCwVn3gz

— nikki mccann ramírez (@NikkiMcR) October 17, 2020

It’s satire that got us here in the first place. Look how HIGNFY propelled the careers of BJ, Farage and JRM. I think it’s fair to say that without HIGNFY we wouldn’t have Brexit.

So it’s Merton & Hislop we should blame?

Seriously?!

I think its a bit of a stretch to suggest HIGNFY had any role to play given the effort and resource Murdoch has put into over the last 30 years.

The problem with satire really is it makes no difference because. Part of its function its it has to be funny and entertaining regardless of what truths it reveals or position it takes – even if you or your supporters are the target of satire the fact thats its entertaining makes it flattering. If everyone in the room is laughing you can’t really tell the difference between who is laughing with and who is laughing at you. The people laughing can’t tell the difference either so whatever view anyone holds its reinforced by the sense that its a popular view.

Spitting Image ruthlessly satirised the Thatcher and Major governments, people watched it, enjoyed it because it was funny…. and kept on voting conservative.

So it’s Merton & Hislop we should blame?

Seriously?!

It’s an interesting point of view that topical satire shows gave these dangerous idiots and the ideas they front additional oxygen, and by “playing along” and joining in, Farage and Johnson got a personal fan base their policies would never have got otherwise.

I’m not saying they are solely responsible, but there might be an element of truth in there.

But what is the alternative? Remove comedy and satire from the programming? You would still have these clowns on serious programmes appealing to their echo chambers. At least with satire and comedy other people can maybe see how hollow they are.

This thread is not about Brexit or Farage though, it’s about Trump. We should stick to hoping the Tango Fascist will get kicked out.

Deadly serious.

The two politicians that stand out to me that HIGNFY have taken the piss out of were Roy Hattersley who was replaced with a bucket labeled The Right Honourable tub ‘o’ Lard MP when he failed to turn up, and Peter Mandleson when he was upset at BBC for reporting on him accurately and not liking it v much, and the quiz made a joke of not mentioning his name.

Satire shows take the micky of the political class, not just the right-wing, it’s just that the Tories have been in power for so long

So it’s Merton & Hislop we should blame?

Nonsense.

What are the viewing figures for HIGNFY? A quick google comes up with 4 million. About 6% of the population. And most of them will be left leaning.

If Johnson had stuck to his pro Europe stance we wouldn’t be in this mess now.
It’s the **** Tories that have caused every single problem in this country.

Spitting Image ruthlessly satirised the Thatcher and Major governments, people watched it, enjoyed it and kept on voting conservative.

Different kind of satire. That’s coarse mockery with silly faces but you know who they are. The British love a bit of piss-taking and inflated-ego pricking. When it becomes sticky and confusing these days is the kind of satire practised by Sacha Baron Cohen when it’s aimed at (say) Republicans. ‘Who is America’ is a prime example.

Poe’s Law.

I call it the ‘Cassidy Boon Effect’. You may not know who ‘Cassidy Boon’ is. But millions upon millions of kids your kid’s age will know. They also now believe that feminism/women’s rights/metoo etc etc (and in many cases women in general) are represented by ‘Cassidy Boon’. A comedic sketch in which a young woman claimed that she sued a lifeguard for ‘raping her while she was unconscious underwater’.

On first seeing this I immediately thought it was a parody of a horrendous young woman looking for attention by vlogging inane drivel

But after reading just a few comments – I checked to to be sure 😉

Yes…‘Cassidy Boon’ was a satirical character (from a now defunct satirical ‘news‘ page very much in the style of ‘The Onion’) and she was played by an actor. Very much in the way that ‘Borat’ was played by an actor. Straight play. Turned out that for the taste (and demographic) of The Internet – the satire was deceptively sophisticated (which was to be it’s undoing)

This is where it gets interesting (and horrifying). The Bad Faith Actors come in and mop up. The real purveyors of outrage. The story is long and tortuous, but to summarise – the old satirical sketch (4 years is a lifetime on the internet) was resurrected and exploited as click-bait. It became more popular as a ‘real’ story than it ever was as the satire it was designed to be. Fake ‘reactions’ to ‘Cassidy Boon’ popped up like mushrooms and went viral. ‘OMG, FEMINISTS ARE CRAZY. THIS IS THE END OF THE WORLD. I LOST FAITH IN HUMANITY’. Etc etc etc. And millions upon millions of impressionable tweenies see this stuff on youtube. The meme is fixed. The narrative has changed.

Which is where we are. Satire will backfire if it’s also mocking the viewer. This is not the fault of satirists, it’s just a glitch in human nature and it’s mercilessly and shamelessly exploited by bad faith actors make a LOT of ad-revenue by churning out content that is designed to outrage people. Hypertabloidism. They don’t even need to seek a license for this material. Just steal an old satirical sketch and then ‘review it’ as if it is real. Better still ‘review’ some footage of a homeless women suffering untreated paranoid schizophrenia. And then post it up as a clip titled ‘FEMINIST GOES TOO FAR’. ‘FEMINIST STALKS POSTAL WORKERS’. Goes viral. The cultural narrative grows,

Post-truth culture. The narrative is what matters.

the kind of satire practised by Sacha Baron Cohen when it’s aimed at (say) Republicans. ‘Who is America’ is a prime example.

He also takes the piss out of the left wing in that.

There was a thread a while back about old TV shows that are now considered offensive. Many of them were (garbage like It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, for example. Problem is when you have characters like Alf Garnett/Archie Bunker, who were intended to be ridiculous buffoons. I used to think that satirical shows like that served a useful purpose of exposing racism, the last few years have made me completely rethink that idea. Most people recognize that the characters are racist and their behavior is offensive, but for racists, it just serves to normalize the behaviour and they learn that they can get away with being offensive by portraying it as a joke or saying they are just being ironic. This is Donald Trump’s strategy – say offensive things then just claim it was all a joke and his critics lack a sense of humour.

On a related note, many Breaking Bad fans did not understand that Walter White was a monster and hated on his wife for being a spoilsport and nag. They’re so deluded about things that Anna Gunn got hate mail for playing the character.

What are the viewing figures for HIGNFY? A quick google comes up with 4 million. About 6% of the population. And most of them will be left leaning.

My Most Brexity Friend (MBF) despises Hislop and ‘that show’. Really despises it. It’s also weird to me that in order to ‘get’ satire you have to be automatically assumed as ‘left-leaning’. I haven’t watched much HIGNFY and so can’t remember that much of it – but if they spent too long mocking a populist/Nationalist grifter then ‘they get everything they deserve’. And so do we all, right? Because what if they were really mocking a Really Good Bloke?

The self-blame market. Big market. See also Jonathan Pie. At the end of the day both the ‘left’ and ‘right’ caricatures will just feed into the big narrative mincer and come out as further confirmation bias. Division/polarisation increases. It all becomes as simple and as moronic as Trump saying ‘Don’t vote for nasty people’.

Isn’t that just another version of ‘don’t vote for racists’?

the last few years have made me completely rethink that idea. Most people recognize that the characters are racist and their behavior is offensive, but for racists, it just serves to normalize the behaviour

Agree. But there’s a wider issue (I think)

Gullibility/misunderstanding (of a parody/satirical character) isn’t in itself evidence of sympathy with said character (although it may be)

I started a thread about satire now being fundamentally broken/dysfunctional – if you’d like to contribute 🙂

Trump is beyond parody. But I fear that ‘beyond’ means ‘ahead of’.

HIGNFY also relentlessly mocked Corbyn.

I know it’s tempting to blame everything on snobby liberals but it’s quite a stretch to blame them(/us 🙂 ) for Brexit.

There’s been a big hoohah lately about how there’s not enough right wing comedians on the BBC etc, but IMO that’s because the type of people who want to become comedians are inherently likely to be more liberal. It seems they now want ‘affirmative action’ for a small number of unfunny right wing comedians, which is rather ironic.

Topics for the debate next week. Looking forward to Trump’s environmental policies being discussed.

Moderator Kristen Welker of NBC released the six topics for the debate Friday through the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates. They are “Fighting COVID-19,” “American Families,” “Race in America,” “Climate Change,” “National Security,” and “Leadership.”

Looking forward to Trump’s environmental policies being discussed.

“No president has done more for {insert any issue here} than Donald Trump.”

“No president has done more for {insert any issue here} than Donald Trump.”

You missed the pivot to Hunter’s emails.

Trump has threatened to leave the country if he loses. Obviously, he may have to if he wants to avoid a lorryload of indictments from SDNY. Can’t see anything firing up Biden supporters quite like that.

Maybe like Idi Amin, Trump will find a home for himself in the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia. They might even let him build a golf course.

The bunkers will be uuge.

(I’m now off to chastise myself for indulging in satire)

Maybe like Idi Amin, Trump will find a home for himself in the Kingdom of Saudia Arabia. They might even let him build a golf course.

TBH, Trump promising to go and live in another country if Biden wins reminds me of Paul Daniels pledge to leave the UK if Blair won in 1997. The ****er didn’t move though.

So it’s Merton & Hislop we should blame?

I have got the impression from a few interviews that Hislop certainly feels somewhat responsible. HIGNFY certainly boosted his profile and helped him stand out from the crowd of bullingdon boys.
I am not sure I would call Hislop left wing either. He seems to be the rare species of traditional small c conservative but doesnt tend to let that get in the way of his day job.

Trump has threatened to leave the country if he loses

That is a threat, how?

Probably more of a threat to those wanting to prosecute him.

It’s a threat to wherever he chooses to go next. I’d like to think that most places would allow him to be extradited back when SDNY indicts him, but he could grease a few palms to stall that.

Kim Jong un has a nice rapport with him maybe the whole trump clan could move to Pyongyang. He just needs to bend the knee to the rocketman in a public setting.

Or I can see him as a feudal warlord in charge of a district in Afghanistan or something

It’s a threat to wherever he chooses to go next.

True. Maybe if he announces the target country there will be another foreign state interfering on his behalf aside from Russia.
Edward Snowden might be getting nervous about a new housemate.
As threats go it is like someone saying unless I fight them they will start smacking themselves over the head with a baseball bat.

Trump has threatened to leave the country if he loses

That is a threat, how?

He’s coming to the UK…. that’s how

Or I can see him as a feudal warlord in charge of a district in Afghanistan or something

You’re joking, right? As awesome as he thinks he is, any proper warlord would walk over him without breaking a step. There’s a huge gulf between his type of deal making and desire to be top dog, and a drug warlord’s easy decision making on killing people that interrupt his operations. Trump has neither the money or the balls for that.

They’re just such tw*ts 😡

In 1974, Joe Biden bought this house in Greenville, Delaware, for $185,000.

He sold the property 24 years ago.
https://t.co/zZSAZStmu1 https://t.co/rYUJeHSF29

— David Gura (@davidgura) October 17, 2020

and a drug warlord’s easy decision making on killing people that interrupt his operations.

Yeah the owe the bank ten thousand it is your problem but owe them a billion and its theirs is unlikely to work with the other warlords. They will go for option three of no money but a spectacularly unpleasant death pour encourager les autres

There’s a huge gulf between his type of deal making and desire to be top dog, and a drug warlord’s easy decision making on killing people that interrupt his operations. Trump has neither the money or the balls for that.

He doesn’t have the money or balls but he does have the appetite – Heres Miles Taylor – Former Whitehouse Chief of Staff speak on the New Abnormal

But what I was going to say is even worse than that are some of the ideas that the president had for dealing with migrants at the border. So he wanted to maim them and tear gassed them and shoot them. And I’m not even being hyperbolic. So like we sat in a meeting one time where the president was well, this was actually several occasions, but where he was talking about what he wanted us how he wanted us to sign the border wall

One day the focus was on the spikes. And he was really upset because from the pictures we were showing him of the steel bollards, he said the spikes aren’t sharp enough. He said, I want you to go back and run me a cost estimate. How can they be sharper? And we said, well, Mr. President, look, this has been designed by the operators. This is what the operators say they need. They said, yeah, but I want them so sharp that I want it to pierce human flesh so it’ll go right through their hands or arms.

They try to climb it, and this is only like a couple of weeks before then, we had an incident at the border, a caravan was rushing to a border station. And look, when that happened happens and people are actually rushing a border station. You’ve got to do crowd control, right, because it could be a threat to the officers in that danger. So there was a limited instance where officers had to deploy tear gas because they were worried that some of the people in the caravan were armed and they were storming the gates.

The president thought not that this was an isolated incident, he thought this was a new policy we were instituting where we were just gassing people across the border. So he called up the secretary and said, it’s like this is just absolutely amazing. I mean, what you’re doing, that you’re so this is so tough, the gassing of the migrants, so tough. And I remember we’re sitting there, he’s on speakerphone. I was like, he has no idea.

I said he has no idea that this is like a incident isolated and that we didn’t order it. I mean, his perception was, oh, the secretary must have ordered let’s start gassing them. And then worse than that, as people know, because he later said it publicly, which we tried to get him not to wear the multiple occasions he suggested, why don’t we just shoot them? Like, why can’t we just shoot them coming towards the border?

And we had to explain to the president that the rules of engagement don’t work that way unless all of these women and children fleeing violence and persecution have AK47s on them. No, they’re not an imminent threat. That’s how it happens. And then he dialed it back a bit. He’s like, OK, I understand you don’t want to kill him, but couldn’t we just shoot them in the legs to slow them down? This is the president, United States talking here.

Yes I’m joking. It’s just funny to imagine the rest of his life in rural Afghanistan though, and Ivanka too. The lack of availability of lipgloss is bound to affect her

2.3m votes and 50/50 last time.