Do Donald Trump's fans like South Park or not?

Spectator

6 days ago

Eric Cartman, the antihero of South Park, is a disgusting bigot who mocks disabled people, demeans women and says hateful things about Jews.
When the series debuted in 1997, much of what offended parents, educators and religious groups came out of the mouth of this school-aged Alf Garnett. Later, it was the forces of coercive progressivism who bridled, especially at its derision of the trans creed. Suddenly, the median South Park disapprover was Emily, 30 ans, who worked in HR, actually met a black person once, and renamed her dachshund because 'Dumbledore' made her feel complicit in JK Rowling's gendercide. Now the series is displeasing MAGA groupies after its 27th season debuted with a mild satire of Donald Trump.
It marks the first time the White House press office has responded to an animated series mocking the size of the presidential appendage
In 'Sermon on the 'Mount', Cartman awakes to a world in which 'woke is dead'. He first realises something is up when he tunes into Morning Edition only to find that NPR has been defunded by Trump. The ultra-progressive station is Cartman's favourite listen because it lets him savour the suffering of well-intentioned liberals:
'It had, like, gay rappers from Mexico all sad because girls in Pakistan got stoned to death. And guess why they got stoned to death? Because they were raped. It was hilarious. Why would anyone cancel that?'
He goes to school to find that PC Principal is no longer politically correct and has invited Jesus to address the school assembly. Christianity, he says, is the only true faith and all students must accept Christ — in their hearts and at their lunch table — or face expulsion. Along with the establishment clause of the First Amendment, liberal pieties about tolerance and inclusion and all those things Cartman despises have been swept aside. And he's miserable about it, glumly telling his friend/bullying victim Butters: 'Everyone hates the Jews. Everyone is fine with using gay slurs… It's terrible, 'cause now I don't know what I'm supposed to do.'
The townsfolk, most of whom voted for Trump because they were sick of woke coercion, come to resent his anti-woke coercion and turn on the president. He is dubbed a 'retarded faggot', derided for his litigiousness, depicted with a tiny penis, and a White House portrait shows him bumming a sheep. When he climbs into bed at night with Satan, feeling amorous, the mood quickly cools when the Antichrist asks why Trump won't confirm whether he is named on Jeffrey Epstein's client list. Like I said, very mild stuff.
Jesus recreates the Last Supper and pleads with the town to stop antagonising Trump in case South Park gets cancelled like Stephen Colbert's show. CBS dropped the latter from its late-night slot after he denounced parent company Paramount's decision to settle a lawsuit from Trump about its editing of a pre-election Kamala Harris interview. Paramount recently signed a $1.5 billion (£1.1 billion) deal with South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone to produce 50 new episodes and give the platform streaming rights to the previous 26 series.
Eventually, the president sues the town and, as part of the settlement, they have to produce pro-Trump ads. The episode ends with their first effort, an AI-generated clip in which a heavily obese Trump stumbles through the desert with messianic delusions before stripping off, falling down, and leaving his micro-member to become semi-erect and chirp: 'I am Donald J Trump and I approve this message'. All good, clean fun and the president's media detractors could learn from it. This is what MSNBC could be if only they'd employ a heterosexual male or two.
The White House issued a statement about the episode, because of course it did, and snipped: 'This show hasn't been relevant for over 20 years and is hanging on by a thread with uninspired ideas in a desperate attempt for attention.' It marks the first time the White House press office has responded to an animated series mocking the size of the presidential appendage. Parker and Stone replied with a fake apology and revealed the behind-the-scenes discussions about whether to blur Trump's wiener. And to think there are people who consider this the bad timeline.
The episode has drawn criticism — well, angry chimp noises — from Trump's chud supporters and the blue checkmark grifters who steal a living prodding them for engagement. Roughly 172 per cent of them have previously shared clips of the show mocking liberal shibboleths and called those who objected snowflakes. There has been praise from the very resistance liberals who five minutes ago considered South Park and its cruel, punching-down humour the embodiment of Trump's America. As the new season progresses, the show will doubtless take aim at progressive targets, at which point these two sets of insufferable humour-voids will switch sides and resume hostilities.
South Park is sophomoric satire in the very best sense, satire that takes neither its targets nor itself very seriously. It understands that the hypocritical and the pompous are inherently funny, but all the more so if you lampoon them not with clever-clever Monty Python comedy but with puerile insults. Toilet humour is a great leveller, triggering bores both over- and under-educated into the same condescending sneer, confirming that while their tastes in comedy might differ, their sense of humourlessness is indistinguishable. To paraphrase Mark Twain, against the assault of tiny penis jokes, nothing can stand. Back in 2018, I wrote on Coffee House about the rise of anti-comedy, as American stand-ups and late-night hosts, traumatised by Trump, dropped the humour to offer their equally traumatised audience therapy in the guise of comedy. The problem, as I diagnosed it, was a mass case of progressives taking themselves too seriously. Trump idolisers are afflicted by the same disease.
If you love comedy, the self-serious, woke and anti-woke alike, are the enemy. The dull, scowling, tribal, dishonest, umbrage-taking, laughter-policing enemy. It is your duty to heap scorn upon them, ridicule all that they hold sacred, and scandalise their soulless sensibilities. Failing that, call them what they are: 'retarded faggots.'