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Quote of the Day: We Must Mock the Left
No great movement designed to change the world can bear to be laughed at or belittled. Mockery is a rust that corrodes all it touches.”
The Joke (1967) by Milan Kundera
I’ve said this before here on Ricochet and I’ll say it again: One of the best ways to fight the Left is to ridicule and mock them. President Trump was great at that Montana rally, mocking the fake Cherokee. Let’s face it: every time a leftist opens his/her mouth, s/he sounds like an idiot. Case in point: Nancy Pelosi, or better yet, Maxine Waters.
Published in General
Steyn is the master.
Mockery is extremely potent.
One of my favorite movies of all time was so devastating, all of Hollywood pretended it didn’t exist rather than protest. They dared not call attention to it. I’m shocked it was even made. This film mocked actors, Hollywood formula action films, naive peaceniks, American arrogance, and more.
In order to defeat terroism, a CIA spymaster recruits an actor to infiltrate terror cells, using his masterful acting skills – quite literally – to “save the world”.
Gary the actor is paired with Team America, a group of highly trained fighters, each with a special skill. There are all the usual conflicts rivalry and sexual tension. The predictable film score is brilliant as well. In a meta- mockery of this type of film and acting, the story was told quite effectively using marionettes.
Language warning and quite gory, but they are puppets…
Matt Stone and Trey Parker are comedy geniuses.
I would prefer appealling to people’s better angels.
I don’t think that my derisive use of “Tr*mpk*n” enrolled anyone.
I can’t remember Washington, Lincoln or Reagan mocking anyone or being sarcastic, while both Lincoln and Reagan used sly, inclusive humor.
I will always appreciate South Park and Team America.
Traditionally the President doesn’t use sarcasm and mocking, but instead delegates that to a vice president (such as Spiro Agnew) or others. That’s the way I’d prefer it, too. But if the others won’t do it, then the guy at the top has to step in. It’s the same as running a restaurant. If the people who are supposed to clean the restrooms aren’t there, and there is no one else to do it, the owner has to step in and do it.
Oh, if Trump didn’t start out with plenty of underlings willing to mock others on his behalf when he was first a candidate, he has them now.
To extend your analogy, the base picked an owner for whom restroom sanitation is a recreational pastime. It’s one way to ensure that the bowls are tidy, I guess. (I am still vaguely disappointed there aren’t any football bowl games named the Ty-D-Bowl.)
Mockery works best when it uses the terms and assumptions of the other side against them, and forces them to argue for their own ideas by rebutting your use of their own ideas. Puts them on the wrong foot from the start, especially if you’ve been dry and precise about their terms. Emotional lability is at the heart of the least capable lefties, and they get unnerved when you toss their specious pieties back in their faces.
The right’s gotten good at meme culture, but too many people live in silos where they don’t see the contrary japes – and when people are flinging mocking memes on Twitter threads, it’s just pea-shooter ammo pinging off battleship hulls.
The best mockery isn’t Hitler in a dress; it’s Chaplin doing Hitler as close to Hitler as possible.
I don’t remember Washington’s Vice President John Adams being sarcastic as Vice President. Nor Linclon’s initial Vice President. Nor George H.W. Bush, Reagan’s Veep.
I certainly would not think of Nixon as a model to emulate.
You’re older than I thought.
I bought the uncensored version. The marionette sex scene made me spray my beer halfway across the living room!
Gary has great long-term memory . . .
I don’t think the perjoritive “Trumpkin” is the problem. We’ve been called worse – and still are. I’ll take Trumkin over “racist” or “white supremicist” or implication thereof, anyday.
I don’t think you’ve been enrolling ( EST graduate?) anyone here into anything other than convincing us you are a Reagan Republican who hates Trump and are an extraordinarily virtuous and caring man. I hope you can survive the next six and a half years.
It is nigh impossible to change the mind of one’s opponent. One can only influence the opinions of those who are undecided and/or persuadable. Humour is one of (if not the) most effective ways of getting the attention of someone who has never considered a particular question before, and is therefore persuadable.
Alinsky’s Rule #5 is, “ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.”
The rule is not, “ridicule is man’s only weapon.”
(Of course, he’s wrong. Nuclear missiles are man’s most potent weapon, but that’s neither here nor there.)
A master debater and a cunning linguist.
;-)
Could be worse. What with all the “Russian collusion” rigamarole, just be happy that “Trumpevik” hasn’t been popularized.
And then, there’s the always-delightful “Teabaggers”.
“Trumpkin” is tame by comparison.
South Park: Bigger, Longer, And Uncut is still, to this day, the movie that has made me laugh the loudest and longest of any movie. I was laughing non-stop throughout that sucker. I laughed so hard, it hurt.
IMHO, the South Park movie just edges out Team America when it comes to the political satire as well. Team America’s funny, don’t get me wrong, but the satire is pretty 2-dimensional compared to the satire in the South Park movie.
Isn’t that the one where they Blame Canada?
Indeed it is.
Not yet that old. If I were that old, I would have required Hannibal Hamlin as Lincoln’s first Vice President.
And if they’re persuadable, watch to see if they’re laughing.
I have never seen anyone like Trump. I point to his demolition this very morning of NATO, despite a stinging 97-2 vote from the Senate last night. There is something very, very wrong with Trump which calls for extraordinary constraint by Congress.
It is as if Trump is an overt agent of Putin and Russia. This is a prime example of why the Mueller probe on collusion must continue.
Yes, and it is glorious. (Though my personal favorite is “What Would Brian Boitano Do?”)
Although it makes no sense, “Blame Kavanaugh” has been on repeat in my mental soundtrack since his name was announced. I have nothing to blame Kavanaugh for, it’s just so… catchy.
When America could not survive Nixon, he was forced from power.
Trump’s repeated attacks on NATO and democratic governments, and his alignment with populist blood and soil movements call for his rejection by the American voters.
Most people do not know of the perverse sexual connotations of the term “Teabaggers.”
I’ll check it out!
What about when he attacks Russia. Is that bad, too?
Back in those days the two didn’t run on a single ticket, even, so didn’t support each other in that fashion.
George H.W. Bush would certainly not have been up to the job. (Maggie Thatcher even had to supply his backbone when he became Prez.) But Reagan wasn’t above doing a little mockery and sarcasm on his own. His style didn’t have the clumsy sharp edge of Trump’s, and probably was more effective for it.
I don’t have a bad opinion of Nixon’s use of Agnew in this way. It’s a good idea to emulate the parts that are good, and reject the parts that are bad. There are even parts of Bill Clinton’s presidency that it would be wise for Republicans to emulate, even though Clinton did more than any other president to corrupt our political system.
For irony or sarcasm how about
from Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address?