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I Don’t Get the Joke
Circulating on Facebook is this apparently long-running joke on Slate “in which American events are described using the tropes and tone normally employed by the American media to describe events in other countries.” In this world, America’s midterms would be covered thus:
WASHINGTON, United States—On Tuesday, voters in this country of 300 million, the world’s second-largest democracy and most populous Christian nation, will head to the polls for elections that will determine control of the upper house of the legislature and serve as a referendum on the country’s embattled ruling regime. While international monitors expect a mostly free and fair contest, questions have been raised about why the equivalent of the GDP of Montenegro is being spent on a contest to determine the membership of a body expected to accomplish little over the next two years. Human rights observers have also noted a troubling rise in anti-immigrant rhetoric stoked by far-right nationalist candidates.
President Barack Obama’s ruling party will almost certainly lose seats, but whether or not the opposition is able to take over the upper house will be determined by closely fought races in the nation’s torrid southeastern swamps, central agricultural region, and even frigid Arctic villages thousands of miles from the capital…
The vast fortunes spent and passions aroused are particularly noteworthy given that few expect the legislature to pass much in the way of meaningful legislation. America is still governed under an unwieldy 18th-century model employed by few other functioning democracies. With the executive mansion and legislature controlled by two different parties, there’s little hope of large-scale reforms.
While 2014 has seen a rash of military coups and America boasts both a staggering level of income inequality and the world’s most heavily armed populace, political forecasters say a violent uprising is still unlikely. While few are satisfied with the political process as it exists, most Americans are either apathetic about the state of affairs or deeply invested in the current system. Most are already gearing up for the all-important presidential election coming in two years. Not surprisingly, many expect it to be another brutal contest between the country’s two top political dynasties.
Read the whole thing, then tell me. The part that’s supposed to make us laugh — right? — is the comparison between the tone and tropes of this piece, supposedly a parody, and the tone and tropes of the real coverage of the elections. But are they that different? The parody sounds pretty much like a normal pre-election piece, to me.
What am I missing?
Image Credit: Memory Alpha.
Published in General
Do you suppose it was funnier in the original French?
That reminded me of every article about the United States I ever read in The Economist, which is why I no longer read that magazine.
Claire,
Since the left does not take fundamental unchanging values seriously everything becomes just a matter of style. They’re idea of progress is to replace one stereotypical style with another stereotypical style, the new one with improved cliches. The joke of the piece is that America is just one more country with little that makes it special.
That this picture of America is in fact accomplished by a series of gross distortions of both fact and interpretation doesn’t matter to the leftist. The deconstructed narrative is all that exists in their minds.
When Obama admitted that America was the “Indispensable Nation” in an objective evaluation of the expectations of the rest of the world, he refuted all of their logic. Something about America was transcendentally a priori.
The joke is on them.
Regards,
Jim
“Not surprisingly, many expect it to be another brutal contest between the country’s two top political dynasties.”
This did strike a nerve for me. I’ve said many times that having another Clinton or Bush as a presidential candidate, or – even worse – having a Clinton and a Bush as opposing candidates, is simply unacceptable. It does make us look like some kind of banana republic.
Having someone run for the presidency after her spouse has already served two terms violates the spirit of the 22nd Amendment. And having a third scion of a political family seek the office? Enough already!
If it’s Hillary vs. Jeb, I’ll sit this one out, thank you very much.
Addendum:
Remember when Bill Clinton’s supporters said, “Two for the price of one!” as if that were a feature and not a bug? Well, perhaps we’ll have four terms for the price of two.
Here’s something Republicans in Congress ought to do: Start the process of amending the Constitution to make it unconstitutional for a presidential spouse to serve as president, with a provision that the amendment would apply only to the 2024 election and beyond. This would nullify the criticism that it was being done to keep Hillary out of the office. Here’s the thing, though: It would make her look bad, because it would engender a national debate about how a presidential spouse serving as president violates the spirit of the 22nd.
I just read it a bit more closely. They mention income inequality and an armed population as being a recipe for a coup. The interesting thing about that is, the people who are upset about income inequality are not the same people who are armed, I don’t think. Not sure if that confusion is was intended or not.