The state of satire in 2024

The shocking scandalous news about North Carolina’s Republican candidate for governor of that fine state is exceptionally noteworthy for several reasons.

First, and foremost, for a brief shining moment our state of Arizona is no longer the chief laughingstock of the nation and our MAGA darling, the dimwitted and delusional Kari Lake, is no longer America’s chief whack job, holding third place behind Vance and Trump.

Second, when the details of Mark Robinson's scandalous behavior emerged, I realized I was witnessing a historic moment, the moment when American satire died. How can one satirize an unfaithful, misogynistic, porn-loving, Trump worshipping, extreme right blowhard who posted comments on the “Nude Africa” website such as “I am a Black Nazi” and “I’d like to buy a few slaves” who unwisely cared so little about concealing his identity that even Miss Marple could identify him by his profile?

The only question remaining is this: will Eddie Murphy return in a fat suit to portray him in “The Nutty Masturbator”?

Satire is dead, as dead as Trump’s chances of winning North Carolina. As dead as your chances of convincing a Trumper they’re sucking on a bitter teat.

Satire has been surpassed by reality, a reality shaped daily by a tsunami of lunacy gushing from America’s Republican asylum that are so ludicrous, absurd, laughable, unbelievable and loony one might guess they were authored by the greatest satirists of our past.

If truth is stranger than fiction, in our age, truth is funnier than satire.

Of course, as I’ve warned before, it’s worth noting Hitler was considered a joke, a clown by the intelligentsia of the west. He had the last laugh until he canceled himself in a hole in the ground in Berlin. I believe Trump when he threatens mass arrests, roundups, deportations and camps.

Those few men and women of North Carolina who will persist in their devotion to Robinson are village idiots mesmerized by a dangerous fantasy they are far too intellectually lazy to investigate or question. And so they will vote for a porn addict who praised “Mein Kampf” and bullied and scapegoated trans people in spite of being the salami slapper caught red-handed savoring trans performers in the privacy of his own lotion-scented home.

Was he Pro-Life? Of course he paid for an abortion. All the boxes for hypocrisy are checked. Characterless? Check. Cruel? Check.

One of my favorite posters on threads is #stillnotadragqueen, where you can find Republican pastors and puritans aplenty, all in deep, deep, deep trouble for indecent exposure, raping children, kidnapping, molestation and all the deviant behaviors you might expect from those horny hypocrites who methinks complains too loudly about “groomers” and “perverts”. Hypocrites like the “Black Nazi” running for Governor of North Carolina.

Hypocrisy never matters to voters. The voter will say, “Sure he’s a flawed man, but I like him.”

Which policies do you like?

“I don’t know. I just like what he stands for.”

“It’s what Robinson sits down for that might concern you..”

In Irish literature, there is generally one idiot per village. Here in the United States that is not the norm. Here there are thousands of idiots per village.

This repugnant dolt is the best and the brightest the Republican party of North Carolina has to offer its citizens. Much like MAGA candidates across the country Robinson is a moral, ethical and intellectual black hole, a mentally ill and emotionally broken attention seeking leech like so many of them, one more carnival hawker, one more evangelist for nihilism, just one more hollow political tambourine shaker in a party of bloviating cranks and craven crackpots.

I picture the old man in Mar-a-Lago, raging and frantic, unable to sleep. He needs to take a break from posting rants about pop stars he “hates” and “why Kamala is a bitch.” He heads downstairs to his kitchen, and he stares at the refrigerator magnets on the door of his refrigerator his friend Mike Lindell gave to him. Every word is from the “The Tabloid Headline Poetry Refrigerator Magnet Kit.” Came with 1100 words. Words like “Elvis”, “Conjoined twins” and “lobster boy”. Trump studies the hundreds of words and sees the words and phrases “Springfield, Ohio”, “pets”, “Haitians" and “eating” and slides them around on the refrigerator door until he forms a tabloid headline sentence he likes. "Haitians eating Springfield, Ohio pets.” He searches for the word “in”, finds one, adds it in the mix and moves them around again. "Haitians eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.”

Sounds like the perfect tabloid headline flavored word salad that'll grab attention in the next news cycle. Maybe there’s more here…

He moves more words around on the door of his refrigerator. “Flying saucer-aliens-abducting Haitians-eating-pets” and “immigrant-murderers-getting-sex change operations-in-Hangar 51- according to-Nazi-zombies.” That headline pleases him, but he sees he has words left over that he could still use. Words like "brain worms”, “Chinese flu” and “rapists”. Perhaps those are for another news cycle dominated by that bitch Kamala, always talking about her policies and “turning the page” and her goddam packed rallies.

“What’s this?” Trump sees a phrase he did not assemble. He wheezes and huffs. A clue that Melania has been in the house. “Hitler’s ghost-seen on- Moon base-developing-fountain of youth-that turns-Donald Trump’s-silicon-Sasquatch-mistress-bitch-Laura Loomer-into-circus freak.”

“Screw her”, he thinks and retires upstairs to his golden bedroom where Laura “Wax lips” Loomer tells him she has reason to believe “Tim Walz is a Satanic time traveler. Charlie Kirk and Kari Lake have evidence George Soros owns him.”

“Tell me more in the morning. I’m going to dream of Nazi zombies implanting brain worms into Kamala’s head.” As he falls asleep the old man is cheered dreaming of Arizona where his disgraced election denying pet toad, Mark Finchem, was elected to the Arizona Legislature to serve alongside neo-Nazi apologists and indicted fake electors. Where public education is the worst in the nation. Where The Republican voucher scheme is bankrupting the system to buy scammers ninja training and trampolines. Where Kari, our very own tambourine shaking crank and chronic crackpot is still running like a raving lunatic. And where a satirist, struggling to “find the funny” among the tumbleweeds, recently claimed satire is dead.