Fox News meathead Tucker Carlson may have killed off satire for good, but he didn't act alone. He had accomplices. You could even call it a conspiracy; from the internet to the floor of Congress, Republicans have poisoned the great political plains so that satire can't find a single leaf of nourishment. It's a movement that prides itself on ridiculousness. Satire never stood a chance.
The internet is dead, you know. Nobody ever goes there, and for good reason. Internet's haunted now.
That would be some hard shilling for something called Alpha Grind instant coffee, which appears to be a version of your grandmother's Folger's instant if your grandma was a coal-rolling monster truck with a picture of Donald Trump painted on one side and a picture of a skateboarding triceratops on the other. It's the coffee for people who like bitcoins and false advertising. Other coffee might try to keep you awake, but Grizzlyman Thunder Coffee here will banish your wokeness forever.
What's the secret? Some say it's because Turgid Incel has 10% more pulverized cockroach than other pre-ground coffees. Others say it's an ancient mummy's curse. But most people say "Look, these people will buy anything you point them at if you say their invisible enemies will be outraged by it, so not fleecing them would be the more outrageous move. Now help me slap new stickers on these things."
What do people who drink non-woke coffee do with their days? That's a difficult question, but many of them think it looks something like this.
You’ll want to click on that one and admire it in all its internet glory. You have to admire it, really. It grabs satire by the nose, lifts it up bodily, and stuffs it in a high school gym locker. What's not to love? You’re looking at the corpse of the internet, right there, pinned up for all to see.
Rick Manslab here is valiantly taking his daughter for a swim in shark-infested waters, despite there being no seeming reason for such a thing to happen. They are stalked by two equally dangerous predators, "Gays" and "Science."
The daughter clearly sees science swimming lazily by her, and looks suspiciously unconcerned. Is his daughter intrigued by science? Is she ... science-curious? Is that why her stone faced father is attempting to flee, with science right behind him?
What is that shark saying, as it tempts the youth?
Hey kid, wanna learn about covalent bonds?
Psst. Hey. Hey you. OHM'S LAW, HA HA HA HA HA. TAKE THAT, TRUCK DAD, SHE KNOWS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CURRENT AND VOLTAGE NOW. RESIST THAT, YOU SOGGY JERK.
Is it satire? Is it not? There is no way to know, because the two are indistinguishable now. This could be one of those artificial intelligence-drawn paintings, something named "Father protecting child from gay scientists but with sharks, version AF332P9." But it might not be, too. It might have come from a human head.
What of presidential contenders? Surely satire will still work on them, yes? What? Oh—oh no.
Look, everything is all fun and games until people start throwing around polysyllabic words. You can not, as a Republican presidential candidate in the year of whatever the hell it currently is, admit to knowing the meaning of words with that many letters in them. Any word with four or more vowels is obviously woke, or gay, or has something to do with science. That’s the sort of word that you pile firewood around and burn as a suspected witch.
Florida statehouse Republicans, care to weigh in?
The tweet-summary does not undersell it. The underlying story confirms that yes, Florida Republican state Rep. Stan McClain absolutely would ban schools from talking about periods even if a child was currently having one. A sixth grader might suddenly start bleeding in the middle of class, marking their first period—but nobody in the school would be allowed to tell the child what was happening or that they were not, in fact, going to die.
Presumably at that point the school nurse would call an ambulance, the ambulance would arrive, the paramedics would drive the child 100 feet off-campus to explain what a "period" was, and Florida Republican state Rep. Stan McClain would presumably foot the bill for the entire emergency call because f--k knows nobody's going to give the school extra money to deal with it.
Behold, it is a cornucopia of the worst people you know horking out the worst laws you can think of, and they are all deadly serious because Jeebus, are these people dim.
And what of Congress? Will they save us, when all else has crumbled? Is there a single damn Republican who is not an unindicted sex trafficker, or allied with seditionists, or not cozied up to white supremacists, or not otherwise occupied with doling out punishments for members who mention the cocaine orgies? We’re not asking for statesmanship here (four vowels, inherently suspicious), just a block of time in which somebody is not making a speech that makes you want to take a 12-volt power drill to your skull.
Yeah, I'm out. That one made me die, yet again. I've lost count of how many times that's happened at this point.
Oh—but quick, someone paint a new picture with one of the circling sharks now labeled "soy milk." I have a feeling we're going to need it.
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