“There is no fun
in Islam,” once declared the Ayatollah Khomenei, whose stern visage glowered
down from posters plastered all over Iran after the 1979 revolution, as if
daring anyone to crack a joke. The same could be said for Progressivism which, like
Islamic fundamentalism, is a totalitarian ideology, and today’s Democrats, like
the Iranian mullahs, simply can’t take a joke.
They can’t afford
to, since successful totalitarianism depends on the complete control of every
aspect of the population’s lives, especially thought control. The totalitarian state
maintains that control through fear and division, and people who feel
comfortable enough to ridicule the regime clearly are not sufficiently afraid
or divided. The greatest enemy of authority, the philosopher Hannah Arendt
wrote, is contempt, and the surest way to undermine it is laughter. Humor unapproved
by the state – particularly humor aimed at the state – is an ominous sign that the regime’s death
grip on the populace is slipping.
There is a scene
from the brilliant 2007 German movie The Lives of Others (if you haven’t
seen it, stop reading this now and go watch it), set in East Germany
prior to the fall of the Berlin wall, which captures not only the existential terror
of life in a totalitarian society, but the state’s vulnerability to mockery. In
one chilling scene from the film, a Party official overhears an oblivious young
soldier beginning to tell friends a joke at the expense of the Party Chairman.
When he realizes a Party superior is eavesdropping, the soldier blanches in
fear, but the official feigns amusement and encourages him to finish the joke.
The punch line ridicules not only the Chairman but the rigid oppression of the
system itself. The official then sternly demands to know the soldier’s name and
department, warning him, “I don’t have to tell you what this means for your
career. You were deriding the Party. That’s incitement, and likely just the tip
of the iceberg. I will report this to the Minister.” Mockery endangered the
Party as surely as armed insurrection – perhaps even more so, because a
revolution can be crushed by military might, but ridicule is a more insidious
and elusive threat.
“Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon,”
states Rule #5 of community organizer Saul
Alinsky’s infamous, ingenious Rules for Radicals, which the Machiavellian
strategist dedicated to Lucifer, the ultimate radical. “There is no defense.
It’s irrational. It’s infuriating.” The left has mastered the implementation of
Alinsky’s rules for decades, and have taken control of the entertainment
industry in which they wield derision of their political enemies like a broadsword.
The entire late-night talk show scene, to cite just one arena, has been
commandeered by so-called comedians devoted to progressive propaganda and attacks
on conservatives. But the left is unaccustomed to having the tables turned.
They’re utterly unprepared to be the butt of jokes.
Gervais’ no-holds-barred
monologue went viral among cheering conservatives in the flyover states that Hollywood
holds in such open contempt, but showbiz suckups were stung by his bullseyes. The Los
Angeles Times criticized “the smirking master of ceremonies” for
“taunt[ing] the room for trying to use their influence to change things for the
better.” Vanity
Fair writer Mark Harris dismissed Gervais’ jokes as “right-wing talking
points” – as if the entire entertainment field doesn’t push left-wing talking
points nonstop.
In another recent example
of progressive humorlessness, CNN reporter Donie O'Sullivan whined that the right-leaning
Babylon Bee satire site gets more traffic for one article than his fake news network
and The New York Times get weekly. He tried to diminish the Bee’s
influence and insult its audience by claiming it is a fake news site spreading
disinformation (you know, like CNN or the NY Times). "A lot of
people sharing this 'satirical' story on Facebook don't know it is satire,"
O'Sullivan wrote. Of course they do. O’Sullivan, who had no problem sharing articles
from the left-leaning satire site The Onion, simply resented being the target
of the Bee’s satirical scalpel and wanted to smear the site as fake news. No
one bought it, and O’Sullivan was skewered mercilessly on social media for his humorless
partisanship.
The left has
always embraced comedy that desecrates “bourgeois” values, but it has become
increasingly disapproving of politically incorrect humor that desecrates the
left’s own sacred cows. Comedians like Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock have been
complaining for a few years now that young people’s sense of humor has dried up
on college campuses thanks to the PC obsession with sensitivity toward approved
minority victim categories. Comedian Dave Chappelle, for example, was excoriated
by the left for his very un-PC recent Netflix special “Sticks & Stones,” in
which he pointed out, for example, that Hollywood’s one unspoken rule is “Never
upset ‘the alphabet people’” – the bullying LGBT lobby. Salon
called Chappelle’s new act part of our era of “nonchalant cruelty” ushered
in by President Trump and his supporters. Salon considered it cruel because Chappelle’s
jokes made the totalitarian left feel uncomfortable and exposed. Would Salon equally
condemn as cruelty the mean-spirited comedy directed daily in showbiz at approved
targets like Trump or his supporters or white people or Christians? Never.
One of the
principal reasons the left is so triggered by President Donald Trump is that when
it comes to being mocked by the left, he gives better than he gets. Indeed, that’s
a large part of the reason he was elected: he gets in the gutter with his
enemies, fights back, and wins. He has no compunctions about publicly ridiculing
his opponents, going so far as to give them degrading nicknames which have caught
on in the popular culture, at least among conservatives: Elizabeth “Pocahontas”
Warren, Adam “Pencil Neck” Schiff, Pete “Alfred E. Neuman” Buttigieg, and many
more. Democrats have never had to deal with Alinsky tactics from a conservative
politician before, much less a president. It leaves them infuriated and
defenseless, just as Saul Alinsky noted it would. You can see it in the
unhinged, impotent anger of pompous celebrities who rage at Trump on social
media, which just makes them look more ridiculous.
Democrats are not
currently in political power, at least in the White House, but they have held
the reins of cultural power for fifty years. Under President Trump, however, leftists
feel that power slipping from their grasp as the right becomes more empowered
to mock them. Totalitarianism, like comedy, is serious business; but
unlike comedy, totalitarianism doesn’t work if everyone’s laughing.
From FrontPage Mag, 1/14/20
