I never watched the Daily Show, or the Colbert Report. I don\u2019t know why – it just didn\u2019t really do anything for me, especially the latter. The cable blowhard style was too utterly annoying, even as parody, for me to get anything out of. One thing I did watch, a little at first and then voraciously, was Last Week Tonight with John Oliver on HBO. Right up until the week before the election.<\/p>\n
I haven\u2019t watched it since.<\/p>\n
Part of it is simply the same reason I don\u2019t watch television news anymore. I can\u2019t stand this shit. I read just enough to keep me informed and don\u2019t have to look at or listen to the actual bullshit as it happens on screen. So from that standpoint, it\u2019s no worse than me taking BBC World Service off my car presets or relying on Quartz and Economist Espresso instead of using the Sky News app. But last night, with Late Show clips booming way too loud as I tried to exercise, something clicked in my head and I was able to articulate it to myself.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t like these shows anymore because they blew it.<\/em><\/p>\n Like Sonny Dykes at Cal, they had a one-trick offense. All they had was ridicule. And that hurt, in the long run. Not because it ginned up the mental defectives to say \u201cHURRRR DURRRR DEM LIBERALS MAKIN FUN OF US HURRRRRRR\u201d, but because it convinced a lot of middling sort of people that this was so ridiculous that it couldn\u2019t come to pass.<\/em> There\u2019s no way this guy can be President. This is such an unbelievable joke, this is a formality, this is absurd. And it let a lot of people just not vote, or waste a vote on a third party candidate, because there\u2019s no way Donald Fucking Trump can fall ass backward into the White House, right?<\/em><\/p>\n WHOOPS.<\/p>\n What these shows did – what everything<\/em> did – was functionally wanking<\/em>. It was ridicule of the threat without taking it seriously. It was false bravado, overconfidence, this-could-never-happen – even Obama was guilty of it himself at the 2016 correspondents\u2019 dinner<\/em> – and then, holy shit, don\u2019t look now but it actually came to pass. And just like Jeff Tedford\u2019s I-will-do-just-what-we-did-in-August-regardless-of-circumstances approach or Sonny Dykes\u2019 throw-throw-throw-what-is-defense solution, once it fails that spectacularly? I\u2019m done with it.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n You had your chance. You ran your offense. You did things your way. It failed. Your way didn\u2019t work.<\/em> Sauron has the Ring. Stanfurd has the Axe. Fucking actual Nazi sympathizers have the government. So forgive me if I\u2019m not willing to go back to your playbook again for a while. It\u2019s like watching the Astros last night: you hit four guys in two innings and you can\u2019t put the ball over the plate? You\u2019re coming out of the game. I don\u2019t care if there\u2019s a five run lead, we\u2019re going to do something else because if we keep doing the same thing we\u2019re gonna blow it. \u00a0The night the nomination was clenched was the time to switch from \u201cHA HA LOOK AT THIS FUCKER WITH AN ONION LOAF FOR HAIR\u201d to \u201cYOU HAVE TO VOTE FOR THIS GUY\u2019S PRINCIPAL OPPONENT IF YOU DON\u2019T WANT THE FUCKING WORLD TO BURN.”<\/p>\n And that didn\u2019t happen. Maybe because people wanted to say \u201cwe\u2019re just a comedy show,\u201d maybe they wanted to take refuge in \u201cboth sides are funny,\u201d maybe because nobody wanted to look like they were in the tank for one side even if it was Not A Nazi, maybe because nobody wanted to pledge themselves to Mean Old Granny Eat-Your-Vegetables after two decades of calling her that. So now here we are. Sorry boys (and once again, it\u2019s always boys, hmm) – you can do your little monkey dance all you want on HBO or CBS or whatever. Enjoy it. God bless. My time is better spent on something else.<\/p>\n Fewer jesters, more jousters. Let\u2019s go.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I never watched the Daily Show, or the Colbert Report. I don\u2019t know why – it just didn\u2019t really do anything for me, especially the latter. The cable blowhard style was too utterly annoying, even as parody, for me to get anything out of. One thing I did watch, a little at first and then … <\/p>\n