Dem
47
GOP
53
Authoritarians of all stripes always want to project power. They want to intimidate people. If no one is afraid of them, they lose their power. Direct attacks on them never work because that plays to their strength: projecting power. When attacked, they respond with power.
But they do have a weakness. When they are mocked and ridiculed for being stupid and weak, they are at a loss to respond. Blustering just makes them seem like fools. Some people are starting to get it that the way to go after Donald Trump is not to scream that he is a criminal who breaks the law all the time, but to mock him mercilessly and make him look like a bumbling idiot. This enrages him but he has no good way to respond.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has this down pat now. Whoever said "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" needs to think again. Here are some of Newsom's recent tweets:
The style is an attempt to mimic Trump's over-the-top style and make him seem like a buffoon, not a criminal. The remarks about how great he (Newsom) is, fit the pattern. The "THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER" is straight Trump and looks absurd. Even the signature GCN (Gavin Christopher Newsom) is modeled on Trump's DJT signature. If the style doesn't get to Trump, the "hands (so tiny)" and "little baby stairs" will. Newsom has also posted to TikTok and sued Fox News. It's psychological warfare and Newsom is much better at that than Trump.
To give credit where it is due, the idea of mocking Trump (and possibly some of the text) was from the leader of Newsom's media team, a young Latina named Camille Harper Zapata. She has a B.A. degree in anthropology from UC Santa Cruz, so she knows how cavemen think. Still, Newsom gets credit for hiring her and following up on her ideas. Here is Zapata:
Newsom isn't the only one in the business of mocking Trump. So are Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of "South Park." They just got a $1.25 billion contract from Paramount, which owns Comedy Central, so they are prepared to take the gloves off and skewer Trump with everything they've got, which is a lot. They have been rewarded with a ratings boom. After the first episode aired this season, the number of viewers doubled for the second one. Here is a short AI-generated clip from the premiere (which we also linked before). We can't embed it because it is R rated. But if you are over 18 and have a Google account, you can watch it on YouTube. Viewer discretion advised.
Their cartoon show is no Bambi. It is crude, foul-mouthed, and utterly unsubtle. In the recent episode "Sermon on the 'Mount" ("'Mount" being short for Paramount), Trump, portrayed as a tinpot dictator, is in bed with Satan (literally), tiny... hands and all. One of the townsfolk calls him a "re***ded fa**ot." When he is not in bed, Trump is suing everyone. Jesus shows up, stands on a small pile of dirt, and tells the crowd: "All of you, shut the f*ck up or South Park is over." Here is a link to the whole episode. If you just want to watch some of the scenes about Trump, skip to 8:00 or watch this. Watch at least one minute of it to get the feel of it.
Parker and Stone have said that since media powerhouses, multibillion dollar corporations, top law firms, and elite universities are knuckling under to a vengeful president, someone had to speak up. So, they did. After shows are aired, clips of them go on the South Park website.
Sometimes the administration's incompetence makes mockery easy. Apparently, some dodo remotely printed eight pages of State Dept. material on the printer at the business center in the hotel where many of the participants of Alaska summit stayed—and forgot to pick them up. A guest found them, photographed them, and turned the photos over to NPR. The material was not overly sensitive (e.g., the seating chart for lunch) but it also had the phone numbers of some government officials. The White House called the incident "hilarious." How's that for material to mock the administration's incompetence?
And then there is TACO—everywhere. (V)