Dem
47
GOP
53
Maybe this should not be the case, given all that we've seen from Donald Trump in the last decade, but we nonetheless continue to be amazed that a man who is as versed in publicity and free media as he is nonetheless seems to evince no concern for/awareness of the Streisand Effect. That, of course, is the general truism that an attempt to shut down the attention being paid to [THING X] will itself often generate a whole bunch more attention, thus actually increasing the attention being paid to [THING X].
We recognize that Trump is one of the most thin-skinned people walking the planet today, and that he's certainly the most thin-skinned person ever to occupy the presidency. And we also understand that he's got the bully pulpit at his disposal, and it's very tempting to make use of that opportunity. Still, every other thin-skinned president of the radio and television age knew enough to grit their teeth and ignore those who would criticize/mock them. Heck, Richard Nixon, who was almost certainly the most thin-skinned president prior to Trump, even went on TV and pretended that he liked being made fun of on Laugh-In.
We write all of this, first of all, because yesterday the FCC approved the merger of Paramount and Skydance. This came after Skydance promised to kill all DEI programs at Paramount, and to install an ombudsman whose job it will be to root out "bias" at CBS News.
It is true that Trump has managed to leverage this merger in order to secure some pretty substantial "wins." Most obviously, he got the $16 million settlement (plus some additional millions of free advertising time) from his lawsuit against 60 Minutes. He also secured the concessions on DEI and the ombudsman, though it's hard to imagine exactly how such an ombudsman might work, or how effective they will be at doing what Trump wants, and turning 60 Minutes into Fox & Friends. Further, Trump might, or might not, have secured the demise of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. And finally, Paramount is now under the management of the Trump-friendly Ellison family (although that would have happened regardless of Trump's involvement).
The upshot here is that Trump used his leverage, but now it's gone. And the Streisand-Effect downside, not only of his war against 60 Minutes, but also against The Wall Street Journal, and Colbert, and as of yesterday, The View, is that everyone knows how easy it is to infuriate him. They also know that if they can successfully push his buttons, it will delight many viewers, and maybe even give them a burst of free "this is one of the shows that Trump hates" publicity. What we are saying, in so many words, is that Trump's temper tantrums have predictably increased the amount of mockery to which he is subjected.
The poster boy here, of course, is Colbert. As we have already noted, he hates Trump AND he also has nothing to lose. He's going to subject the White House to 10 months of absolutely withering satire. For example, in his Tuesday monologue, Colbert decided to go with something a bit more... poetic than "Go fu** yourself." Instead, the host shared this observation about the ongoing effort by Department of Justice officials to find any Jeffrey Epstein documents that include Trump's name: "All the king's horses, and all the king's men, couldn't hide who Dumpty humped with his friend." Ouch. Be ready for 10 more months of that. And yes, it is certainly possible that the Ellisons will take Colbert off the air, but if they do, they still have to pay out his contract. Also, that would be such an obvious sop to Trump's thin skin that, well... see what we wrote above about the Streisand Effect.
There's also a newcomer to the party, as of yesterday, and it's actually... an oldcomer. One of the oldest of the old, when it comes to active producers of American satire. We refer to South Park, which has been lampooning politicians of both parties for 3 decades. In fact, they have done so much political content that creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker (who are both registered Libertarians) had suggested that they were going to avoid politics going forward, because it was getting repetitive.
That may have been a genuine sentiment, or it may have been tongue-in-cheek, or it may have been a misdirect. In any event, the premiere of Season 27 dropped on Wednesday night and... it's a wee bit political (emphasis definitely on "wee bit"; keep that in mind). The basic plot of the episode is that the residents of South Park don't want Jesus to have a government-mandated presence in their schools, and Trump responds by suing the town for $5 billion. The townspeople want to fight back, but Jesus himself appears and warns them to settle: "You guys saw what happened to CBS? Yeah, well, guess who owns CBS? Paramount. Do you really want to end up like Colbert?"
And that's not even the worst part... at least, if you're Donald Trump. In the scene from the episode that has already gone viral on social media, Trump becomes angry at the artist who is painting his portrait for the Oval Office, because it is a full-body nude, and it is... accurate. In hopes of lifting his spirits, Trump strips down (and confirms the artist is on the mark), and then endeavors to get amorous with... Satan. Satan, previously established in show canon as Saddam Hussein's former boyfriend, declines Trump's advances, in large part because of Trump's small part. You can see the scene here, if you like your humor very blue:
Later in the scene (after the clip cuts off), Satan observes that Trump is "just the same... like, exactly the same" as someone that he (Satan) used to date.
In short, it's not subtle. Oh, and it also doesn't end there. In the episode, South Park ultimately does settle with the Trump administration, and as part of that settlement is required to produce a bunch of PSAs. The final minute of the episode shows the town's first PSA. We cannot embed it, because it is age-restricted, and so you have to click on the link and watch it on YouTube. That should warn you that it is definitely NSFW. We will further warn you, before you consider clicking through, that you need to decide if an AI-generated, photo-realistic, nude Trump is something you can handle without risk of nightmares. The PSA also highlights the, uh, plumbing that is not up to Satan's standards. The tagline—and we've been as circumspect as we can, so far, but you'll want to stop reading if you're already unhappy—is "Trump. His penis is teeny-tiny, but his love for us is large."
While the new owners of Paramount theoretically could make Colbert go away by paying his contract off, that's considerably less plausible with Stone and Parker, because the South Park guys just signed a new, 5-year deal for $1.5 billion. Not only would the new corporate owners, who paid $8 billion for the entire Paramount operation, have to eat a giant chunk of change, but they would also lose one of their tentpole intellectual properties. There's a reason that Stone and Parker were able to command $300 million a year, and it wasn't corporate charity.
There is only one correct response from Trump here, and it is: DO NOT TAKE THE BAIT. But, of course, that is not how the President rolls. So, not only did the White House make clear that Trump is angry, it actually issued an official statement, blasting South Park as a "fourth-rate show." If Trump's staff is smart, they will make sure he does not see the first episode of the newly rebooted Animaniacs:
No small-penis jokes, but it does have Trump as a giant, orange ogre who likes to spend time on an island (presumably owned by Jeffrey Epstein).
We recognize that there is a school of thought that says that there is no such thing as bad publicity, but we don't believe that is true. Trump's base might get a small thrill from him "owning the libs" when he blasts South Park or Colbert or The View, but if the trade-off is months and months of mockery, it just does not add up. That's doubly true when the mockery makes it to social media, where it can reach people who are not dialed in to politics. And if there's any question that constant ridicule can erode support for a politician, well, Gerald Ford would certainly have some useful thoughts on that subject, if he were still alive. Dan Quayle, too, if anyone knows where he is these days.
Incidentally, our thanks to the many dozens of readers who brought this story to our attention. Thanks in particular to readers S.K. in Los Angeles, CA, and D.E. in Lancaster, PA, who were the source of most of the links we used above. (Z)