It worked when the right relied on "seriousness" and "respectability". Mockery is the counter to seriousness. The targets of this used to be at the top of the power ladder; mocking them was a form of levelling.

The right has largely stopped trying to engage neutrals on any kind of intellectual, rational basis, and has instead gone for leaning heavily on the emotional buttons of fear and power. Especially power: the cruelty of family separation at the border is deliberate. The right tells you who to hate and encourages you to watch their humiliation, but picks targets by their vulnerability. Hence it has to lie about their power and big up children into "threats to national security".

The tank parade is yet another symbol of this, nicely timed for just after the 30th anniversary of Tianamen.

Setting aside arguments that could be considered more partisan...I think its partially mainstreaming. I'm sure an early Church father or Renaissance secularist were a bit more sophisticated in promulgating and defending their creed than your average Joe Schmoe door to door evangelist or random early 2000s poster to r/atheism. What was the domain of (still crazy imo) but select group of activists/academics is now to the point where people with actual diagnosed mental disorders are latching on to it in large numbers. (my personal favorite way of measuring whether something is mainstream) https://youtu.be/Gzdf4V7Cf_M

Also theres the new dynamic which has emerged within the past decade or 2 but has ramped up considerably where Progressives are the new establishment. They of course have dominated certain areas for a long time but its at the point now where every major sector of society (with a current trivial exception of a tenuous hold on a few offices in the federal government) is controlled by people who are fanatics for or at least bow to what would have been considered ridiculous political correctness/social justice only a few short years earlier. Parody walks hand in hand with fighting against something larger. So does self actualization. Hence the desperate attempts for people to convince themselves that Google/MS/Facebook/Amazon/CNN/HuffPo/NYT et al is 'The Resistance'.

I agree with this. Political humor used to fill a small niche, and was always an ‘easier’ form of comedy.

I remember Bill Maher’s standup in the 80s and 90s, and was completely disinterested. It was simply not amusing.

Political humor is one of the lowest forms of comedy to me, and unfortunately has become a quite popular genre.

Excuse me for a moment while I mourn for my youtube suggestions.

I think mainstreaming is an interesting point - a similar strain to what people are calling the "rise of populism" which ends up being more direct. In some ways its empowering the unwashed masses, and in others its being more genuine/less filtered.

I had another paragraph here that went into how progressives aren't the establishment economically by any means and was about to disagree, but after re-reading and scoping your argument to just having command of the social landscape I think you're probably correct. The lines of attack brought on by some in the social justice world can be patently ridiculous, and are ripe for parody. Its difficult to come around to being empathetic to that fact when most of my upbringing was during the culture wars against the "prudes", who had all the power and were using it to gatekeep everyone. I'm certainly more comfortable living in this social environment myself, but I remember the feelings of empowerment when we got to call out something in society that was obviously bullshit bullshit.

I suppose I have some fear around that as a natural backlash on some issues can turn into a general backlash against the entire thing - are we heading for another Disco Demolition? Or will a more middle ground maturing of language happen? One thing does seem almost certain - the corporations will make a lot of money any way the wind blows.

> are we heading for another Disco Demolition?

I think we're well past that and into the indiscriminate murder. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/28/charlottesvi...

There have been a few attempts to start mass destruction of consumer products in response to companies getting involved in the culture war, such as Nike supporting the "take a knee" protests. The only reason nobody's done this with music is that it's dematerialised.

I wouldn’t take the act of destruction as being literal. However, if all of a sudden Nike’s became actually uncool and not just uncool with the alt-right then that would be a Disco Demolition.

> I’m trying to think of the punch that’s landed the hardest and actually caused damage, and I’m coming up short.

SNL's Palin parodies? Not sure whether that actually mattered or the Republicans just, for unrelated reasons, failed to GOTV. I'm pretty sure most self-identified Republicans still think she's great and weren't turned away from the polls over her, but maybe it swayed some moderate/no-party-affiliation folks?

Beyond that, humor's kinda a sustaining force for the left, in the same way... whatever you'd call Talk Radio style entertainment-news is for the right (AM radio, various web shows and podcasts, Fox News). Its efficacy may be more in group cohesion than converting "others".

[EDIT] incidentally, SNL probably played a large part in painting the (fairly negative) pop-culture image of Hillary that was such an important part of the 2016 election, overshadowing the whole race. Think mid- to late-Clinton-presidency SNL. So there's that.

Those are good examples - I'm trying to think about the current era though. Interesting that you bring up Hillary being mocked actually - perhaps it was a turning point in suddenly the Dems were more mockable, or at least mockery stuck to them.

With the republicans now, I think they've positioned themselves to be immune from mockery - they saw how effective Jon Stewart was during the Bush years, and the solution now seems to be to fill the air with as much as possible so that it all turns to static.

I remember when Trump got elected, the biggest question everyone had as a comedian was "how do you mock this person, he's already too ridiculous"? Ditto Boris Johnson happening now. Some are trying to start countering this from trying to draw a line by defining values (that they clearly don't seem to share) - the Pete Buttigieg strategy, the Joe Biden strategy. It just seems like a fascinating turn of events that suddenly mockery as a political tool can be nullified.

Nothing SNL has ever done on Trump has ever seemed to dent him. Sean Spicer though - that definitely got through. And now he's gone, replaced by Sarah Sanders who manages to soak up all sorts of sympathy despite lying all the time. I guess the other poster is right - the progressives really have become the social establishment, and that comes with a lot of really interesting concequences.

I remember when it was the AM radio folks mocking Trump. And, you know, everyone else. Ah, the 90s, when regarding Trump as the textbook definition of a philandering flim-flam artist, worthy of little to no respect whatsoever and certainly no trust, crossed party lines. What a ride this has been.

It's because of the "closed garden circle jerks" aka social media.

Before social media, most people were consuming similar media, so counterpoints could make a difference.

Nowadays algorithms decide what you would like to see/hear so only people that are already against trump are seeing those.

And this is not just websites. Metric and tracking got so much better that even traditional media, can target their viewership better.

I think that's the easy answer but I think it may not be the whole story. Fox news, conservative radio, etc have existed for a while. Bubbles have also always existed, and yes they've gotten bigger - but at the same time, there's been a big social shift that's happened at the same time this has been going on. The Obama era marked a change to progressives being the social establishment (not to be confused with economic establishment). Suddenly the previous mockers are now the cheerleaders, and corporate america dives right in with them on the equality/diversity train.

Then Trump comes in, and somehow wins with a secret weapon - if he acts like a crazy person all the time, the mocking will get so loud, AND be so ubiquitous it'll just turn to static in everyone's minds. Suddenly the biggest political weapon the left has to win over independents isn't very useful.

I'm not concerned with the "base" of both parties - Trump hasn't dropped below 40% in a while, partly out of polarization, but also partly that there is a base he has, and that base is opposition to the left, who soundly beat them from Clinton to Obama culturally. This might be why despite having the house, senate, and white house the republicans could keep telling themselves they were the underdogs - culturally they are, and continue to be. So there will still be independents who are on the side of fighting the "progressive hegemony", and they by default go to trump. Instead of the skater punk in high school cussing and spitting in front of the nuns, its the kid on the computer intentionally calling someone the wrong pronouns.

> its the kid on the computer intentionally calling someone the wrong pronouns.

Today this, tomorrow goading someone (such as a trans person) into suicide, the next day egging on the person who says they're going to shoot up a synagogue.

The punk confronting nuns is doing so from the bottom of the power hierarchy, and achieving their freedom not at the expense of anyone else. The modern alt-right culture is looking for targets and hostile to anyone who asks for respect. A big difference.

> The punk confronting nuns is doing so from the bottom of the power hierarchy, and achieving their freedom not at the expense of anyone else. The modern alt-right culture is looking for targets and hostile to anyone who asks for respect.

I think you're incorrect about who holds the power culturally. Calling a person with XY chromosomes a man who prefers to be called a woman will result in firing, ejection from conferences and projects, or shunning — while on the other hand believing oneself to be a 'yellow-scaled wingless dragonkin' is allegedly no hindrance to working for Google.

I'm not taking a position here on whether it's right or wrong, just noting that right now it seems to me that the cultural Left has overwhelmingly won.

> Calling a person with XY chromosomes a man who prefers to be called a woman will result in firing, ejection from conferences and projects, or shunning

Most of the time it doesn't. Most of the time absolutely nothing happens. Certainly the traditional power hierarchy is unlikely to do much. It can also get you a position on a national newspaper. It's just that in a relatively few cases it's reached viral outrage level and something has actually been done.

This is the problem with the culture war: everything is fought over the highest-level most visible cases. All the low stakes of thousands of people are placed on a single case as an incredibly high stake. And the people are fired/deplatformed over it are very rarely innocents who have made a mistake on the first instance - it's nearly always people who knew what they were doing and chose to pick that fight, who happened to lose this time.

So in most situations the balance of power favours the traditional side; it's just that in a few cases the internet mob can focus the outrage laser and achieve dominant power. That's an unstable situation, certainly.

I quite agree that the “punching down” thing is different this time. The progressives haven’t consolidated yet - especially economically. The white cis male behind the computer screen definitely has the economic higher ground (or, his socioeracial status does). But, critically, I think they are punching “up” in terms of social status.

I don’t think, and we should all hope, that most people uncomfortable with pronouns are also those that egg on a synagogue shooter. There are levels here. Who’s going to give them a place to belong first?

> most people uncomfortable with pronouns

Interesting way to phrase it. Taken literally it's absurd - obviously people aren't allergic to saying "he" and "she". Presumably you mean chosen pronouns. Where it comes down to a matter of someone asking for a tiny bit of respect. Some respond to that graciously, a lot of people go along with it indifferently, but a few regard it as a massive outrage to be asked to be respectful towards a stranger. They escalate it; they raise it to a "me or them" issue, and are surprised that some people choose to exclude them so that they can include trans people instead.

> Who’s going to give them a place to belong first?

What does this mean? Does it mean a place where necessarily trans people can't belong?

Certainly in the UK it's not a question of "belonging", most of the newspapers and large sections of all political parties have joined in the panic over trans people. Being anti-trans is tragically mainstream.

> Interesting way to phrase it.

Interesting (and very icy) way to respond. I think you’re making assumptions about me here :)

I can think of more examples than those you’ve given. It can be people afraid to address people at all, because they’ve been hammered for getting it wrong in the past. Some figure it out, and some respond emotionally, reactively. It digs them a bigger hole. They decide that trans people and their allies are assholes, or bullies, and are holding the gun of social estrangement to their head. This isn’t the fault of the person who just wants to be respected as themselves - they’ve almost certainly experienced a metric fuckton of discrimination, lack of understanding, and hey maybe they’re just having a bad day and tired of fucking explaining it all the time, and then some ally who absolutely wants to have an argument right now starts brandishing a quote tweet.

All this shit can happen without them ever even knowing each other’s name. There are a lot of people (I’m thinking small town high school here) who have never even interacted with a trans person irl (IE - none of them are out). I just would want people to recognize - chosen pronouns just went from being a not even aware of in public thing to aware. It’s natural for people to be confused, or lack empathy at first. I get frustrated and say fuck a lot when I have to relearn hotkeys when I switch IDEs at work. If someone didn’t get the memo, assume goodwill, just like you are in this conversation.

I know all about TERFs. Thankfully I’ve yet to experience one irl.

> What does this mean? Does it mean a place where necessarily trans people can't belong?

It means it’s better for people to get better understanding than be welcomed with open arms by nazis. To the latter question - no.

We have an interesting display of the phenomenon I've been speaking of right here. Now that the Left is in power it has dropped all pretense of the devotion to freedom of speech and the marketplace of ideas that once supposedly was the core of its beliefs. It is lashing out in the same humorless ways the old WASP establishment did against barbs of the punks/hippies of yesteryear.

Perfect example here of the double standard. Your group demands respect for your sacred cow but have no respect for the sacred cows of others. People have also died over Allah, Buddha et al. Maybe they're just looking for a little respect too

You’re just comically wrong. Progressives control the universities. Right wingers are poor and disempowered. A right winger punching a progressive is punching up.