Satire and Hope Can Save Us

NOTE: As I was writing this, one of my astute Bluesky followers reminded me that tyrants also really despise an educated populace, and I completely agree

Battering Free Speech

Recently, you may have noticed the Trump regime doing all it can to crack down on free speech as an institution in our free and open society.

As I wrote yesterday, the freedom to tell the Government to fuck off is quite precious, and the framers of our Constitution literally fought and bled to secure it.

But why do authoritarians despise satire? What is it about hope that threatens the fundamental pillars of their rule?

Satire is meant to poke fun at the absurd. It’s meant to highlight the weaknesses of the powerful and expose their soft underbellies.

Tyranny can only thrive in a situation where a dangerous “other” persists. This “other” is simultaneously powerful enough to threaten the lives or livelihoods of the masses and must be stopped. However, this “other” is also fundamentally weak in morality and is either willing or eager to engage in behaviors civilized people would never partake in.

The Nazis claimed Jewish people engaged in “blood libel”, literally drinking the blood of non-Jewish children. This is utterly false, of course, but it allowed there to be a dangerous “other” who, though in the minority of the population, was behaving in ways that Germans couldn’t justly allow. The Nazis were their great saviors, protecting the children of the nation.

The Trump regime’s FBI wants to reportedly categorize trans people as “nihilistic violent extremists,” according to a report. This is because, according to them, trans people are responsible for all violence in our society. It’s as complete and utter nonsense as the Nazi’s blood libel was, but it’s the tool this regime is attempting to use to close its grip around our freedoms.

Satirists and comics are already under assault. MAGA activists are currently working to get their fellow Americans’ livelihoods erased because of social media comments they don’t like. Organizations like Moms For Liberty have been working tirelessly for years to get books removed from schools and libraries that they claim are harmful to children. Trans bathroom bans are supposedly about preventing sexual harassment and assault.

Devastating Hope

The firehose of negative news is meant to make you feel as though fascism and tyranny are inevitable. Tyrants need you to believe they are utterly invincible and you have no reason to attempt to remove them from power because attempting to do so is either dangerous or fruitless.

It doesn’t matter that countless tyrants have been overthrown, exiled, and removed throughout the ages by a free people united. They’d prefer you forget all that and concentrate on being afraid, on huddling up and staying quiet instead. This regime, you see, is different than those that fell. These tyrants are much more powerful, much craftier, more technologically aware and diverse. You could never topple them.

Understand this: every single tyrant who has ever taken power wanted their subjects to believe those same lies. It wasn’t true then, and it isn’t true now.

Free and engaged people can always come together to remove and replace the powerful and do so peaceably. Many times in history, even in very recent times, have people risen up against a violent and oppressive government and abolished their rule without any need for violence to make it happen.

What they did need was organization, focus, and very importantly, hope.

Hope is like fuel for positive change. If you feel it and you believe that you can change things for the better, you aren’t as susceptible to the lies of the tyrants.

John Lewis posted this on Facebook on July 16th, 2019, and it is one of my favorite quotes:

John knew that peaceably resisting in the face of violence is what worked in Selma. He saw it throughout the Civil Rights era, when he and his fellow peaceful protestors were attacked and silenced again and again.

It worked because it highlighted the hate the oppressors wielded, and showed that the peaceful wanted change, not bloodshed and tears.

What allowed them to persevere in the face of such overwhelming force was the hope that change would come, and change did come.

Don’t permit them to ever take your hope away.

Laugh at power. Mock them. Show them that they are weak. Point out when they are ineffectual.

Hope for a better tomorrow, when tyrants and oppressors are held accountable for their violence and destruction.

Freedom will win.