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Sparkly

(24,339 posts)
Fri Nov 8, 2024, 12:12 AM 14 hrs ago

Humor has become sad.

It's cathartic, it reflects what we're going through, and it can help.

Jimmy Kimmel got choked up listing the people this presidency would hurt. https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/07/entertainment/video/jimmy-kimmel-late-night-election-monologue-jokes-digvid

Humor columnist for The Washington Post Alexandra Petri wrote a poignant essay that echoed Monica Hesse's article from yesterday, rather than anything funny: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/11/06/trump-election-again-sisyphus-satire/

And the top essays on McSweeney's Internet Tendency, generally hilarious, are appropriately devastating. In particular, I suggest "The Boy Who Cried Wolf and Was Elected President Two Goddamn Times," but see the main page for others.
https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-boy-who-cried-wolf-and-was-elected-president-two-goddamn-times

Satire (dark humor) help me through times like this.

17 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Humor has become sad. (Original Post) Sparkly 14 hrs ago OP
Thank you. Clouds Passing 14 hrs ago #1
I found Colbert insightful. Qutzupalotl 14 hrs ago #2
It helped me after 2004 jfz9580m 13 hrs ago #3
I was 21 at the time George W Bush won Jspur 13 hrs ago #4
Totally hear you jfz9580m 13 hrs ago #6
Cool I was born and in VA Jspur 13 hrs ago #9
Wow. I was just looking up Jesse Helms jfz9580m 12 hrs ago #10
Remember "I'mSorry.com" ? proud patriot 13 hrs ago #7
I'd take Dubya over Mango Mussolini misanthrope 12 hrs ago #11
I was 21 also when the 2004 election occurred. Elessar Zappa 13 hrs ago #5
Again I hear ya jfz9580m 13 hrs ago #8
hey Skittles 12 hrs ago #13
I think the famous Skittles "ass kicking skills" are needed jfz9580m 8 hrs ago #17
This message was self-deleted by its author Skittles 12 hrs ago #12
it seems like nowadays only comedians tell it like it is Skittles 12 hrs ago #14
"It was a bad night for markodochartaigh 12 hrs ago #15
Dark humor is how we get through dark times, after all Hekate 11 hrs ago #16

Qutzupalotl

(15,095 posts)
2. I found Colbert insightful.
Fri Nov 8, 2024, 12:45 AM
14 hrs ago

He tends to see things philosophically, and it helped a little.

If you need a silly break, which I also find helpful, check out After Midnight too..

jfz9580m

(15,342 posts)
3. It helped me after 2004
Fri Nov 8, 2024, 12:52 AM
13 hrs ago

That was the last time I was this shocked by an election result. I was taken aback that anyone as obviously awful and incompetent as Bush could actually win. That someone who obviously waged a war based on lies so Halliburton could profiteer could be reelected took me by surprise. I was already very very worried about the environment by then. It has always been the biggest cause of concern (for unselfish and selfish reasons. Unselfish because I love animals and nature for their own sakes. Selfish because we rely on a healthy planet to survive as well as thrive ).

God..I was so young, dumb and naive. DU and late night comics were my solace.

Jspur

(617 posts)
4. I was 21 at the time George W Bush won
Fri Nov 8, 2024, 12:59 AM
13 hrs ago

reelection and was devasted and shocked. I truly hated Bush and the way he had brainwashed people with his war on terror propaganda. For me personally it was a very miserable time being an Indian guy who had to deal with a lot of racism from both white and black people simply because they thought I was a Muslim and were angry about 9/11. I blamed Bush for a large part of the racism I faced at that young age due to his rhetoric on the war on terror. I didn't think he could win re-election because he came across to me as a dumbass intellectually and just couldn't believe the American people could trust and support him overwhelmingly.

20 years later I'm not shocked Trump won because Bush showed me this country is filled with stupid people who are driven by fear and hate.

jfz9580m

(15,342 posts)
6. Totally hear you
Fri Nov 8, 2024, 01:07 AM
13 hrs ago
For me personally it was a very miserable time being an Indian guy who had to deal with a lot of racism from both white and black people simply because they thought I was a Muslim and were angry about 9/11. I blamed Bush for a large part of the racism I faced at that young age due to his rhetoric on the war on terror. I didn't think he could win re-election because he came across to me as a dumbass intellectually and just couldn't believe the American people could trust and support him overwhelmingly.


I am really sorry to hear that. I am Indian too btw . Yes the war on terror ..basically the entire arsenal of fear/hate and deregulated capitalism on steroids/war the GOP has thrown at the world since 1953 is responsible for the mess we find ourselves in.

From the time I started paying attention to this day I have never seen one thing that has made the GOP come off as anything but scary and insane. It is not a party any reasonable or informed human being can seriously support imo.

Jspur

(617 posts)
9. Cool I was born and in VA
Fri Nov 8, 2024, 01:24 AM
13 hrs ago

but grew up in NC. As an Indian guy growing up in the south at a young age I was exposed to politics by my dad and by the time I was a teenager is when I fully started to hate the GOP. That's the age where you really start to put together a lot of things about the world and society and how you fit in. I just remember always dealing with racist bigots from a young age and growing up in NC when it was super strong red state.

I saw the environment locally the GOP had created when dealing with bigots and religious zealots. My state had a republican senator in Jesse Helms that was openly racist and would make Trump and the rest of MAGA blush. It's because of growing up in that environment that I can never be down with the GOP. They create misery and division along with offering horrible economic policies.

jfz9580m

(15,342 posts)
10. Wow. I was just looking up Jesse Helms
Fri Nov 8, 2024, 01:50 AM
12 hrs ago

I have heard of him of course but as usually seeing the whole thing in plain text takes one aback.


Views on race
edit
Jesse Helms was accused of racism throughout his career. Two years before Helms's 2003 retirement from the Senate, David Broder of The Washington Post wrote a column headlined "Jesse Helms, White Racist", analyzing Helms's public record on race, a record he felt many other reporters were side-stepping. He said that Helms was willing to inflame racial resentment against African-Americans for political gain and dubbed Helms "the last prominent unabashed white racist politician in this country".[325]
Early in his career, as news director for WRAL radio, Helms supported Willis Smith in the 1950 Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, against Frank Porter Graham, in a campaign that used racial issues in a divisive way, in order to draw conservative white voters to the polls.[326] Portraying Graham as favoring interracial marriages, the campaign circulated placards with the heading, "White people, wake up before it is too late"; and a handbill that showed Graham's wife dancing with a black man.[326][327] When Smith won, Helms went to Washington as his administrative assistant.
Helms opposed busing, the Civil Rights Act,[328] and enforcement of the Voting Rights Act.[329][330][331][332] Helms called the Civil Rights Act of 1964 "the single most dangerous piece of legislation ever introduced in the Congress", and sponsored legislation to either extend it to the entire country or scrap it altogether.[180] In 1982, he voted against the extension of the Voting Rights Act.[333]
Helms reminded voters that he tried, with a 16-day filibuster, to stop the Senate from approving a federal holiday to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,[274] although he had fewer reservations about establishing a North Carolina state holiday for King.[333] He was accused of being a segregationist by some political observers and scholars, such as USA Today's DeWayne Wickham who wrote that Helms "subtly carried the torch of white supremacy" from Ben Tillman.[334][335][336][337] Helms never stated that segregation was morally wrong and expressed the belief that integration would have been achieved voluntarily but that it was forced by "outside agitators who had their own agendas".[338]
In 1990, former Charlotte mayor Harvey Gantt ran against Helms in a "bid to become the nation's only black senator" and "the first black elected to the Senate from the South since Reconstruction".[248][249] Helms aired a late-running television commercial titled "Hands", also known as "White Hands", that showed a white man's hands crumpling an employment rejection notice while a voiceover said, "You needed that job, and you were the best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority because of a racial quota. Is that really fair? Harvey Gantt says it is."[249][255][256][257][258] During the same election, Helms's campaign mailed 125,000 postcards to households in predominantly African-American precincts falsely claiming if people voted without updating their addresses on the electoral register since their last move they could go to jail.[339]
Helms was one of 52 senators to vote to confirm Clarence Thomas, an African American, to the Supreme Court as an associate justice in 1991.
In 1993, after Carol Moseley Braun, the first black woman in the Senate and the only black senator at the time, persuaded the Senate to vote against Helms's amendment to extend the patent of the United Daughters of the Confederacy insignia, which included the Confederate flag, Moseley Braun claimed Helms ran into her in an elevator, and that Helms turned to Senator Orrin Hatch and said, "Watch me make her cry. I'm going to make her cry. I'm going to sing "Dixie" until she cries," and proceeded to sing the song about "the good life" during slavery.[269][270][271][340][341][274] In 1999, Helms unsuccessfully attempted to block Moseley Braun's nomination to be United States Ambassador to New Zealand.[269]
Besides opposing civil rights and affirmative action legislation, Helms blocked many black judges from being considered for the federal bench, and black appointees to positions of prominence in the Federal Government. In one instance, he blocked attempts by President Bill Clinton over a period of years to appoint a black judge on the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.[333] Only when Helms's own judicial choices were threatened with blocking did attorney Roger Gregory of Richmond, Virginia get confirmed.[333]


The GOP is a nightmare of racism, fascism and destructive to the core. The party is anti science, anti environment and they just keep getting worse and worse.

Hang in there Jspur..it looks very dark right now but as lame a consolation as it is we are all in this together .

proud patriot

(101,094 posts)
7. Remember "I'mSorry.com" ?
Fri Nov 8, 2024, 01:09 AM
13 hrs ago

after the 2004 election that site was created and Americans posted videos apologizing for America's election of bush . https://imsorry.com/ the website is under construction .. I wanted to post an
apology to the world .. ah well



misanthrope

(8,139 posts)
11. I'd take Dubya over Mango Mussolini
Fri Nov 8, 2024, 01:55 AM
12 hrs ago

Any day of the week. The institutions were never endangered to the degree they are right now.

Elessar Zappa

(15,658 posts)
5. I was 21 also when the 2004 election occurred.
Fri Nov 8, 2024, 01:04 AM
13 hrs ago

It was my first vote and I was new to politics. I was so excited to vote for Kerry. When he lost, I was depressed for three weeks. Not just sadness but full on depression, I lost 15 pounds in those three weeks and spent days in bed, didn’t shower, ditched all my classes, it was bad.

jfz9580m

(15,342 posts)
8. Again I hear ya
Fri Nov 8, 2024, 01:12 AM
13 hrs ago

Last edited Fri Nov 8, 2024, 01:55 AM - Edit history (1)

I stopped paying attention to politics for a while after that. That was the last time I was this sure that the GOP candidate was so hopeless there was no way they could get elected.

When Obama ran in 2008 I thought “no way can he win. He is black. His middle name is Hussein” . I was shocked when he won. But then I had a rough patch in my own life and wasn’t paying attention.
By the time I started paying attention again it was 2020 and I was not sure Biden could pull it off. After that I was relieved but alarmed by the insurrection.

I never thought Trump would come back after that. I thought maybe the movement would stick around, but that he himself could get reelected after all that..
This time I just feel like this roller coaster is insane.

Skittles

(158,413 posts)
13. hey
Fri Nov 8, 2024, 02:38 AM
12 hrs ago

how are you feeling now? I find it very depressing to see my beloved country continuing to be disgraced by Donald Fucking Trump and to know how many people approve of that disgusting bully.

jfz9580m

(15,342 posts)
17. I think the famous Skittles "ass kicking skills" are needed
Fri Nov 8, 2024, 06:03 AM
8 hrs ago

;-/
(Oops I first thought you were replying to the op and then me). Either way it works!

Response to Sparkly (Original post)

markodochartaigh

(1,967 posts)
15. "It was a bad night for
Fri Nov 8, 2024, 02:46 AM
12 hrs ago

anyone who voted for him too, you just don't realize it yet." So true. Even for the 0.1% who support the extreme reich-wing. Their children could have ruled over a country similar to Denmark. Now they are likely to rule over a country similar to Somalia.

And for a light hearted Jimmy Kimmel/ Guillermo bit watch the first minute of this clip:

?feature=shared
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