This week’s national crisis? How coarse our political discourse has become. The country is “reeling” according to one news network from the Twitter comments from Roseanne Barr and the on-air statements of Samantha Bee. “Is it even possible to have a civil discussion about politics any more?!?!”
My question would be “Since when are Roseanne Barr and Samantha Bee considered part of the ‘political discourse’?” The last time I checked, neither of them were elected officials. Neither have ever worked for an elected official. Neither have run for public office, worked on a political campaign or have been employed by what we like to call “political think tanks”. They are comediennes–paid to make people laugh, not to provide educated or insightful commentary.
Bee’s “status” comes from being a fake “correspondent” on the fake “news show” The Daily Show. She didn’t actually cover Congressional hearings, sit in on Capitol Hill or White House press briefings or develop sources within politics. Just like you and me, she watched legitimate news operations’ coverage of actual news and then had the writers on the show (also not reporters or political insiders) write some funny lines for her to say as she stood in front of a green screen and humorous footage was shown behind her.
And the same goes for others that have been lumped into this “political commentator” category: Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, Jimmy Kimmel, John Oliver and Dennis Miller. All of them are comedians–who are pretending to be political experts. Because he is on HBO, Oliver gets away with being even more profane in his references to people he doesn’t like than Samantha Bee was in referring to Ivanka Trump–and nobody has said “boo” about those comments. And thanks to his vast knowledge of obscure references, Miller could have put out a Tweet with the same exact sentiments as Roseanne’s–alluding to a 17th century Chinese regional rebel group and a 1935 French fantasy film–but it would have taken everybody a half hour to determine the context and nobody has time for that.
And back to Bee’s comments, she did her job in that moment. The audience in studio laughed and cheered–which is exactly what TBS is paying her to do. Just like the crowd at the White House Correspondents Dinner laughed at Michelle Wolf ripping on Sarah Huckabee Sanders. It’s called knowing your audience–and good comedians do that.
Now, Martha Raddatz or George Will or Paul Ryan start referring to women as “feckless female body parts” on the Sunday morning talk shows or on the floor of Congress, I’ll start worrying about the “political discourse”. And if you would like some intelligent criticism consider following Senators Ben Sasse or Jeff Flake on Twitter. They aren’t trying to be “shocking” for ratings.
