Another conservative Daily Show launches -- and divebombs

[rocktivity]

Last edited Fri Aug 25, 2023, 06:27 PM - Edit history (8)

The Flipside with Michael Loftus offers a fresh perspective by taking on the flipside of the news, commentary, and pop-culture that America now calls the status quo. Featuring interviews with thought-provoking and diverse guests, fearless satire poking fun at the powers-that-be, and loads of fun, The Flipside with Michael Loftus is a show not to be missed!

Left versus right-wing humor has been well-analyzed at subject at DU. From Plaid Adder:

...(D)isrespect for authority is the foundation of real comedy...Mocking the powerful has the positive effect of reminding everyone that though these figures may be powerful, they are not superhuman, and can be resisted/outwitted/defied... Mocking the vulnerable is just bullying, and all it does is pander to the audience's worst instincts...

From me:

Right-wing humor...can't mock its own power structure without holding it accountable. Left-wing humor is rooted in pointing out how dangerous, phony, hypocritical, immoral, or just plain illegal the inherent authoritarianism of conservatism is.

...(W)hen Stewart and Colbert claim to be in the fake news business, they're faking. The method in their madness is that they simply point out how fake the REAL news is. Last night's TDS featured a segment where CNN turned Anna Nicole Smith's "Fridge of Death" into an investigation of the contents of the CNN break room refrigerator, followed by a segment on a group who like to swim in the northern Atlantic in the winter. The story that's supposed to be "real" news feels fake; the story that sounds like it must be fake is real. And THAT'S why we laugh--even when it's the Dems who get skewered...

With these precepts in mind, how does The Flipside stand up?

I guess I'm supposed be impressed that Lotfus is willing to skewer Republicans, but does he really? He bemoans how the GOP had the White House and Congress but broke their promise not to make government bigger. But then he says that Obama came in and spent even more -- is that actually true, or is that part of the joke? Reagan led us into prosperity without the help of big media? He led us into trickle up prosperity and bag people, and big media was a LOT smaller back then. And he suggests that Republicans stop being power hungry hypocrites -- but that wouldn't fix the party, that would implode it.

Flipside seems to be about mocking a strawman conservative power structure ("Don't wear jeans! Fix your hair!") -- which preserves and respects the inherent authoritarianism of its real one -- and using that as the basis on which to pass itself off as being at least as "fair and balanced" as Stewart and Colbert.


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