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I love satire.
Satire and its purpose are perhaps best described as ”a technique employed by writers to expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society by using humor, irony, exaggeration or ridicule… Usually, a satire is a comical piece of writing which makes fun of an individual or a society to expose its stupidity and shortcomings…”
Good satire is difficult to write, but one person who excels at it is Andy Borowitz, the New York Times best-selling author and comedian who publishes the hilarious “Borowitz Report” at the New Yorker.
I periodically try my hand at it, albeit not very successfully.
Nevertheless, the present political circus and its cast of characters have made it a little easier for novices like this author to venture into satire. One need only take outlandish and outrageous statements or actions by our politicians, add or change a few words or context and, voilà, you have satire — no additional “humor, irony, exaggeration or ridicule” needed. What you get is “satire imitating life.”
There are, however, at least two problems with satire these days.
One is that satire comes so close to describing real life that readers often have a difficult time telling one from another.
Another problem, and certainly one that is attributable to our deep political divisions and other factors, is the mistrust of and personal hatred which exist towards the present occupant of the White House.
Take a recent piece at the Huffington Post ridiculing the GOP’s reaction to President Obama’s use of executive orders. The article announces the “breaking news” that the president has just signed “the mother of all executive orders: an order giving him constitutional authority to issue executive orders.” The article goes on to combine this “historic” event with a Borowitz “report” that the president had signed an executive order closing Congress the same day.
Almost half of the nearly 400 comments elicited by the piece are from outraged Republican readers who berate the president and his “executive actions” and also believe the silly “reactions” by the GOP leadership.
The fact that the piece is clearly tagged “satire,” is posted in the “Comedy” section of the Post and that numerous readers attempt to point out that it is satire, apparently did not alleviate the concern of many that “this president” had actually taken the actions described in the satire or was capable of doing so.
An earlier piece at the Post pokes fun at a reinvented Mitt Romney’s — and his party’s — sudden interest in income equality and newly acquired compassion for the “47 percent” in a parody that has Romney promising to lift “indigent CEOs, down-and-out plutocrats and destitute Republican dignitaries” out of poverty, if he is elected.
Again, a majority of readers — Democrats this time — believed that Romney actually expressed such intentions.
Yes, political life imitates satire with so much fidelity these days that it has become hard to tell the difference.
Take a lawyer opposed to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) who is unwittingly citing a satirical letter in his quest to sabotage the ACA before the U.S. Supreme Court.
As reported at ThinkProgress, Michael Carvin, the attorney for the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell, is citing a letter — “a kind of prank that state officials played on HHS” — penned by officials from seven states to the Department of Health and Human Services in 2012.
ThinkProgress explains:
But a satirical letter from the states does not help Mr. Carvin’s case any more than a “news” report from The Onion does.
.
If anything, Carvin’s attempt to bolster his case by unwittingly citing a practical joke is a microcosm for King v. Burwell as a whole. The central premise of Carvin’s argument is that a few words of the law can be read out of context in a way that sabotages much of the rest of the law. Once those words are read in their proper context — a context that includes a passage defining the word “Exchange” so that state-run and federally-run exchanges will be treated identically under the law — Carvin’s entire argument falls apart.
Read the rest of the story here and make sure you distinguish satire from “satire.”
Lead image: www.shutterstock.com
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.