Sarcasm does’t work on the internet because the general comprehension level there doesn’t rise above dense. Owing to the same common denominator, Poe’s Law applies to the corporate media too, except the adage doesn’t come up when content isn’t crowdsourced. When the public has no hand in the content creation it has no reason to scrutinize a usage manual. Presidential election troll Donald Trump makes utterances everyday that pundits seize upon to discredit which are obviously sarcastic. But to recognize sarcasm as intended would mean conceding to the implicit truth at which he is digging. The US regime did birth ISIS. If both the justice department or the FBI are uninterested in investigating illegal official emails, the Russians may as well be called upon to check into them. If nuclear weapons are too big to detonate, we ought to stop producing them.
“He won’t be the brightest, but he’ll be the whitest, and I’ll vote for that!” sings Randy Newman of his dream president, drawing the reaction he got when he penned “I’m a Redneck” or “Short People.” America needs a laugh track to know what’s funny. In real life we look at each other when we don’t get something, but online, those slow on the uptake know only to be “first” with an indignant response, as usual, humorless.
Newman’s youtube vid even includes his lyrics:
I’M DREAMING
George Washington was a white man
Adams and Jefferson too
Abe Lincoln was a white man, probably
And William McKinley the whitest of them all
Shot down by an immigrant in Buffalo
And a star fell out of heaven
I’m dreaming of a white President
Just like the ones we’ve always had
A real live white man
Who knows the score
How to handle money or start a war
Wouldn’t even have to tell me what we were fighting for
He’d be the right man
If he were a (everybody!)
I’m dreaming of a white President
Someone whom we can understand
Someone who knows where we’re coming from
And that the law of the jungle is not the law of this land
In deepest darkest Africa nineteen three
A little boy says, “Daddy, I just discovered relativity.
A big eclipse is coming
And I’ll prove it. Wait and see!”
“You better eclipse yourself outta here, son
And find yourself a tree
There’s a lion in the front yard
And he knows he won’t catch me.”
How many little Albert Einsteins
Cut down while in their prime?
How many little Ronald Reagans
Gobbled up before their time?
I don’t believe in evolution
But it does occur to me,
What if little William Howard Taft had to face a lion
Or God forbid, climb a tree?
Where would this country be?
I’m dreaming –Buh buh buh buh
‘Cause things have never been this bad
So he won’t run the hundred in ten seconds flat
So he won’t have a pretty jump shot
Or be an Olympic acrobat
So he won’t know much about global warming
Is that really where you’re at?
He won’t be the brightest, perhaps
But he’ll be the whitest
And I’ll vote for that
Whiter than this?
Yes
Whiter than this?
Yes
Whiter than this?
Yes
Whiter than this?
Oh yeah
