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Part 2 of 2

Matt and Trey: Never Trumpers

On November 4, 2008, Barack Obama defeated John McCain in the general election for president, and the next evening, South Park had an episode about it. The episode titled “About Last Night…” featured Obama supporters celebrating his victory in the streets and McCain supporters commiserating their loss. It was quite a shock to see this episode. Did South Park really make a whole episode in less than 24 hours? Or did they make two episodes in advance, one in case of an Obama victory and one for a McCain victory?

Well, it turned out that they only made one episode. They were so sure of an Obama victory, South Park had no Plan B for if McCain had won. It was an incredibly ballsy gamble, but it paid off and only enhanced Matt and Trey’s reputation and credibility as the golden boys who could do no wrong.

South Park would later make similar gambles betting against Trump and lose. Repeatedly.

Donald Trump announced his campaign for president on June 16, 2015, exactly 3 months before the debut of South Park’s 19th season. By this point, Matt and Trey were no longer youthful rebels but middle-aged family men wealthy beyond the dreams of avarice. Their Broadway musical The Book of Mormon reportedly grosses $19 million a month. I don’t know how much of that goes directly into their pockets, but I imagine it’s enough to make South Park a hobby by comparison and will likely keep them rolling in cash long after South Park is off the air.

South Park was initially not optimistic on Trump’s chances. In fact, they were so certain that his campaign would be a flash in the pan that they thought they could wrap up the whole matter in one episode and be done with it.

The resulting episode was “Where My Country Gone?,” the second episode of the Season 19. When it aired, it was immediately clear that the golden duo had no understanding of what Trump or Trumpism were really about.

In the episode, South Park is flooded with refugees fleeing Canada. It turns out that a Trump-like populist had arisen, and the people of Canada had elected him Prime Minister for no reason other than they found him funny and enjoyed his outrageous antics. But one he was elected, it was a nightmare, and it wasn’t funny anymore. Hot take there, guys.

On top of this, this Canadian Trump had erected a wall to keep Americans from coming in to Canada and raping their women. Nice false moral equivalence there, guys. You trying to insult my intelligence?

So convinced was South Park of Donald Trump’s defeat that they killed off the Canadian Trump before the end of the episode. No reference to Trump was made for the rest of the season.

“Where My Country Gone?” was the one blemish on a season that, in this writer’s opinion, was actually South Park’s masterpiece.

While South Park had always had the occasional multi-episode stories, starting with Season 18 South Park began experimenting with season-long story arcs, and they continued this into Season 19. It begins with the school getting a new principal, PC Principle. PC Principle is a muscular fratboy-acting “bro” type who is fanatic about political correctness.

Meanwhile, a Whole Foods store opens up in town, and the citizens of South Park acquire bourgeois hipster tastes. As the season progresses, the city of South Park, once a place of folksy charm, slowly gentrifies and descends into soulless SJW hipsterism. While South Park is hopelessly cucked on the National Question, when it comes to satirizing political correctness, few do it better. If you watch only one season of South Park, watch Season 19 but skip “Where My Country Gone?”

However, Season 19 would prove to be South Park’s victory lap. Fonzie was strapping on his water skis getting ready for his big jump.

Season 19 wrapped up in December 2015 and would not return until mid-September 2016, less than two months away from the general election. In the 9 months in between, Donald Trump defied all expectations by crushing the GOP primary field and securing the nomination. South Park, for once, had gotten it wrong.

You would have thought that during those nine months, the South Park chaps would have done some soul searching. Really dig down and try to understand what this whole Trump thing was about. Trumpism is a strange a complex beast, but Matt and Trey are bright guys and young enough dogs to learn new tricks. Well, if you thought that, you thought wrong.

With Season 20, South Park started another season long-story arc. Having already killed off Trump (sort of) in “Where My Country Gone?,” Mr. Garrison, a nativist and populist now running for president, becomes South Park’s new Trump avatar. It becomes clear early on that South Park was banking on a Trump loss and that the season’s storyline was progressing towards a Trump-loss climax.

Season 20 begins with strange talking berries called “member berries” who appear all over South Park and say random nostalgic things like “Remember the Bionic Man? Remember Chewbacca? Remember when you were safe? Remember when marriage was between a man and a woman?” This was meant to be South Park’s explanation for Trumpism: that it was all based on nostalgia. Just people pining for the good ol’ days and trying to revive a past long gone. South Park clearly believes (or at least wants you to believe) that this is foolish. “Times are changing, and you’ve gotta change with ’em, maaaaaaaaaan.”

Well, this is easy for South Park to say, because no matter what the demographics of America look like in the real world, you can be sure that the fictional town of South Park will continue to be + 98% white. Comedy Central isn’t dumping Somali refugees in South Park. There is no forced diversity in South Park. No section 8 housing. And there are the same number of POC children at South Park Elementary as there were 20 years ago. It is Matt and Trey, not us Trumpians, who are living in a bubble.

In Season 20, South Park did something it had never done before: it endorsed a candidate for president, going all out for Hillary. Not directly but through their Trump avatar Mr. Garrison.

As the season progressed, Mr. Garrison realizes that he has no idea what he is doing and that if elected that he will be unable to fulfill the duties as president and begins trying to throw the election. He pleads with his supporters (and the South Park audience) to vote for Hillary because he will be incompetent. When this doesn’t work, he says inflammatory things to alienate them, but they instead praise him for his honesty. Eventually, he says some things about women that disgust people (an allusion to famous Pussygate tape), and it looks like he is certain to lose after all. Everything appeared to be going according to plan for South Park.

The general election was to be November 8, and a new South Park was scheduled for November 9. Matt and Trey were certain that they would repeat the same feat as they did 8 years earlier with “About Last Night…”

But then Donald Trump won the 2016 general election. South Park had gotten it wrong again.

South Park in the Era of Trump

Having once again made no plans in case of a Republican victory, South Park were forced to do a hasty rewrite. The result was the November 9 episode “Oh, Jeez” which actually was banged together in 24 hours. Not only that, but there were three remaining episodes of the season that required major rewrites as they all involved subplots about Mr. Garrison dealing with his election loss. South Park hobbled on, but the rest of the season was unremarkable.

South Park returned September 2017, eight months into Trump’s presidency, intent on being sore losers. With Season 21, South Park is ready to go to war not just with Trump but with populism, the Alt Right, and ultimately White America itself. In Season 21, mad with Trump Derangement Syndrome and drunk on bourgeois complacency, South Park at last jumps the shark.

I will discuss four episodes of Season 21 as examples South Park’s disgraceful fall.

1. “White People Renovating Houses”

This was the Season 21 debut, and it came out one month after Charlottesville. Hopes were high that South Park would finally do an episode “about the Alt Right.” While the episode uses some imagery from the Unite the Right rally, it was not exactly “about the Alt Right” per se but about populism and nativism in general. And the whole episode is one big strawman argument.

The plot is so stupid and dishonest I’m not even going to get into it. The TL/DR is that nativists are dumb, automation is taking jobs away people’s jobs, stop blaming the immigrants, it’s your fault for not going to college. That’s their message to populists.

I don’t understand why anyone thinks automation is an argument for immigration. It’s a powerful argument against immigration. If humans are losing jobs to machines, then why are we bringing in more humans? This is nonetheless a common liberal talking point. Automation is a completely separate issue from runaway immigration.

It was a weak attempt at deflecting away from the issue of immigration and avoiding the real issues affecting people’s lives. “Well, it’s not just the immigrants! It’s automation too!” is just a deflection. Really, it is an argument worthy of Chewbacca.

The show also portrayed “the Alt Right” as a boomer movement more like the Tea Party. They used the working class “they took our jobs” guys from “Goobacks” episode to represent Trumpian populists. But Unite the Right was mostly millennials, and Trump is wildly popular with young Republicans.

This seems like a missed opportunity, seeing that they already had a racist and antisemitic character. It would be more realistic and accurate to have an episode about Cartman joining the Alt Right. But instead they turned in a very dishonest episode. South Park either does not understand or is blatantly misrepresenting populism.

2. “Franchise Prequel”

In this episode, South Park takes on fake news. Coon and Friends, the South Park children’s pretend superhero group, are trying to get a deal with Netflix for a movie series, but Butters in his Professor Chaos persona is posting fake news about them on Facebook and ruining their reputation.

Now this episode makes some questionable assumptions about “fake news.” One, that Fake News is effective or changes anyone’s mind. Powerful people are rarely taken down by fake news. Bullshit about powerful people will usually get debunked pretty quickly. I’m sure that debunking costs the Left some resources, but I don’t think there is any real evidence that fake news is decisive. As far as I can tell, fake news plays to people’s confirmation bias. Conservative fake news is porn for low-IQ conservatives, and vice versa. Both the Left and the Right can see through each other’s fake news.
South Park also throws Russia and Putin into this episode and scolds them for distributing fake news in America. Oh, dear. South Park has drunk the Russia Kool-Aid. Now this is getting embarrassing.

There is a subplot involving the kids trying to get a movie deal which is kind of funny. But other than that, this is New York Times stuff. Very sad.

3. “Hummels and Heroin”

This is South Park’s take on the opiate epidemic. It revolves around senior citizens in an old folks’ home selling their drugs to entertainers who keep overdosing on them.

Now, senior citizens selling their drugs is a real thing and a real problem. But that is also a minor issue in the complex overall opiate crisis. A far more pressing issue is the heroin being brought in by Mexican gangs. No one disputes the link between heroin and Mexican drug gangs. But South Park tries to deflect from immigration again with, “Well, old white people are selling opiates too!” South Park will do anything to avoid having an honest conversation about immigration.

Interestingly, this episode features a parody rap song by one Killer Mike whose Wikipedia page describes as an “American rapper, actor, and activist.” Uh oh . . . Let’s scroll down to the Activism section. “Mike is an outspoken social activist focusing on subjects including social equality, police brutality, and systemic racism.”

OK, I think we know where this is going. The guys who pioneered anti-SJWism are now hanging out with SJWs. After the Ferguson fiasco, South Park produced “Naughty Ninjas” which was quite sympathetic to the police. Now here’s this idiot from BLM . . .

4. “Splatty Tomato”

“Splatty Tomato” is South Park’s final betrayal. With “Splatty Tomato,” South Park’s journey to the dark side is complete. This is where South Park finally goes full-on anti-white. It had been brewing, but at last, here comes the long awaited shark jump.

Like most of the episodes in Season 21, the plot is stupid and does even make sense as a metaphor. President Garrison, South Park’s Trump avatar is living in the wild and on the loose in South Park. He’s scaring the children because “Orange Man Bad.” The people of South Park want Mr. Garrison to leave, but one family, the Whites, is actively helping him and undermining all attempts to remove Garrison.

The patriarch of the White family is portrayed as a stereotypical Angry White Man who Matt and Trey seem to use to represent Trump’s white loyalists. He’s somewhere halfway between Archie Bunker and Falling Down. He makes a lot of angry complaints on behalf of white people which sound perfectly reasonable to my ears, but South Park makes no attempt to address the merits of these grievances or offer any counter-arguments. You’re just supposed to think the guy is a dick for having any grievances at all.

Get it? If you didn’t, the TL:DR on this episode is “Orange man bad and everyone wants him gone, but white people won’t stop supporting him! Stop supporting him, white people.” South Park, once one of the most unique voices on television, has gone full NPC. I can’t go on. Thinking about this episode just makes me angry.

#CancelSouthPark

In promotion of Season 22, South Park released the hashtag #CancelSouthPark and there is some debate as to whether that is a sincere desire of Matt and Trey or an ironic marketing gimmick.

Maybe they really do want out. Maybe Matt and Trey want to be put out of their misery. They don’t want to be seen as giving up. They don’t want it to look like they’re quitting because Trump beat them. Being cancelled would save them some face.

Maybe Matt and Trey have figured out that the future belongs to one of two groups of people: the white populists that South Park hates or the SJWs that South Park also hates, and the center will not hold.

Or perhaps having burned bridges with the Republicans who were the core of their audience, they are cynically trying to bring back old fans who might return to say goodbye to an old friend that they lost touch with. Like how bands declare their next tour to be their last, but then they are back against a few years later.

Well, if that was plan, it clearly failed. Ratings for Season 22 are at a series low.

In South Park’s defense, they have corrected course in Season 22 slightly by not talking about Trump at all. Matt and Trey have finally figured out that going after Trump was destroying their ratings.

However, they did have a two-episode story (“Time to Get Cereal” and “Nobody Got Cereal?”) where South Park officially reverses their position on climate change and reveals that ManBearPig is real after all. Now, I do not have strong opinions on climate change, but South Park’s climate skepticism was one of the big things that helped give them street cred with Republicans. They are clearly willing to lose more Right-wing fans. Maybe they are trying to get canceled.

South Park is not yet completely unwatchable. It’s certainly not as bad as The Simpsons was at its worst. South Park can still shine when it sticks to its specialties: PC and celebrity culture. “The Problem with a Poo,” an episode about people using social media while on ambien, was quite good. But overall, Season 22 has been well below average. The magic is gone.

Matt and Trey remind me of Steve McQueen’s character in The Cincinnati Kid.

In The Cincinnati Kid, McQueen plays The Kid, a hotshot stud poker player. The Kid has the magic touch and never loses. Throughout the film, a black kid occasionally challenges the Kid to a gambling game involving tossing quarter which the Kid agrees to and wins every time.

The Kid is the best card player in New Orleans, and his talents are such to attract to the attentions of the national champ, an old and experienced gentleman card player known as the Man (played by Edward G. Robinson). The Kid’s friend Shooter warns him about the Man. Losing to the Man does not mean you just lose your money. The Man psychologically breaks you. Shooter once thought that he was the best stud card player in the world but was never as good again after playing against the Man.

The Kid and the Man have their final showdown. The Man emerges triumphant, and the Kid is dumbstuck and deeply in debt to the Man. The Kid walks into the alleyway where he sees the black kid, who challenges him to another rematch. The Kid thinks that this is as good a time as any to start a new winning streak, so he accepts the challenge but loses to the black kid for the first time ever. The Kid, who once could never lose, has now lost twice in a row. His magic has escaped him.

South Park were the smart-ass kids from Gen X who tried to take on Trump, and the experience psychologically broke them. Now half their fanbase hates them. Perhaps it really is time to #CancelSouthPark.