this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2025
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I ponder that sometimes. I wonder if a comedian has made such a solid leader because a comedian's role to society is to speak truths that go unheard, and to make unbearable times bearable. I find myself questioning if every leader shouldn't be a comedian
Al Franken was an amazing senator and I would abso-fucking-loutely support him running for president. On the other hand, Joe Rogan is also considered a comedian ๐คฎ
Reminds me of this character in Watchmen. Calls himself the Comedian, but never makes "jokes" in a classical sense. He is cruel, overly patriotic, violent against protesters, seems to enjoy massacres in Vietnam. Only one other person understands that he is actually against these things and tries to show them this hyperbolic mirror of their own totalitarian views. But everybody else doesn't understand it, they take it face value and admire his "patriotism". He never breaks role until the last moment (or even then just in the movie?).
"But the country's disintegrating. What's happened to America? What's happened to the American dream?"
"It came true. You're lookin' at it.โ
as i recall the characters who get "the joke" are the comedian, rorschach, ozymandias, and dr manhatten, each of whom respond to the trauma of getting the joke entirely differently. the comedian embraces it, laughs at it, lets it consume him. basically decides "the world is fucked up, i might as well personally have fun." i don't recall him ever showing any sympathy towards the world. his terrible actions are ultimately justified by that he is the stand-in for captain america: his violence is government backed. the crucial difference between captain america and the comedian is that captain america represents what america could and should be, a future for us to work towards, whereas the comedian represents what america is, a present for us to move away from. i think that aspect is a very clever piece of writing by alan moore as the time when he was creating the watchmen was very politically different from when jack kirby was creating captain america. i've been thinking a lot lately about how incredible jack kirby's explorations of fascism, militarism, and jewish identity are all through his career. i think alan moore did jack kirby justice in taking a lot of captain america's tropes and superimposing them onto a fascist. i think jack kirby did an incredible job of showing us the lunacy of nazis in his super villains (something i didn't give him enough credit for until this year when i saw how these freaks operate when the mask of respectability is removed), but by alan moore's time, the value of an aspirational symbol for what america could be was diminished as america turned more and more fascist, making super imposing captain america's tropes onto a fascist felt uncomfortable and upsetting. but also, having now seen trump voters up close and personal, it's incredibly accurate to the mindset. both jack kirdy and alan moore did an incredible job depicting fascism in the hopes we the people would see their work and grow and change.
unfortunately not enough of us did
Holy shit. I'm wasting my time on YouTubers' analyses of media.. and apparently also on reading Watchmen 3x and watching every film and show and trying to understand it. You're brilliant.
i have the advantage over a lot of these media analysts that: i'm old. i was there for the comics industry bubble. i was there before comic book movies were respected. i was there before we got tired of every movie and tv show being part of the mcu.
i'm also a gigantic nerd. i've been posting online since the 90s. i joined twitter when it was an experiment to see what would happen if people could post to the internet without an internet connected device. i was using linux in 2002.
as such, a deep dive into these comic book artists, what they thought, and what their backgrounds were has given me some insights about how the development of comic books as an artistic medium has a lot of parallels to other countercultural movements, like hip hop. comic books are a community. the artists who make them are all in a conversation with eachother about what right and wrong is as they try to influence us, the readers. it's no coincidence that the origins of both DC and Marvel are deeply rooted in the production of military propaganda. these were all people who knew about propaganda, media, and message dissemination who wanted to use those skills to influence the public.
Entirely Unironically:
AOC for Pres, Jon Stewart for Vice Pres, 2028.
This campaign would stand a chance at actually winning.
AOC and Stewart are both well known, basically celebrities.
AOC is actually capable of recreating the mix of genuine charisma combined with well articulated, meaningful actual policy points that Obama did in 07.
Jon Stewart is obviously no stranger to politics, and is possibly the literally ideal 'attack dog' that the VP usually plays in a campaign, for an anti corporate / billionaire campaign.
Let AOC be as principled and erudite as JFK and Stewart be as cutting and 'no bullshit' as Lyndon Jonhson.
...
Are either of them perfect?
No.
Are they basically the best possible options?
Well, Bernie is awesome, but he's too old.
Absolutely utilize him as much as possible during the campaign, be at every rally, fucking have him be the head of a leftist version of what Elon is, god knows by the time 2028 rolls around, the executive will have formally and informally assumed way too much power.
Put Bernie in charge of purging the Trump/Elon pukes, directing the revokation or countermanding of everyone of Trump's executive orders, undoing Citizens United, and reassembling the checks and balances.
...
Other than that... are any other democrats or leftists anywhere near as well known and widely, generally liked by non fascists? Who aren't bought and paid for by corpos?
Some surveys seem to support that this direction could have worked. As a German, I supported the course of the Democrats to go with a presidential candidate and policies that democratic conservatives could get behind. About half of the voters in the US want less democracy, more totalitarianism. For a chance to stop Trump, it seemed reasonable just get all supporters of freedom and democracy behind a single candidate. But maybe I was wrong.
I have my doubts that there will be an election in 2028.
Apparently a recent poll said 71% of Trump voters are against cuts to Medicaid and SNAP (food benefits for very poor Americans).
So... that would mean more than 2/3 of Trump voters are astonishingly stupid, ignorant, easily swayed into a cult, as these cuts were very obviously the intent of Trump, and outright stated goals of Project 2025, which was created almost entirely by former Trump administration staff.
... But, that makes sense, as the average adult American literacy level is that of a 5th grader (10yo to 11yo), and 21% of adult Americans are functionally illiterate, with literacy skills at or below a 2nd grade level (7yo to 8yo).
As do I.
Krasnov 2028?
Asteroid YR4 2028.
Redirect! Rebuild!
rofl
Ya know, this sounds downright plausible. More so than any other ticket I can imagine anyway, middle-of-the-road corporate democrats sure are played out, but hey, from what I understand the Dems literally argued after the election about whether they didn't go left enough or didn't go "center" enough, so.
I think it might be part that and part the fact that the war happened in the first place. Like, before the full scale invasion, he really wasn't that remarkable. But I guess sometimes hard times do actually make strong men.
Yeah but plenty of leaders have been absolute shit under pressure is kind of my point