Oh how I love political satire. It gives me warm and fuzzy feelings the likes of which were once attained only by drinking copious amounts of vodka. And the Boston Globe gave me the warm fuzzies with their editorial cover for the Sunday edition.
That’s the PDF Copy. On the bottom left is the requisite ‘Hey, this is an imagined front page from a year from now if Trump is elected’ notice.
And so many people are so offended, it astounds me. The best commentary I’ve heard [literally] so far, is from yesterday’s edition of On Point with Tom Ashbrook, on NPR [you can find it here.]
OK, first, let’s ignore the Donald Trump part of this and look at what the Globe did.
1. They created a mock front page.
OK, let’s all remember that if you’re reading the print version of the paper, this is page K1. Not A1. K is the opinion and editorials page. It’s 11 sections from the front. No one in their right mind should have ever thought this was a real front page. If you’re reading the online version, it’s less clear, but still well stated that this isn’t real, it’s an editorial.
It is fully within the preview of any news organization to engage in editorializing the news. It is what they do. It’s what they’ve been doing for hundreds of years. HUNDREDS! To be honest, I heard the On Point story before I read the globe front page. And oh my god. The things the people say. I’ll get to that later.
Right, so we’ve established that the Globe stated that this was an editorial, that it wasn’t real, and that it is well within their mandate to editorialize the news. So… on we go to the actual Trump part of this.
2. They detail issues Trump has raised.
If you listen to the interview with Kathleen Kingsbury on On Point, or the NPR news story from Sunday about the Trump page, or read the article from the Daily Beast where they speak with Editorial Page Editor Ellen Clegg, the Globe did not do this lightly.
They painstakingly and apparently over a significant matter of time, went through Trump’s tweets, talking papers, speeches, etc., before they did this.
The things on the mock front page are all based on shit Donald Trump has said.
Please, let that sink in for a second.
All of it, from killing ISIS families, to deporting 12 million people in two years, to the ridiculous slander law he wants to change [oh god I could go on about that forever but I’ll save that for another time], this is all shit Trump has said.
Now, I understand, politicians say all kinds of shit on the campaign trail to get themselves elected. Very little of it makes it into law, especially if they’re dealing with a hostile congress. But, this is satire, and it’s over the top on purpose to make you think about the possibilities.
Rioting in the streets if illegal immigrants are deported en masse? Yeah, I can see it. It’s our neighbors, our friends, our families in some cases. Yes. It is possible.
US Military forces refusing to kill civilians who are related to ISIS members? You bet your sweet bippy. While the military is tasked with following the orders of the president as Commander-in-Chief, that’s only if those orders are legal. And frankly, that would be Trump ordering troops to commit war crimes.
Trade wars and the collapse of the stock market, and the subsequent collapse of the economy? Seriously, tariffs are a tit-for-tat business. We raise them on China, China raises them on us. And on and on and on. That’s how it works. I work in the auto industry. All the progress the Big Three have made since the Great Recession will be wiped out in a matter of minutes if they can’t continue to buy cheap shit. Also, frankly, there are a lot of car parts manufactured in Asia, that we no longer have the capacity to produce here, let alone for the same price.
3. They researched their positions with political analysts, economists, etc.
OK, I am not an economist, a political analyst, a business guru, or any of that. I am a well-educated, well-informed, well-read member of the voting populace. I can draw the same conclusions that the Globe did. But they didn’t ask me. They asked people who do that for a living. While it’s all pretty common sense to me, it’s not necessarily to everyone. So let me say this again, The Boston Globe asked experts to find out what would happen if Trump were elected and his policies were enacted. This is what they got. It’s not fanatical bullshit, it’s not stupid, as Trump has said in response. It was well thought out and as well researched as a [dystopian] futuristic article could be.
Also, just so you know, the Globe is a Republican leaning paper. They endorsed John Kasich for the NH Primary. They are not a super liberal paper.
One more thing. If you do listen to On Point from Monday, there are a number of people who call in, as it is a call-in show. Some of them are more interesting to listen to than others.
I have two callers that I’d like to comment on. The first is a woman who was deeply offended by the fact the Globe said soldiers were disobeying an order. It’s unclear whether or not she realized the scope of the satire, despite the fact that Ashbrook asked her several times. Yes, ma’am, soldiers would indeed disobey that order. [I imagine the 900,000 ICE agents that would need to be hired to deport 12 million people in24 months probably would too, eventually.]
The other caller I wanted to mention was, in fact, an active duty military gentleman. He wasn’t upset with the Globe for saying that soldiers weren’t following orders. He points out that they are only duty bound to follow legal orders.
He is however upset that the Globe wasted time on an editorial when they should have been reporting the news.
People just don’t get it.
