TV Comedians’ Devotion to Mueller is Symptomatic of a Post-Irony Epoch

21st Century Wire says…

It’s official: the mainstream intelligensia have lost the plot, and yes, it’s definitely Trump’s fault. With each passing day, it’s becoming more obvious that truth is not the only casualty here, so is irony. 

To understand the depth of the irony at play, you should recall the uber-fashionable mainstream pronouncement that we in the valiant West are now living in a “post-truth world.” The irony of the Establishment’s appropriation of this term was lost on most people, not least of all the liberal intelligensia and champagne socialites who took so much pride in parroting their new etymological creation. For those who consider themselves aligned with the great and the good, the idea of post-truth is meant to depict the unholy scourge of fake news on social media which they firmly believe was engineered by the Kremlin to deceived the vulnerable hordes of uneducated, red hat-wearing deplorables, thus helping Donald J. Trump sweep into power in 2016. As ridiculous as that proposition might sound to the educated and informed person, members of the anti-Trump ‘Resistance’ still believe this to be true and their confidence is derived from the preponderance of evidence of Russian ‘Interference’ or ‘Collusion’ (to date, there is none), but rather because these narratives have been repeated incessantly over the last two years on outlets like CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, and The Guardian. The real irony is that it that they have constructed their own post-truth reality, constantly reinforced by narratives which remain devoid of any actual evidence to substantiate the central charge of ‘Trump-Russia Collusion.’ Their unshakable faith in this narrative is held firmly in place by a confirmation bias resembling religious dogma. So it’s the Establishment, led by their cluster of highly-paid (and highly partisan) TV comedians,  who are marinating their flock in post-truth narratives and constructing the very “post-truth world” they purport to warn society about.

As far as the epic Mueller Investigation goes, that level of religious belief has taken on some rather symbolism:

I was not joking about the proliferation of worshipful objects featuring Robert Mueller’s saintly visage https://t.co/EzmLbfOELH pic.twitter.com/QjTa95qXo1

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) December 10, 2018

The logical progression of the reverse flip of ‘post-truth’ leads us directly to post-irony. In other words, the professional joke-makers are working so hard to construct their own parallel reality that they are unable to to detect the ironic scene which they are now performing in – in which they have become the joke. Nowhere is this political and intellectual malaise more obvious than in mainstream American TV comedy which, with all its anti-Trump and anti-Russian zealotry, has reached such heights of banality that the comedians have become clowns, unknowingly parodying themselves.

Meanwhile, the world moves on, even if partisan stakeholders are still stuck at November 8, 2016.

The following is a passage from a recent article by Michael Tracy in The Spectator which illustrates the bizarre veneration of Robert Mueller III…

For those desperately awaiting the Trump presidency’s spectacular collapse, Robert Mueller has acquired an almost mythic status – forever looming in the background with astonishing ‘bombshells’ that could drop at any moment. Mueller himself never speaks, except through terse court filings, which lends his aura a mystical quality. His newfound fans have been known to light votive candles in his honor, wear apparel sporting his heroic visage, and spend day after day speculating on the internet about the time, date, and profundity of his next miraculous intervention.

Hopes for Mueller as a savior-figure are perhaps expressed most fervently in the realm of TV comedy, where the unifying theme is universal contempt of Trump. Hating the president is one thing: that’s natural, and perhaps even healthy. But the hate exhibited by contemporary late night comedians is so predictable and banal that it feels like a dreary commercial monoculture, with nothing interesting or surprising ever said. Firing off zesty jokes about Trump’s personal vulgarities is, today, the farthest thing from subversive humor, and generally evokes not laughter but a keen awareness that the joke-tellers are all operating from the same wearisome premise. So in search of a comic foil, the TV hosts have latched eagerly onto Mueller, the former FBI director and George W. Bush appointee.

The pinnacle of Trump-era comedic banality, Saturday Night Live, set a new standard for worshipful absurdity last week when they offered up a Mueller holiday tribute song, ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You,’ professing their anxious desire for him to issue a Final Report that lands Trump in the Big House. ‘I just want to sleep at night. Please make sure your case is tight,’ the assembled comediennes sang, while a portrait of Mueller wearing a Santa hat levitated overhead. The cutesy carol made reference to Trump-Russia bit-players such as Roger Stone and Alex Van Der Want – the latter a man so obscure that you have to be a real obsessive to have the slightest idea who he is. It says much that SNL writers apparently assume their viewers are as fanatically invested in every minute twist-and-turn of this saga as they evidently are.

21st Century Wire is an alternative news agency designed to enlighten, inform and educate readers about world events which are not always covered in the mainstream media.