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Liberals, We've Got To Do Better: Comedy Edition

By Kristy Puchko | Politics | November 17, 2016 |

By Kristy Puchko | Politics | November 17, 2016 |

There’s hypocrisy aplenty to rally against and mock in politics. You can present that Republicans claim they’re all about family values, then run a presidential candidate with a string of broken marriages and a love child. You can point out how Trump claims to put America first, but then makes his products overseas. And you can employ humor to make these arguments more accessible and powerful.

Then there’s this.

This is fucked up.

I get it. It’s meant to be satirical, pointing out how conservatives are so afeared of immigrants taking their jobs, but HEY NOW AN IMMIGRANT WILL BE FIRST LADY! It’s xenophobic, but in an ironic way. Yeah. That’s bullshit. It’s like those hipster guys who think they’re so progressive, it’s cool for them to make sexist jokes. You know, ironically! Because you know they don’t mean it like that. Nope. It’s still fucked. It’s still bigotry. You’re sinking to their level. Yes, even George Takei. This “joke” attacks Melania Trump for the sin of being an immigrant. Not for her politics. Just, hey, she’s not from here.

Making matters worse, some conservatives who don’t understand that photoshop exists think this is a real, unaltered image of Michelle Obama. So congrats, liberals! You’ve proved that a group you fear was fueled to vote by false information is still affected by it, and you are using that to make the FLOTUS you admire look like an asshole. But worst of all, this was the original photo:

FLOTUS made that sign to stand up for women abroad who needed a voice, not to mock them. She was protesting the kidnapping of 200+ Nigerian girls. And we’re twisting it to smugly chuckle at conservatives. We all deserve Michelle side-eye for this shit.

We need to be better than this. When they go low, we go high, remember? We need our jokes to be sharp, smart, and punching up. We need to keep ourselves to the standard of Billy Eichner’s latest Billy on the Street game: “Immigrant or Real American?”

This is how it’s done.

Kristy Puchko can’t even sometimes.