What Really Stood Out About South Park’s ‘Sermon On The Mount…’
No, it’s not the weiner jokes…
So, ah, we gotta talk about this, right? Matt Parker and Trey Stone were two of the most low-key supporters of the GOP party. This time around, they did the unthinkable: they actually made fun of Donald Trump’s second term in their show.
Okay — maybe that’s not the unthinkable part. The unthinkable park is that they went so far as to show Trump banging Satan (while potentially being secretly Saddam Hussein) and feature an AI-made (?) commercial involving Trump’s penis speaking out loud.
There have been a lot of barbs in this show:
Trump forcing kids to sit with Jesus.
Jesus being afraid that Trump will sue him for saying he doesn’t want to be in school.
Trump suing South Park for libel or whatever…
Everyone was transfixed on the Trumpy part of the episode and I understand why. It’s a shock. However, that wasn’t the part of the episode that stuck with me.
The part of the episode everyone ignored was Cartman’s arc.
Basically, this part was what got me (pardon the green screen). Cartman spent years of his life talking about how much he hated Jews, acting like a misogynistic fool, and hating everyone who wasn’t white and male.
It was actually his shtick for as long as South Park was alive. That was his thing. He was the asshole who hated everyone and made life miserable, right?
This is the one episode where Cartman got triggered. A final straw, PBS being canceled, got him to break. He realized something that a lot of people just like him realized: the dog finally caught the car wheel.
Cartman got what he wanted.
Cartman got to live in a world where woke is dead.
Cartman got the fascism he always said he wanted, just like Hitler.
But unlike what he thought would happen, Cartman wasn’t happy. He was confused, lost, and maybe even a little horrified at what happened. He didn’t come out on top.
It didn’t give him power. People still hated him. People still lived their lives. The only difference is that now, he is starting to lose some of the things he enjoyed — including his sense of normalcy.
I’m starting to see this with a lot more people just like Cartman IRL.
You know, being a conservative just for social points or as a way to bully others is a thing in many circles. For Cartman, his hate was his way of trying to cover up things, maybe insecurities, maybe something deeper-seated.
Well, he got what he kept saying he wanted.
I don’t think he really wanted that. He didn’t really want “woke” to die out because then it means he had no more enemy group. He had no more strawmen to blame for his being unwanted and unliked. No “woke” means that he’s left alone with his thoughts.
One could argue that “woke” could continue, ever shifting to whatever out-group the party chooses at that moment. However, there’s a certain point where even the most loyal insiders won’t fit the bill — and that’s where fascism tends to collapse.
If he’s like a lot of the edgelords running around right now, Cartman never really wanted to see how much he’d lose in fascism. Or rather, he may have mistakenly thought it’d treat him better than it did, but it didn’t and here we are.
There is a sizable number of people just like Cartman: lost without a target.
Trump had the ability to work a campaign around non-promises and bullying behavior. If you’ve ever seen school bullies, people insecure about their lot in life, or people who just feel like they’ve been outcasted, you’ve probably seen them.
Incels are hateful because they feel they were outcasted without a chance to redeem themselves. Failed influencers are hateful because it gets them the engagement they wanted to get through more high-vibrational means.
These types need to believe they were wronged because the truth is worse. They can’t handle the idea that they need to work on themselves. They need Trump to make it feel like it’s not their fault. Hence, Cartman.
Ironically, the very people who made true believers out of others are not actually the ones who have to partake in their own poisoned Kool-Aid.
This, too, is the irony of people like Cartman. People like Cartman believe, promote, and pay for it. The talking heads are the ones who get their golden parachutes and fly off into the sunset, ignoring the bloodbath they made.
Right-wing talking heads often aren’t true believers — at least, not when they begin. I’m not going to get into details, but I knew some people who worked at FOX back from a former job. They said it was terrible and I assure you, they weren’t “true believers.”
They’re far from the only people who had to grit their teeth and push out content they didn’t agree with. It’s either do or get fired in mainstream journalism. For many people in these kinds of broadcasting groups, the motto is “a job’s a job.”
No one needed “woke” to stay alive more than Cartman and his kin.
It’s no secret that red states tend to take the majority of the tax revenue charged by blue states. It’s also no secret that some folks make “owning the libs” their full personalities, not even thinking about what it means for them.
No woke agenda? No winning Democrats? All they have is liberal tears — and most leftists stopped crying. They’re working on leaving America, ignoring the conservatives, and prepping their own survival plans.
The “Cartmans” of America are pretty screwed. They lost the amenities they enjoyed, the people around them, and now they have little to show for it.
So now, we’re going to see a lot of Cartman types. They’re going to be a bit stuck. Some will double-down on their behavior, but others? They may come up with a real rude awakening — one that could lead to personal growth.
Now that episode? That type of arc is something I’d grab my popcorn for any day!
After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.
—Mr. Spock
Amok Time,
Star Trek.
Absolutely brilliant analysis, as the truth slowly dawns on all the dogs who caught the car...when the gods want to punish you, they give you your wishes... the original quote from Oscar Wilde used the word prayers but I don't give the Cartmans of the world that much legitimacy ..