Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/12/02/the-obamas-are-producing-a-netflix-comedy-series-about-the-trump-administration.html
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God love 'em, but if there are any two people who are more pleased with the Obama administration than those two, I’d love to have a word with them.
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No-one knows how to tr0ll Donnie quite as well as Obama does.
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Everyone expected Trump to be a train wreck on foreign policy and the environment and civil rights and whatnot, but nobody was prepared for exactly how badly he was going to fuck up the soybeans. Finally we get to hear that untold story.
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I guess the what is also like “what? Why would this be a comedy show?” kind of what. I suppose if they do it right, along the lines of Doctor Strangelove… but… given we’re still living through this tragedy…
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From Little Bush to Our Cartoon President and now to this, please for the love of God stop treating fascist administrations that are responsible for the deaths of countless individuals as if they’re worth the time and effort and money to make a full season of a comedy series.
Especially when they downplay the fascism and countless deaths. The fact that it’s based off of a book and the series may only cover “the historic chaos and mismanagement that occurred in the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, and Energy during the handoff between the administrations.” really says a lot about how utterly toothless this show will be, if it actually gets off the ground.
ETA: I feel that progressives on social media and progressive journalists writing for news sites have used their biting humor and words of actual substance to effectively render the kind of toothless satire that we see from shows like these obsolete.
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And he does it with facts.
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serious stuff. that goes back to things i read in the fifth risk regarding the way the people in those departments had briefing books and portfolios of risk that those departments handled and were waiting for administrators who never showed up.
even rick perry, who trump named secretary of energy after having called for the elimination of that department as a primary candidate became a fan of the department when he came to realize that it was responsible for nuclear safety, nuclear weapons, and the parts of the u.s. power grid. when he understood the seriousness of the department he apologized for ever wanting to eliminate it. one reason he didn’t last long under trump.
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The section about NOAA and the National Weather Service being turned over to the CEO of AccuWeather, who for years has been actively working to dismantle the agency, was the most poignant to me. That right there epitomizes not only the Trump incompetence but the very essence of industry capture that Republicans have been working towards for decades.
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This sounds like it’s going to be hilarious 
THIS!! Very much this. Do NOT risk even a scintilla of rehabilitation of these people in public reputation by making them funny.
(Also:
That would be “based ON a book”, then. Pedant Pendant in operation. Also a fully paid-up member of the Peace Movement against the American War on Prepositions and Other Abstract Nouns Such As Drugs and Terrorism.)
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My first thought was, couldn’t this wait until January 21st?
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To troll 45, obvs.
I feel you, though; all the damage that’s been done isn’t funny.
I guess its a rationale of ‘if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry?
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There’s that too… I do wonder how effective satire is these days at helping us understand social problems? Are we in a post-satire world, I wonder?
That show didn’t last too long post-9/11!
I guess that depends on the finished product? But it does smack a bit of “oh, it’s all back to normal now”, too, which is problematic of course. “Normal” wasn’t tolerable frankly. Trump amped it up to about a 50, but what was revealed was more the structural problems that could bring the whole thing down.
Of course, I love dark comedy, but we’ll have to see if this works or not.
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Mocking fascists and totalitarians with humor has a long and honorable history. What they do isn’t funny, but they themselves can be made fun of, because they typically hate it.
But that said, I have avoided these types of programs and will likely not watch this one either, because I just don’t want T**** in my head any more than absolutely necessary.
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Savage
As I recall, Alan Alda insisted that every single episode of MASH had to have a scene set in the operating room in order to not lose sight of the horrors of war. This program should also make a point of, within every single episode, clearly showing a crime or atrocity committed by the Trump administration.
I will accept “comedic” exaggeration. Perhaps a scene of Trump personally checking the secret service into their Trump property hotel suite. Or separating a child from their family. Or unplugging the ventilator of a Covid patient.
This is why I don’t work in television.
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Yeah well, maybe you should. TV is mostly shite, so you’d make a positive difference.
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