From nojo Stinque:
We’ve always been drawn to satire. From Mad to SNL to Spy and beyond, satire has been the refreshment for our soul. We drink it in, savor it, remember it for decades.
Satire makes sense of the world. It brings order to chaos, the rational mastering the irrational. Satire gets at the truth, by revealing the lies. Like jazz, the genius of satire is in what remains unsaid.
We have practiced satire whenever possible. We wrote a satire column in college. We helped produce a tabloid with a satirical undertone. We launched a blog whose dominant theme is satire.
And yet we have produced little satire for a long time.
There was a moment, a year ago spring, where we felt the urge leave us. It was not that the dominant Republican candidate wasn’t ripe for satire — you would think it unavoidable, really — but that satire wasn’t up to the threat he presented. The truths that satire could reveal, the truths that make good satire fun to produce, were unneeded. Nothing was hidden, nothing needed teasing out, nothing needed highlighting. It was all there, for all to see. Satire could add nothing to the picture. It was the wrong tool.
Which really bothered us, because from Nixon on, whether as audience or producer, satire had gotten us through a lot. Through everything, really. And from Nixon on, there’s been a lot to get through. So why, now, when we would need satire to get us through the worst yet, has it failed us?
That question’s been on our mind for more than a year. The answer has been as well, but we’ve seen only glimpses. But we’re starting to get it now, and in a manner that really surprises us:
Satire is a luxury.