{"id":5045,"date":"2017-02-02T13:47:01","date_gmt":"2017-02-02T18:47:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5045"},"modified":"2017-02-02T13:57:56","modified_gmt":"2017-02-02T18:57:56","slug":"trump-and-poes-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/?p=5045","title":{"rendered":"Trump and Poe’s law"},"content":{"rendered":"

One common explanation for the sufficient (because that’s what it was in the end, wasn’t it) popularity of Trump and Trumpism was the idea that he didn’t play by the rules of the elite<\/a> (he did, but that’s not the point). Some even suggested that not having facts and evidence or making discernible (not to mention valid or cogent) arguments for his views was the heart of the appeal. If true, this would explain the difficulty or disregard they have for such basic notions as “facts”<\/a> (or logical notions such as use\/mention<\/a>). It also explains how he seems to be insulated from the charges he leveled at Hilary Clinton: he has employed the swamp (rather than drain it) and reportedly his staff, such as it is, uses private email servers<\/a> (and he uses his insecure private phone). The frustration of the consistency police at these things is a further part of the appeal.<\/p>\n

It turns out there is yet another benefit to this strategy: he’s impossible to satirize. Enter Matt Stone and Trey Parker \u00c2\u00a0of “South Park” fame (from the Huffington Post<\/a>):<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u009dSouth Park<\/a>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is done with Trump \u00e2\u20ac\u2022 at least for the moment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The show\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, said in an Australian interview Thursday<\/a> that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve decided to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153back off\u00e2\u20ac\u009d on satirizing President Donald Trump<\/a> because his administration is already creating tough-to-top comedy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really tricky now because satire has become reality,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Parker told the show \u00e2\u20ac\u01537.30.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really hard to make fun of,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Parker continued. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We were really trying to make fun of what was going on but we couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t keep up … and what was actually happening was way funnier than anything we could come up with.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u0153So we decided to kind of back off and let them do their comedy and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll do ours,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It’s Poe’s law<\/a> (discussed by Scott here<\/a>) regarding Trumpism. In this case, it’s not only that the view is indistinguishable from satire, it’s that the view outstrips<\/em> satire. Poe’s law is meant to be a heuristic for when a view is not worth considering.<\/p>\n

This has an interesting consequence for argument theory. Normally, a view that’s too stupid to characterize is not worth one’s time. Usually in these circumstances, there are other views on the table–better ones. You can critique those. Indeed, the satire works because the view is bad. You can see the good view in it. In this case, there is no alternative available. This is a view that needs evaluation and offers no alternative. Going after Burkean conservatism would be irrelevant.<\/p>\n

All of argument relies on the fundamental requirement that you can represent a view. If Poe’s law is the measure of basic acceptability, then we’re in serious trouble.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One common explanation for the sufficient (because that’s what it was in the end, wasn’t it) popularity of Trump and Trumpism was the idea that he didn’t play by the rules of the elite (he did, but that’s not the point). Some even suggested that not having facts and evidence or making discernible (not to … Continue reading Trump and Poe’s law<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2105,2107,895,2106,2061,2104,2033],"class_list":["post-5045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-drain-the-swamp","tag-logical-coherence","tag-poes-law","tag-political-satire","tag-trump","tag-trumpism","tag-usemention"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5045"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5045\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5047,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5045\/revisions\/5047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thenonsequitur.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}