Does Satire Have A Liberal Bias?  

BRIAN: When we first aired this episode two years ago, one of our listeners called in with a question about partisan satire.

MARGO: Hi, this is Margo from Washington, DC. Why does it seem like liberals have a monopoly on satire? Why isn’t there a conservative version of The Daily Show or Colbert Report or Last Week Tonight? Did conservatives ever have popular satire?

BRIAN: We got political historian Brian Rosenwald on the line to answer Margo’s questions. He told me one of the biggest names in conservative media today actually struck a satirical chord early in his career.

BRIAN ROSENWALD: It might surprise people today because this show has changed over time, but especially in the early days when Rush Limbaugh went national in 1988, he did all kinds of satirical bits. He did one thing where he played a record and he told his audience, if you play it backwards you’re going to hear the devil. And he had someone overdub voice parts in so that when he played it backwards you heard this voice speaking to you, and silly, fun kind of things like that.

BRIAN: And was it the voice of Ted Kennedy?

BRIAN ROSENWALD: I can’t remember who did the voice, but Ted Kennedy is a frequent target on conservative talk radio in a satirical way. Rush did a parody to the tune of Dion’s “The Wanderer” that was called “The Philanderer.”

BRIAN: The lyrics include lines like, I’m the type of guy who’ll never settle down because I’m a philanderer. Yes, a philanderer. I sleep around, around, around, around.

BRIAN ROSENWALD: And he makes jokes. He used to say he was a supporter of the women’s movement when he was behind it. You know, things that to a certain ear were very funny, and to other people they were horrible. But just like, you know, Jon Stewart can make a joke about white Christian men in a way that his audience might find funny, Rush Limbaugh can do that with minority groups.

BRIAN: But if conservatives can do satire, why isn’t there a conservative version of The Daily Show or the Colbert Report?

BRIAN ROSENWALD: Actually, Brian, they’ve tried. There was a Fox show called The 1/2 Hour News Program that didn’t last very long, frankly because it wasn’t very good. And it’s the same problem liberals had in talk radio. They’re not as focused on entertaining. They have more political goals. So the venue and the audience really matter incredibly.

BRIAN: Brian, it seems like both liberal and conservative satirists need to make fun of somebody. Somebody needs to be, quote, “victimized” by their humor. But is it possible that conservatives more often make fun of groups that are currently or quite– or at least were quite recently / not really part of the / genuinely discriminated against?

BRIAN ROSENWALD: I think that’s true. But I think to understand from a conservative perspective, satire at its best is challenging established power structures. And I think to a lot of conservatives, because the status quo was changed through the rights movements of the ’60s and ’70s, they feel like groups were being favored by government.

They feel like they are being put down and are powerless themselves. And so to them targeting those people, they don’t see minority groups. It’s one reason that conservative satire can be so controversial. To a liberal ear, the bits sound horrible. They sound racist. They sound sexist. To a conservative ear, it sounds like these people who are getting the government to go to bat for them and be on their side and advantage them over you the long-suffering conservative who feels marginalized and maligned, and isn’t sure what you can say in polite company anymore. It’s nice to be able to hear someone saying the things that you’re thinking and doing it in a funny way.

ED AYERS: We called Margo back to see if Brian Rosenwald answered the question.

MARGO: I think that was very surprising to learn that conservative group might themselves feel maligned. And as a fairly liberal person, it would be hard for me to see it that way. So it’s interesting.

ED AYERS: Margo, did you find “The Philanderer,” which I will deem classic satire, did you find it funny?

MARGO: It was bordering on funny. I wouldn’t say it was great satire because it’s just making fun of someone for something they already know. It didn’t really seem to connect any dots that things like The Daily Show are really famous for kind of making those points or calling out hypocritical people. You know, it’s just making fun of Ted Kennedy for being a philanderer, which I guess is kind of funny.

ED AYERS: Margo, not kidding about this. Thank you so much.

MARGO: Thank you.

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JOANNE: Brian Rosenwald is a historian at the University of Pennsylvania. He and University of Virginia historian Nicole Hemmer are starting a new blog on the Washington Post web page called Made By History. It will debut in June.

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