The USA Today article about the “Trump Bump” that appeared in Tuesday’s Signal caught my eye. I can remember a time when late-night humor was topical, comical and actually funny – but that has changed.
In a time when our nation is seriously divided along any number of lines, it seems the idea of mocking, bullying, trashing and insulting others – especially our elected representatives – is in vogue.
Whether it’s Sarah Palin, Bill or Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Donald Trump or any of our nation’s leaders, this concept of “political satire” has belly-crawled to new depths.
What are we as adults teaching our children and grandchildren as this behavior creeps into our schools, where parents and administrators are struggling to stop the mocking, bullying, trashing and insulting of other students.
Whether it’s in cyber-space or in schoolyard violence, it isn’t healthy. So why is it OK in the frame of “satire,” where it is fed as humor for entertainment, for television to mock, belittle, trash and insult our leaders and then tell our children and grandchildren that it is not OK for them to do the same to their classmates?
Surely the script writers, producers and actors of this stuff have children or grandchildren.
We are either part of the solution, or we are part of the problem. Watching this level of satire is a choice, and as adults we must make ours.
