Article Preface by (TLB)
Gary Morgenstein is an author of note who finds humor in any direction he chooses to look. He lives in Brooklyn, New York and is an independent conservative… so no matter which direction he looks he sees door to door Libs and humor.
We asked Gary to write us a quick ‘sneak peek’ about his latest book before he launches his promotional tour. ~TLB ed,
ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ RUNS FOR PRESIDENT – DON’T WORRY, IT’S FICTION – FOR NOW
By Gary Morgenstein
Political satire dates back thousands of years to ancient Greece and Rome. But I’m sure it goes even further. Can’t you see some wise guys in Egypt chanting “hey ho Pharaoh, where’s my grain, you big fat pain” outside the palace? Course, they would’ve been speared through the heart, which is slightly less excruciating than spending fifteen minutes watching Rachel Maddow.
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From Aristophanes, Dante, Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Will Rogers, Mort Sahl and George Carlin to modern comics like Bill Maher (good thing I’m writing this on an empty stomach), political satire has an honored tradition. It’s not like we’re making fun of people who actually contribute to society like teachers or police officers or the brave men and women in our military.
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We make fun of politicians. Come on. POL-I-TI-CIANS. In the opening to my new conservative satire graphic novel series #DancingToTheWhiteHouse (about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez running for President, let us all now pray), I quote Mr. Twain, “Sometimes I wonder whether the world is run by smart people putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.”
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Yet despite this grand tradition and the gout-like richness of the material, here in the freest and greatest nation the world has ever known, the public only hears liberal satire. When the left wing mocks the right, they have Saturday Night Live, late night talks shows like Bill Maher, Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel to the New York Times, CNN, MSNBC…you get the idea. They run the MSM. But what about conservatives?
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The entertainment industry actively discriminates against conservative artists and conservative themes. How many movies can you recall where the hero/heroine was a positively portrayed right-winger? TV shows? Apart from the short-lived Roseanne show, very few. Usually we’re neo-fascist morons whose main skill is loading a gun.
It gets worse.
There’s an organization called Friends of Abe, where conservatives meet in anonymity for fear of revealing their political beliefs. What if there was a left-wing group called Friends of Bill…wait, that was the password for the Clinton Foundation slush fund.
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Let’s make it Friends of Barack whose members can’t disclose their liberalism because they’d be fired or denied work in entertainment. Hold on. Wasn’t that called McCarthyism? As usual, discrimination’s only wrong when it’s applied to the left.
The reason goes deeper than the left wing monopoly of the mainstream media. It’s about the complete disdain the liberal elite have for conservatives and a raging contempt for America, our values, our history, our achievements. How many times have you heard them say America was never great? In their smug arrogance, they’re stunned that anyone with an IQ above a raspberry fails to see the wisdom of the Great Liberal Mecca. I know firsthand, living in the Socialist Republic of Brooklyn where I’m regularly profiled.
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A Jewish writer from Brooklyn of reasonable intelligence and mental health (for a novelist) who voted for Trump? What’s wrong with you? When I explain that I’m an independent conservative populist who’s voted for both parties, I’m assailed as a neo-Nazi racist simpleton who simply failed to take his Liberalism Rocks psychotropic medication.
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Which is why I’ve called my promotional tour to launch #DancingToTheWhiteHouse the “Chef Boyardee Press Tour.” Recently Mr. Maher explained the difference between blue and red states with typical snide insight. In the blue lands, the blessedly enlightened eat Wolfgang Puck, while in the red states, the ignorant unwashed taint their palates with Chef Boyardee.
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Disdain, contempt. Which is why I wrote this graphic novel series. First of all, #DancingToTheWhiteHouse is a political satire book which is not about Donald Trump. Gasp, oh my, shock. In fact, other than the opening illustration of the “Wild-eyed King who makes everyone mishuggah” (Yiddish for crazy), he’s really not referenced in the book apart from vicious attacks by liberals.
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Instead, #DancingToTheWhiteHouse is about the left, acerbically mocking Ocasio-Cortez’ run for president, the elites, the media, identity politics and, of course, the inane insanity of socialism. In Book One, a secret organization dedicated to destroying everything American, M.A.D.S. (Make America Democratic Socialist), persuades the Congresswoman that she’s the only one who can stop Trump’s re-election, destroy capitalism and prevent the extinction of the human race. Well, d’uh.
Launching her candidacy with the slogan, Socialism. Don’t Worry. It’s Not Our Money, AOC, backed by the adoring press, quickly surges to front-runner status for the Democratic nomination. Oh, she also has the guidance of the Socialist Chorus – Stalin, Mao, Castro – who chime in with “Democracy, huh yeah, what is it good for, absolutely nothing.” When AOC makes policy announcements, I only use her direct quotes. How can I make up anything funnier?
The heroine of the series is a 12-year-old political pundit blogger, who happens to be African-American (certainly more grist for those who’ll call me racist!). Aided by the Evil Witch with Vertigo (can’t imagine who that is), the blogger breaks a big story about AOC’s financial irregularities as a bartender – Tipsgate kicks off Book Two.
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I’ve written five novels, but this is my first graphic novel, which is a terrific way to tell a story using edgy, black-and-white illustrations which evoke the status of conservative humorists as counter-culture underground.
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Like my beloved Ronald Reagan, I believe that we only have political opponents, not political enemies. Unlike Joe Biden, who apologized for daring to say Vice President Pence is a nice guy, I won’t demonize Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez. She’s a fellow Bronx native and might even root for my beloved New York Yankees, though I doubt she’ll be invited to throw out the first ball since she wants to tax the entire starting lineup at 70 percent.
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But the left are not looking for mere nasty laugh lines. With their hateful humor, they’re actively delegitimizing conservatives as human beings. That’s an old trick of bigots, like the odious BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement, masquerading anti-Semitism as anti-Zionism. Once you’ve vilified a group as less than human – remember a slave was defined as three-fifths of a person – there’s a lower barrier to further stigmatizing or even eliminating them. That’s been regularly used against gays. Well, they’re not like us. Jews, gays, blacks, Christians in the Islamic world. The list is tragically long. They’re the other. Like conservatives in the elite liberal world.
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But how can you, even in the delusional world of the left, dismiss all conservatives en masse, when they represent a broad stripe of different backgrounds – beyond the usual yokels in stained coveralls chewing straw, of course.
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Hillary Clinton did it back in 2016 when she called us deplorables. As did former President Obama, who referred to this same group as bitter, clinging to their guns and religion. Or how about saying we consider a can of Chef Boyardee as the centerpiece of a Michelin five-star meal?
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When we’re not quite human, we don’t quite matter. We don’t know any better, guffaw, guffaw. Why even give us electoral votes when we’re too stupid to make the right decision? Look at who we vote for?
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So what do we do? My answer is humor, satire, a priceless weapon more powerful than anything other than faith. God knows the left wing gives us more than enough material. Let’s turn their nonsense into smiles. Bill Maher and Rachel Maddow can make fun of us all they want. It’s called freedom of speech. Go for it. But we must enjoy the same rights to crack jokes without being discriminated against, picketed or assaulted on college campuses, or denied jobs for daring to vote how we want. In a free society, we need laughter from both sides of the aisle.
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Ultimately, that’s what this great culture war is about – whether conservatives can say “hey ho Pharaoh” without getting speared through the heart.
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Novelist-playwright-satirist Gary Morgenstein’s newest work is the conservative political satire graphic novel series #DancingToTheWhiteHouse, about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s fictitious 2020 presidential campaign. Book One is available exclusively at Amazon at: https://tinyurl.com/yxdlklfn
Morgenstein is the author of five novels including the critically acclaimed science fiction-baseball novel A Mound Over Hell. The book is set in 2098 following America’s defeat by Islam in World War Three as baseball begins its final season ever, and has been hailed as “1984 Meets Shoeless Joe.” He is currently writing A Fastball for Freedom, the second book in The Dark Depths series. https://www.bhcpress.com/Books_Morgenstein_A_Mound_Over_Hell.html
His previous novels were Jesse’s Girl; Loving Rabbi Thalia Kleinman; Take Me Out to the Ballgame and The Man Who Wanted to Play Center Field for the New York Yankees. A playwright as well, Morgenstein wrote the off-Broadway sci-fi rock musical The Anthem, inspired by the Ayn Rand novella, among other stage works. He can be followed, hopefully respectfully, on Twitter at @writergary, as well as Facebook, Instagram and all those places. He also has a website to which he doesn’t pay enough attention, garymorgensteinauthor.com.
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