Goldberg: ‘South Park’ skewers a new kind of sanctimony

In 2003, Andrew Sullivan wrote about a breed of conservatives that he called “South Park Republicans,” who shared the irreverent, profane ethos of the cartoon, which debuted in 1997 and delighted in ridiculing liberal sacred cows. These Republicans were socially libertarian — “some smoke pot” — and contemptuous of political correctness, and they thought protesting the invasion of Iraq was lame.

“If people wonder why anti-war celebrities like Janeane Garofalo or Michael Moore failed to win over the younger generation, you only have to watch ‘South Park’ to see why,” wrote Sullivan. “The next generation sees through the cant and piety and cannot help giggling.”

Sullivan’s concept had so much currency that author Brian C. Anderson expanded it into a book, “South Park Conservatives,” which came out in 2005. It is a fascinating snapshot of the last time the right saw itself as culturally ascendant. George W. Bush had recently won reelection, this time with the popular vote. Conservatives didn’t just think they were on the verge of a permanent Republican majority; they thought their movement was finally becoming cool. “A new post-liberal counterculture has emerged,” Anderson announced.

Rhymes, not repeats

History, as they say, doesn’t repeat, but it often rhymes. Substitute “woke” for “politically correct” and much of “South Park Conservatives” could have been written today. Anderson touted a new generation of nationalist comedians who hated the liberal media and didn’t shy away from “ethnic and racial gibes.”

Their contemporary analogues are podcasters like Joe Rogan and Andrew Schulz, both with backgrounds in stand-up comedy, who helped bring disaffected young men into the MAGA fold last fall. Anderson celebrated “postfeminist” female college students who “emphasized getting married and raising a family as primary goals.” Now, a similar set of young women is clustering around right-wing wellness influencers.

A big question is whether this new iteration of the young right fares as badly as the last one. Anderson saw, in the generation we now call millennials, the vanguard of a conservative revival.

“South Park conservatism (or anti-liberalism) will become more prevalent in popular culture and on the campus,” he wrote. “The political correctness that this brash sensibility skewers is anathema to younger Americans.”

He was wrong.

Almost everyone would eventually realize that the dour, no-fun critics of the war on terror were correct. Republicans once treated Bush like an action hero; it’s hard to remember now, but some publicly fawned over how his crotch looked in a flight suit. By the time his presidency limped to its end amid economic ruin, he was widely seen as an embarrassment, and he turned many young people against the Republican Party permanently.

It is impossible to know if the same thing will happen with Donald Trump, but some signs point in that direction.

According to a recent CBS News Poll, Trump’s approval ratings have declined more with adults under 30 than with any other group, falling from 55% after his inauguration to 28% now. Several of the podcasters who backed Trump last year have since become critics, blasting him over issues including his handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, his bombing of Iran and his indiscriminate deportations.

Schulz, who interviewed Trump on his “Flagrant” podcast shortly before the 2024 election, said last month that he’s doing “the exact opposite of everything I voted for.”

Rogan accused Trump of trying to “gaslight” people over the Epstein case and attacked his immigration crackdown.

“They’re kicking students out that, like, write articles they don’t like,” he said. (He was referring to Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish student who spent 45 days in immigration detention after the administration revoked her visa because she was a co-author of a pro-Palestinian op-ed.) Podcaster and comedian Dave Smith, a frequent Rogan guest, apologized for his Trump support.

And then there’s “South Park” itself, whose recent episode led me to revisit Anderson’s book. At a time when much of the media is bowing to Trump, the opening of the show’s new season ridiculed his megalomania, his intimidation of the media and his manhood.

Sleeping with the devil

Longtime “South Park” viewers know that the show had a subplot about Satan’s affair with Saddam Hussein. Now the devil is sleeping with Trump, though he finds the president exasperating:

“You remind me more and more of this other guy I used to date. Like, a lot.”

The creators of “South Park” are no longer young, but much of their audience is. (I’ve recently given up on keeping the show away from my 12-year-old son.) With almost 6 million views, this season’s debut was a huge ratings success, including with the 18-49 demographic.

The show’s savage mockery of Trump doesn’t mean that creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone have become progressives. They just go where they think the taboos are.

“Ripping on Republicans is not that fun for us only because everyone else does it,” Stone told The Huffington Post during Barack Obama’s first term. “It’s so much more fun for us to rip on liberals only because nobody else does it, and not because we think liberals are worse than Republicans.”

‘Terrifyingly successful’

But as their recent episode satirizes, Trump is now using the power of the state to silence his opponents in ways that make complaints about liberal cancel culture seem quaint.

He has, so far, been terrifyingly successful at cowing media conglomerates, law firms and universities. Yet the more thuggish his administration becomes in its demands for compliance, the more obvious it will be that the MAGA movement is about repression rather than freedom.

In the new “South Park,” the sociopathic fourth grader Cartman laments that with wokeness dead, his flamboyant insensitivity no longer makes him special. “You can just say ‘retarded’ now. Nobody cares!” he wails. “Everyone hates the Jews. Everyone’s fine with using gay slurs!” There’s no more pretending, in “South Park” or in America, that it’s rebellious to be reactionary.

Michelle Goldberg is a New York Times columnist.