Why being centrist is a cop-out

I used to say I was part of the “sane middle.” Because that way anyone who opposes you is crazy. Neat trick that.

But lately, being a centrist is starting to feel either ignorant or cowardly. Sure, there are wackos on the extremes of both sides. But to treat them equally is to swallow the propaganda of those who control the actual levers of power right now.

See, comedy taught me to consider my targets carefully. Focus on power. Who has it? That’s who you should attack. For example, mocking corporations is more noble than roasting a homeless guy. Punch up, not down. Not because you’re some SJW, but because it’s better art. Plus, it’s cooler to stick it to the man than defend him.

So let’s examine the left’s kooks. Did some losers cheer this assassination? Sure. But here’s the thing about them: They don’t control sh*t. They are hecklers outside the arena.

How about the right’s wackos? Project 2025ers now control the presidency, the Senate, the House, the FCC, and the Supreme Court. They are forcing universities, media companies, and law firms to obey their commands. They call the shots.

One side has a masked paramilitary force out on the streets shoving people into vans. The other side has blue haired vegans serving cappuccinos while posting on Bluesky.

One side gets to determine if a $6B media merger goes through, the other wants you to sign up for its Patreon.

One side is effectively banning speech critical of the government the same way Putin, Orban, and other dictators do. The other is complaining about old tweets.

If you’re still treating these two groups as if they’re equal, you’re a sucker.

I've never seen anyone in Antifa with one of those robot police dogs. And one of my big rules of thumb is to fear the people who own robot police dogs more than those who own emotional support dogs.

The clear and present danger is the people who have power, guns, and the bully pulpit. I’d say ignore that at your own peril, but actually it’s our peril.

“Stop calling us fascists or else we’ll have to ban all speech we don’t like and put the military on the streets!”

We all know he’d be a dictator if he could, right? Well, he’s trying. The question now is who or what will stop him.

Leaders on the left keep urging us to “lower the temperature.” But those on the right view violence as a feature, not a bug. They crave it. It's the pretext for declaring endless emergencies, putting troops on the streets, cracking down on speech/opposition, and dogwalking us into their Christian Nationalist technofascist strong Daddy fantasy.

He’s not building a $250M ballroom and grabbing that plane from Qatar just to use them for a couple of months. Stop expecting the arsonists to put out the flame.

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Jimmy Kimmel and our corporate overlords

The corporations were never going to save us. Not Nexstar, not Skydance, not Waystar Royco GoJo. Related: Why the hell is every media company constantly merging with every other media company? And are they all using some dystopian name generator?

One guy is about to control CBS, Paramount, CNN, HBO and a major share of TikTok – and he’s a big supporter of the President. (Should I write his name here? Or will Palantir’s future AI bots scrub the entire Internet for negative mentions of our dear leader and his oligarchs in order to create the master purge list? Hahaha. Funny joke. Right? I’m joking, right? Gulp.)

What can us normies do? Tell Disney you’re unsubscribing. Give up Hulu. (The Bear lost its mojo after season 2 anyway.) Corporations are robots that seek to maximize profits. They will only change course if they think not capitulating to authoritarianism loses them more money than obeying it.

“But my kids really love…” Look, if you really think “the children are our future,” do them a favor and do what you can to make sure their adulthood isn’t filled with Pasta Putinesque.

“But cancel culture really did go too far.” Sure, but the tide has turned. Woke is on the ropes. It ain’t 2021 anymore. Update your software and gauge threats properly.

We’ve left the realm of digging through old tweets to find bad words. This is beyond cancel culture, this is Authoritarian 101. The FCC is behind this Kimmel move. It’s the government effectively banning speech that is critical of the government. It’s what Putin, Orban, and other dictators do. If you don’t call it out now, where will the line be for you?

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Edgy comics set the table

Kimmel shoulda called the President a ret*rd and then the podcast bros would be really confused about how to feel. 😇

Comedians who helped usher all this in: You’re gonna have to compliment dear leader on his golden hair at the start of every show and only say nice things about the FBI and ICE, but then you’ll be able to call Puerto Ricans anything you want. Hope it was worth it!

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More on Charlie Kirk’s assassination

You can think someone is a bad person and also not want them to get shot. Despite what social media tells you, this is not a tough needle to thread. Now I’m going to give some thoughts about Kirk’s thoughts/views/statements, the shooter, and the reaction to his death while in no way endorsing Kirk’s killing or anyone who cheered it on. (So lame to have to caveat stuff this way, but here we are.)

➡ Funny how much people who refuse to use pronouns love saying stuff like "They killed Charlie."

➡ "The gunman loved a trans person so we must go after trans people." It's like someone, right after Hinckley shot Reagan, saying, "He loved Jodie Foster so we must go after Jodie Foster."

➡ It’s time to put “extremely online” in the DSM and accept it as a form of mental illness.

➡ Every young bro who wants to buy a gun should have to learn how to play guitar first. Most of ‘em will never want to shoot anything once they can play “Wonderwall.”

➡ Groyper is an amazing word because it sounds as distasteful as the thing it describes, like some weird form of fascist onomatopoeia.

➡ I'm not saying Kirk’s assassination is this administration's Reichstag fire. But I do think it's their table read for a future production. ICYMI:

The N*zis attributed the fire to a group of Communist agitators, used it as a pretext to claim that Communists were plotting against the German government, and issued a decree suspending civil liberties. This made the fire pivotal in the establishment of N*zi Germany.

➡ 90% of my timeline think the gunman’s text messages are fake. They claim a kid would never text like this:

I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out. If I am able to grab my rifle unseen, I will have left no evidence. Going to attempt to retrieve it again, hopefully they have moved on. I haven’t seen anything about them finding it.

I guess they’ll only believe a Gen Z kid sent it if it read like this:

I’m so over bruh’s toxic energy 💀. Some ppl are just beyond saving tbh 🙄. If I can sneak my rifle w/o getting caught 🫣🔫, there won’t be any receipts 🧾🚫. Gonna try and grab it again 🤞 — fingers crossed they dipped 🏃‍♂️💨. Haven’t seen anything saying they found it yet 👀📵. Skibidi stealth mode activated fr 🤫🚷🧠.

I have no idea how Mormon edgelords text, but couldn’t fabricating those messages end up being a nightmare for the prosecution? Pretty sure putting tainted evidence in a charging document which can be easily disproven later is a gift to the defense. But my bad for bringing logic to a naif fight.

➡ Here's something ya never hear anymore: "I'm going to wait until I get all the information."

➡ The FCC. Jimmy Kimmel. Donald Trump. Offensive jokes. Never has a story been more set up for Howard Stern to have a take on it. Only way it could be more up his alley would be if the gunman went after Billy Joel.

➡ I’m not Antifa, but how exactly should I explain I'm against fascism without being labeled a terrorist?

➡ The brilliance of social media is how it lets everyone feel like they're the real victim and their opponents are evil.

➡ Which is the party for free speech warriors who fear government overreach again?

➡ Social media gives everyone "main character energy" to the point where the death of "NPCs" doesn't really impact them.

➡ Nick Fuentes beefing with Charlie Kirk must have made 47 feel like his kids were fighting…I mean, if he loved his kids.

➡ What if I want to print pictures of Charlie Kirk on a gay wedding cake? Who says no?

➡ Charlie Kirk was doing “comedian eviscerates heckler” crowdwork clips and roast jokes while wearing the disguise of a political debater. Brilliant move.

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Quickies

🎯 I'm not a con man. I’m selling essential snake oil.

🎯 "Rock bottom" sounds so negative. I prefer to say my darkness is peaking.

🎯 Every poem is three stanzas where the first one is ooh look at nature, the second describes how love is tricky, and the third is about how we’re all going to die.

🎯 Any online religious thing that happens over Zoom is missing the point because the purpose of religion is to get you in a room with other human beings.

🎯 Misogyny hack: Whatever you wanna blame on women just blame it on white women and, voila, you're free and clear!

🎯 My favorite fiction writer is Candace Owens.

🎯 Bari Weiss’ gift is making the powerful feel like the victimized. And there is big money in pulling off that magic trick.

🎯 Whenever I see a Gen Z person who’s having a lot of fun, I look around to see who’s filming them.

🎯 Conspiracy theories are male astrology so we should go all the way with it: “I'm an anti-vaxx sun, Epstein moon, flat earth rising — and that means I’m confident but also highly emotional and intuitive.”

🎯 We really gotta decide if they're bald-faced or bold-faced lies because oh boy are we gonna need that term a lot over the next few years.

🎯 Men are better than women at reaching orgasm and committing suicide. Women are better at faking both those things though.

🎯 Hannah!

“I’m outraged by what Hannah Einbinder said at the Emmys.”
"Because you're a Jew?"
"No, because I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan."

🎯 “Can’t you say something nice about 47?“ To be fair, George Slopodopoulos is some of his finest nickname work. Right up there with Pocahontas and Low Energy Jeb.

🎯 Therapeutic? I feel like a better word would be therapish.

🎯 RIP Robert Redford. He made good looking people look good.

Corrupt White House. Freedom of the press. Robert Redford. So many reasons to watch this right now.

Thanks for reading. You made it to the end. I appreciate that. Maybe you wanna support by signing up for the paid plan? It gives you bonus content and good vibes. Thanks.

-Matt

P.S. This show is tonight in NYC. Promo code JOY20 gets ya 20% off. Tickets here.