Mel Brooks had the right of it. Fascism and Authoritarianism is defeated by satire and mockery. The ideology is too outrageous to survive any such scrutiny.
Why else would the administration be so afraid of a few jokes?
Why else would the administration be so afraid of a few jokes?
What Gavin Newsom is doing is, I think, a bit more subtle. He's signaling to Democratic supporters "Here's a guy willing to mock and ridicule Trump," because the established Democrats were too afraid to even do that - which explains why in this age of Trump, Democrats' poll numbers are still in the gutter.
The lend lease part is not correct. Lend lease went mostly to UK (Google AI says about 60% of lend lease went to UK & the rest of lend lease was split between USSR & China. Take that with a grain of salt)
Not to be taken with a grant of salt, according to wikipedia: "Most tank units were Soviet-built models but about 7,000 Lend-Lease tanks (plus more than 5,000 British tanks) were used by the Red Army, eight percent of war-time production. " [1]
Also per wikipedia, USSR produced about 30k light tanks, 65k medium tanks (eg: t-34), and 13k heavy tanks. [2]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#/media...
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_combat_vehicle_producti...
UK sent stuff to USSR, too, including probably some of the stuff they got from the US, and they delivered it to Murmansk (rather than requiring the Soviets to come get it) during which their convoys and sailors took losses from the German navy.
I heard that the USSR received $1 trillion worth of stuff in 2025 dollars from it WWII allies. The US sent advisors, too, e.g., in how to build factories.
Of course, a few years later the US was sending stuff to Germany as part of the Marshall Plan, one of the purposes of which was to build up Germany so it could resist future Soviet aggression.
Yes, but that wasn't part of the "lend lease" program.
The quantity of materials sent from the UK to the USSR was significant. Just it was not part of the lend lease program. (Arguably this is something better, just direct aid without strings attached).
The quantities of what the UK gave to the USSR was a sacrifice of blood and treasure: "food and raw materials, roughly £30 billion in today’s money. This included 5,000 tanks and 7,000 aircraft, while public charitable donations provided approximately £5.3 million (roughly £490 million in today’s money) in medical stores...."
"Some of these supplies were purchased in the United States (US) by the UK for delivery directly to the USSR. Most British supplies were carried by sea to Northern Russia, docking at Archangel or Murmansk, by a series of Arctic convoys, which were subject to sustained German attacks from three dimensions from powerful German forces based in Northern Norway" [1]
> I heard that the USSR received $1 trillion worth of stuff in 2025 dollars from it WWII allies
Sounds plausible (I would hesitate to repeat it without seeing the data behind the numbers). I'm curious how the number breaks down as a relative amount.
[1] https://www.geostrategy.org.uk/britains-world/telling-the-tr...
Napoleon shut down all the newspapers that criticized him. He was only undone by Waterloo (actually mostly by his own folly of trying to invade Russia ...)
I don't think there's any record of Authoritarianism being defeated by satire, if for no other reason than the authoritarians shut the satire down.
Looks like it's time for an American _Solidarność_
So: As much as I admire Mel Brooks, this is just wishful thinking.
Let's perhaps say that if satire doesn't directly prevent authoritarianism, it works as a very effective canary in the mine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marburg_speech ("...said to be the last speech made publicly, and on a high level, in Germany against National Socialism...")
An ironic tombstone for freedom of speech:
"They will bear them and follow the Führer with unwavering loyalty, if they are allowed to have their part in the planning and in the work, if every word of criticism is not taken for ill will, and if despairing patriots are not branded as enemies of the state."
https://www.openculture.com/2020/11/before-creating-the-moom...
But maybe we get new generations of comedians that will.
Joe Rogan, the Fear Factor host turned Right Wing podcaster? Is he know for comedy? I thought his brief failed stint of stand up comedy is why he switched to podcasting.
https://www.newsweek.com/joe-rogan-mocked-botching-joe-biden...
One of many examples. Joe is outraged because he thinks Joe Biden talked about airports during the revolutionary war. He goes on to state that someone who makes such comments shouldn't have a job. When it's revealed that it's a Trump statement he pivots to "oh he just made a mistake when speaking". It's so blatantly obvious and happens constantly.
I mean he's not like Tucker say.
> December 22, 2023: "Pull him," Rogan said. "If you had any other job, and you were talking like that, they would go, 'Hey, you're done.'"
but mysteriously not when it turns out to be Trump:
> November 5, 2024: Popular podcast host Joe Rogan officially endorsed Donald Trump on the eve of the election, a move Trump’s team swiftly touted as a major win in the final hours of their campaign. (https://www.cnn.com/2024/11/04/politics/joe-rogan-trump-endo...)
I guess my point is: these people are all interconnected and it’s almost like when you hear about how actors all know each other and hang out, or congresspeople play golf together, but for fascism.
Maybe (maybe) ten years ago you could get away with this opinion. I'm not sure how you could say this in 2025 in good faith.
But I was refering to was the specific idea of what has been labeled the "Rogansphere" by his critics. This refers to a loose media/comedy ecosystem orbiting Joe Rogan, his podcast, Austin (comedy) clubs, and a web of frequent guests and adjacent podcasters/comedians who cross-promote each other on YouTube and podcasts. This network rose to prominence in a push to normalize "anti-woke" and right-leaning narratives under a free-speech banner. This was a pretty popular niche to serve as the term "cancel culture" gained more traction. At the time even many otherwise (american-)left-leaning people would express frustration with liberal attempts to police language etc.
This popular niche was especially present in comedy with a discourse about what and who you could joke about and since Joe Rogan played a big role into giving that topic traction I cynically called it "Joe Rogan school of comedy". I am no alone in thinking that way, comedian Marc Maron puts it better than I could in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_N4W05eyto&t=307s
Joe Rogan owns a comedy club in Austin as well. [1]
Joe Rogan is a pretty busy guy.. I would imagine his professional network amongst comedians was pretty large before he blew up as a podcaster. This is not only to say that Joe Rogan has multiple comedies, but is also very likely to be very influential amongst as well.
[1] https://www.comedyinyoureye.com/post/inside-the-comedy-club-...
Tom Lehrer - https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7275489-i-don-t-think-this-...
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45282482#45283234
Thank you for helping me think about / express this better.