{"id":40542,"date":"2025-09-11T07:15:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T14:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=40542"},"modified":"2025-09-16T09:15:54","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T16:15:54","slug":"how-south-park-could-help-democrats-win-back-the-young-voters-the-party-lost-to-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/how-south-park-could-help-democrats-win-back-the-young-voters-the-party-lost-to-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"How \u2018South Park\u2019 could help Democrats win back the young voters the party lost to Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Nick Marx<\/a>, Colorado State University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Season 27<\/a> premiere of \u201cSouth Park<\/a>\u201d in July 2025 began like so many of the show\u2019s episodes: Resident bigot Eric Cartman is pissed off. He directs his ire at the Trump administration, which had recently pulled federal funding for NPR<\/a>, because he enjoyed hearing liberals \u201cwhine about stuff.\u201d In other words, Cartman is irate that Trump has stolen his hateful, vindictive shtick.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the episode goes on, other South Park residents join Cartman in rallying against Donald Trump. In the show\u2019s infamously over-the-top style, the president is depicted as thin-skinned, deceitful \u2013 and, well, sexually ill-equipped. The episode ends with a surreal, graphic deepfake scene<\/a> of a totally nude Donald Trump stumbling around a desert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The White House immediately blasted<\/a> \u201cSouth Park\u201d as irrelevant and \u201cdesperate for attention.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ratings tell a different story. The season premiere scored 6 million viewers across Comedy Central and Paramount+, with even more tuning in two weeks later for the follow-up<\/a>. Each ensuing episode has further skewered Trump and his administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSouth Park\u201d has long targeted ineffectual authority figures with ripped-from-the-headlines timeliness, which is made possible by its weekly production schedule<\/a>. Whereas most animated television shows require months of production lead time, series co-creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone need just a week<\/a> or two<\/a> to write, voice and animate an entire episode.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the ever-churning news cycle has made it more difficult to hold those in power accountable<\/a>, the cartoon\u2019s timely satire still galvanizes viewer attention. This makes it uniquely suited to channel rage toward Trump and other political leaders \u2013 and, perhaps, influence an audience that has recently proved elusive to Democrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A history of poking the powerful<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The appeal of \u201cSouth Park\u201d doesn\u2019t necessarily lie in partisan attacks on Republicans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Its politics have always been all over the map, with both liberals and conservatives railing against the show<\/a> at various points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2006 episode \u201cManBearPig<\/a>\u201d ridiculed former Democratic Vice President Al Gore\u2019s climate activism. In 2014, liberal critics decried an episode titled \u201cMr. Garrison\u2019s Fancy New Vagina<\/a>\u201d for deploying transphobic tropes. And \u201cThe Pandemic Special<\/a>,\u201d which aired in 2020, mocked the restrictive vaccine policies promoted by progressives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, conservative watchdog groups such as the Parents Television and Media Council have long targeted \u201cSouth Park\u201d for its allegedly harmful influence on children<\/a>. The none-too-subtly titled 1999 movie \u201cSouth Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut<\/a>\u201d satirized these efforts: Throughout the movie, Kyle\u2019s mom, Sheila, tries to censor the graphic children\u2019s cartoon characters Terrance and Phillip.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That movie also marks one of the earliest appearances of the Iraqi despot Saddam Hussein<\/a>. It portrays him as a crazed, lecherous supervillain hellbent on taking over the world alongside his gay lover, Satan. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current \u201cSouth Park\u201d season has animated Trump with the same cutout, stop-motion style as it did with Hussein, implying direct parallels between their dictatorial desires. Behind the scenes, Trump has reportedly been \u201cseething<\/a>\u201d over the depiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 2006 two-part episode \u201cCartoon Wars<\/a>,\u201d Parker and Stone warred with Comedy Central over the right to show an animated depiction of the Muslim prophet Muhammad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The network rejected the idea after political violence followed in the wake of a Danish newspaper\u2019s publication of a cartoon featuring Muhammad<\/a>. Eventually, censored animations of Muhammad aired with disclaimers from Comedy Central, but only after Parker and Stone\u2019s refusal to address the issue before broadcast<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cartoon continues to relish poking its corporate benefactors. The current season premiered hours after Trump\u2019s Federal Communications Commission approved a merger<\/a> for the show\u2019s parent company, Paramount. The administration delayed the transaction in order to settle its lawsuit<\/a> against the Paramount-owned news show \u201c60 Minutes,\u201d which Trump had accused of favorably editing an interview<\/a> with former Vice President Kamala Harris while she was running as the Democratic nominee for president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That same day also saw the announcement of a new US$1.5 billion deal<\/a> keeping \u201cSouth Park\u201d at Paramount. Parker and Stone\u2019s skewering of Trump sends a message to Paramount<\/a> in the wake of the \u201c60 Minutes\u201d settlement and the cancellation of<\/a> \u201cThe Late Show with Stephen Colbert\u201d: Let politics dictate your content at your own risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
\u2018South Park\u2019 has sought to take President Trump down a notch. Mandel Ngan\/AFP via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Reaching the right voters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As the Democratic Party\u2019s establishment struggles to appeal to young, internet-savvy, male voters<\/a> \u2013 look no further than party strategists\u2019 attempts to find \u201ca liberal Joe Rogan<\/a>\u201d \u2013 \u201cSouth Park\u201d is garnering record viewership<\/a> with young audiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rest of the season, meanwhile, has provided a timely, steady drumbeat of Trump mockery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The second episode of the current season calls out the Trump administration\u2019s illegal ICE raids<\/a>. The next episode lampoons Trump\u2019s affinity for lavish gifts and compliments. In it, tech CEOs and world leaders obsequiously note that Trump \u201cdoes not have a small penis.\u201d The fourth episode depicts him as a negligent and emotionally abusive lover to Satan, further connecting him to the show\u2019s previous portrayals of Saddam Hussein. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite its penchant for outrageous and, at times, scattershot satire, \u201cSouth Park\u201d has an important lesson to teach Trump\u2019s political opponents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The appeal of both Trump and \u201cSouth Park\u201d to many young men is not in the positive ideas they offer<\/a>, but in the way they both humiliate their opponents. I research comedy on the right<\/a>, and I\u2019ve written about how right-wing humor has long thrived on<\/a> \u201cowning the libs.\u201d Now, \u201cSouth Park\u201d is owning Trump, and with each new lurid reveal in the Jeffrey Epstein saga<\/a>, it will have plenty of fodder as the season progresses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simply calling attention to Trump\u2019s hypocrisies and corruption \u2013 long the forte of<\/a> media figures such as Jon Stewart, John Oliver and the hosts of the podcast \u201cPod Save America\u201d \u2013 becomes white noise after a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But actually animating the sitting president with a micropenis? Making a mockery of the self-serving business deals of the \u201cdealmaker in chief\u201d and his spineless corporate cronies?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, those things won\u2019t win an election on their own. But they inadvertently could help Democrats lure back some of the young men who drifted to Trump in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nick Marx<\/a>, Professor of Film and Media Studies, Colorado State University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nick Marx, Colorado State University The Season 27 premiere of \u201cSouth Park\u201d in July 2025 began like so many of the show\u2019s episodes: Resident bigot Eric Cartman is pissed off. He directs his ire at the Trump administration, which had recently pulled federal funding for NPR, because he enjoyed hearing liberals \u201cwhine about stuff.\u201d In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":40543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293,5,8025,7,46,295,10,25,296,36,4,38,41],"tags":[9536,6251,479,7014,16496,885,891,886,860,16870,16871,3012,16869,536,1602,12849],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40542"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40542"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40616,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40542\/revisions\/40616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}