Five Political Groups

In order to understand politics, I think it is important to understand the general categories of people that one has to deal with.  This is not to say that one has to appeal to ALL of them, but just to be aware of how each one would likely react to any new proposal.

First and largest are those people who simply never get involved, or at least, those who only get involved when they're directly inconvenienced in some way.  For the most part, you can ignore these people, just as long as you don't go out of your way to piss them off.  Second are the people who are just plain set in their ways and will oppose any new ideas simply because they're new.  You can ignore these people also, because they tend to be all-talk-no-action, and once a new policy is put into effect, regardless of how often they spoke against it, will usually just accept it after the fact.  Third, are the fringe groups such as conspiracy theorists and radicals and cults and miscellaneous extremists.  You can ignore them as well, because they tend to be relatively small in number and aren't taken seriously by anyone else.  That leaves just five major groups that are actually politically impactful.

1. Libertarians and Anarchists:  I include anarchists because they're basically just the extreme end of the libertarian spectrum.  Libertarians have one simple political philosophy, and that is "my life is my life, and your life is your life, and you can't tell me what to do."  I can totally see their point.

2. Socialists and Communists:  Again, I include communists because they're just the extreme end of the socialist spectrum.  Socialists simply don't trust the free market system to provide opportunities for everyone, so they want a safety net for those who can't provide for themselves.  Those who can afford it should pay the way for those who can't.  I can totally see their point as well.  Some are opposed to the idea of wealth inequality at all, but for must of them, it would be sufficient to know that no one is going hungry.

3. Bourgeois Liberals:  On first glance, they may seem hypocritical, but I suspect that the majority of them are well-meaning.  They are charitable up to but not including making any real sacrifice.  They support all the same progressive social causes that their friends support.  They don't deep dive into research on political issues, but they're willing to listen when you volunteer information.  They're not the sort who would march in protest, but they will show moral support with a nice t-shirt or bumper sticker.  It's actually pretty easy to get these people on your side as long as you make it fashionable.  The one drawback is that they tend to drop support pretty quickly for any individual who has a falling out with the leadership of the DNC.  Basically, they're the sort of people who can't wait to tell you about their "black friend."

4. Moralists:  Some might call them Christian Conservatives or Religious Fundamentalists, but I suspect that religion has very little to do with it, beyond the surface level.  What these people believe, simply put, is that they way they were raised is "right," and anything that differs is "wrong."  They see anything nontraditional or unamerican as a deliberate act of rebellion.  If you want the support of these people, you have to frame it in a way that appeals to their existing ethos.  In other words, they want to be good little boys and girls, and you have to show them that you're also coming from a place of being the good little boy.

5. Assholes:  There are plenty of other words I could have used, but this one was the most accurate.  The Assholes are the ones who want the outward appearance of a meritocratic system with free market capitalism and winner-take-all and upward mobility within the social hierarchy, but with a single caveat.  No one but themselves is allowed to win.  These are the people who want everything handed to them while pretending that they earned it fair-and-square.  They want to see the little guy suffer and they want to see him realize that it was his own fault.  They treat the world like a big game of monopoly that they force others to play, and they throw a temper tantrum unless if the game isn't rigged in their favor.  They're spoiled, entitled, greedy, arrogant, narcissistic, and worst of all, feel like they deserve the right to be so because they were "smarter" or "bolder" or "worked harder."  They're the sort of people who use the phrase "alpha male" unironically.  If you want the support of these people, you have to trick them.  Fortunately, they're usually pretty stupid and easy to trick.

Jokes That Need to Retire

Nobody does jokes about airline food anymore, because audiences see those types of jokes as cliche. That got me thinking, what are some other jokes (in stand-up, in shows, in movies, etc.) that have been retired, or that should be retired?

Wife is out of town, and the husband has to do the cooking, and everything goes wrong. This joke doesn't work anymore because hardly anyone cooks a meal from scratch anymore. Plus, everyone knows it's an old bit. (Even the Dick Van Dyke Show made a joke about what an "old" joke that was.)

(Edit:  Okay, I was JUST talking about this, and now I just saw a trailer for the new movie "The Breadwinner," which is entirely based on this one joke!  Seriously???)

Implying or insinuating that a guy is gay. It's only funny you assume that all gay men are supposed to be closeted, or that the TV/movie censors won't allow gay portrayals on screen, because then you "slipped one past the censors." Once you have openly gay characters in movies and shows, dropping "hints" doesn't make sense anymore.

Jokes about old people's fashions or young people's fashions. They don't really make sense anymore, because all the old fashions keep cycling around and coming back into style, so you never know what's going to make a comeback next. "Can you believe we used to..." and there's a young person wearing the same thing. "Can you believe the young people are..." and there's an old person who used to wear the same thing.

Mother-in-law jokes. Just because they're hacky and predictable.

Words that "sound funny." You usually don't hear this on stage, but I have seen some comedians actually get on television with a bit that is basically "this is a weird-sounding word," and then prove that point by repeating the word over and over in a silly voice. It's a cheat, because ANY word is going to "sound weird" if you do that.

Jokes about how there are "too many" Starbucks'. It kind of worked when it was a new company and was opening up a lot of new locations, but nowadays, it had just settled in as one of the many franchises that people are used to seeing, like McDonald's or Dunkin' Donuts.

Nerds using a computer. It doesn't work now that everything is computerized.

That joke where a character sees an Asian guy and tries speaking Japanese to him, and he's like, "Sorry, I don't speak Japanese." No modern audience would see an Asian person and assume he speaks Japanese.

A man mistakes a woman for a man because she's wearing a hat, then she lets her hair down, and he's like, "you're a girl???"  (The weird thing about this one is that this joke was being used in movies at the same time that a lot of men had long hair, and a lot of women had short hair.)

Jokes about how men never pull over and ask for directions. The joke doesn't work if everyone's car has a GPS system.

Someone mentions a blonde Asian. The joke is that there's no such thing as a blonde Asian. It doesn't work anymore, because hair coloring is now super common among Asians, especially in Japan and South Korea. (I guess you could make the joke make sense if you said "naturally blonde," but even then, it's kind of pointless.)

Someone mentions a "lesbian trapped in a man's body." This joke is based on the audience's assumption that all cross-dressing men are attracted only to men, except that no one really thinks that anymore, so the joke just falls apart.

Any remark about not liking rap music.  Back in the 1990s, rap was just starting to become mainstream, and it started getting some backlash from people who just wanted to be counter-cultural or anti-current-trends or show that they were "old" and don't get the new music.  (And maybe a few racists thrown in there, because rap was mostly seen as "black" music.)  Nowadays, rap and hip-hop are just as established in the mainstream as country or metal.  (Plus, not all hip-hop artists are black these days.)  The guy making fun of "rappers" just sounds outdated.

Smug remarks about how all the women have breast implants (or other plastic surgery) these days.  This was a popular trend in California for a while, but it seems to have died down.  (In fact, these days, most of the people getting breast implants are either cancer survivors or transgender women.  Probably not the sort of people you intended to make fun of.)  But for some reason, the idea of "everyone has fake boobs these days" just stuck around because it showed up in movies and shows written by people living in California.  (It's kind of like the "ribbit" frog sound effect or the dialtone-immediately-after-being-disconnected sound effect.  It was region-specific to California for a while, and then through movies, because the standard in the public consciousness.)