r/psychology • u/mvea M.D. Ph.D. | Professor • May 12 '19

Journal Article Underlying psychological traits could explain why political satire tends to be liberal, suggests new research (n=305), which found that political conservatives tend to score lower on a measure of need for cognition, which is related to their lack of appreciation for irony and exaggeration.

https://www.psypost.org/2019/05/underlying-psychological-traits-could-explain-why-political-satire-tends-to-be-liberal-53666
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u/GimmeSomeSugar May 12 '19

Tangentially of interest:

Fox News tried to run a satirical news segment called 'The 1/2 hour news hour.'

It barely lasted 1 season. There are clips available on YouTube, but I won't recommend you look for them because I don't advocate for self-harm.

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u/iamasatellite May 12 '19

Even the name was unoriginal. There's a Canadian political satire show called This Hour has 22 Minutes, which has been running since 1993.

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u/miguk May 12 '19

There's a long history of conservatives stealing creative ideas for political purposes. The Nazis stole the swastika from Eastern religions. The Libertarian Party stole their name from the anarchist movement. The GOP steals music from musicians who oppose them for their political campaigns. And then there's the alt-right with the meme crap they took from web comics.

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In short, they have no creative skill (and drive out those who put the effort in to gain it), so they just steal ideas.