Political humorists are sort of the wartime diplomats of political debate. Their audiences give them safe passage through their defensive walls and grant them permission to directly influence decisions of hostile entities. Humorless conservative commentators spend years laying siege to liberal castles, pounding their walls with the artillery of reasoned argument, only to fail to dent the hardened fortifications that were designed over a lifetime to resist any fire that they can muster. But the besieged liberal might temporarily lower his drawbridge to receive a political humorist to impress an argument directly upon the soft underbelly of the brain that is not clad in the armor that automatically rejects all conservative arguments. 

Quality political humorists of any ideological stripe that can entertainingly deliver profound political messages are particularly rare, and even more so in conservative camps.  Michael Ramirez comes to mind as an editorial cartoonist whose drawings can resonate with viewers so quickly that with just a glance at his work their predispositions are bypassed. Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck have successfully used humor to make their respective cases, but they are each persona non grata in liberal camps and are utterly dismissed by them.

Then there’s Evan Sayet, whose stand-up routine I recently saw at a small club in Ventura. Sayet spent most of his career working side-by-side with liberals in Hollywood, as a comedian and television writer. In fact, he is a reformed liberal himself, which he says helps him understand them.

The centerpiece of his routine concentrates on liberals’ childlike misperception of the world--that everyone will play nice with you, that fighting is always bad, guns are scary, hard work is to be avoided, if it feels good do it, and in the end if all doesn’t turn out like we want, we can run to our government to make things right for us.

His is truly a profound explanation of why liberals want the government to run their lives: their psychologies failed to grow into adulthood in pace with their bodies, and rather than replace their parents with themselves as the absolute authority in their lives, they substitute them with the government.  That way they can pursue selfish goals without the burden of having to be responsible for themselves. The comparison of liberals to children is also rich with comedic opportunities for Sayet to explore.

Isn’t there ample evidence to support Sayet’s thesis? Don’t liberals have a naïve and innocent wish to negotiate with dictators and terrorists? And don’t they want the government to tell them that everything’s going to be better when they get laid off or injured at work? Aren’t liberals the ones pushing “if it feels good, just do it.” And when they make a mess of their lives, they want the government to clean it up, to cries of “It’s just not fair?”

Of course, just like children, even as they are completely dependent on others for subsistence, their parents are always in the wrong when it comes to discipline.  When times are tough and we need to buckle down and get some chores done, the children whine and drag their feet.  When we need to go to war, the United States becomes the bad guy. We are the imperialist dictators, not Saddam Hussein or the Taliban (if we’re the warmongers, why haven’t we invaded defenseless Canada yet? asks Sayet).

And to liberals, it’s always the other kids’ parents who are cool. “But France is doing socialism, why can’t we?”  and “unlike Americans, everyone in France can speak three languages”. Sayet points out that this comes in handy when your country gets invaded so many times.

These aren’t just the rants of an upset conservative trying to belittle liberals, although he does rant, he is an upset conservative, and he does belittle liberals. But his routine is carefully crafted around a very legitimate point of view that is worthy of discussion, and it’s one that I recommend to both my liberal and conservative friends. 

Evan Sayet's next performance is at 8:00 p.m. on Thursday, November 19th at JR's Comedy Club in Valencia.