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Happy Warriors Are Undefeatable

August 10, 2025 , , ,

South Park's been making the news a lot due to its satirizing of Trump and members of his administration, which not everyone is taking well. While many a conservative familiar with the show and Matt Stone and Trey Parker's humor are going with the flow, there are conservatives who are indignant. 

As a long-time fan of "South Park," I'll admit that some of the jokes are falling flat and seem pretty undercooked, which is usually what happens when comedians go for low-hanging fruit ad hominems instead of actually letting a joke flow naturally. As I wrote previously, I almost feel like there are two separate teams writing the episodes, Stone and Parker's humor shines through in certain capacities, while some parts of the episodes feel like someone trying to write like Stone and Parker.  

I don't know if there's a larger joke within the joke being told with the show yet, which is oftentimes Stone and Parker's style, but let's assume that they absolutely are on the attack in a mean-spirited, full-on offensive way. 

If that is the case — and I'm not entirely sure it is — then they're failing to damage the intended targets because the targets are simply absorbing the attacks. 

They're laughing at the jokes being told about themselves and even adopting the satirization as a badge of honor. 

First there was Charlie Kirk, whom "South Park" had Eric Cartman morph into. Not only did Kirk adopt the image of Cartman/Kirk as his X profile picture, he posted a clip of Cartman arguing with a leftist woman and complimented the moment, adding a laugh emoji for good measure. 


Then, the DHS did the same, adopting South Park's portrayal of ICE in a post on X that they used as a recruitment ad. 
Then, J.D. Vance noted that he finally made it by posting his own "South Park" character made after him. 

Then, Kristi Noem took the DHS route and utilized her own "South Park" model for an ICE recruitment ad post as well.

This is the way. 

Adopting the joke inoculates you against the damage a joke can do, because what satire attacks more than anything is someone's pride. If you show that your pride isn't so overarching that you can laugh at the satirical jokes made against you, then the jokes are stripped of their offensive aspects, and they just become a shared laugh where the subject is only empowered further and the joke teller looks impotent. 

This is the happy warrior strategy. It's hard to take emotional damage when you're smiling while you fight.

Moreover, there's a valuable lesson here. Pride is a dangerous thing to hold onto and is ultimately a weakness. It's easy to adopt because it's a sort of cheap reinforcement mechanism to your self-image, your public-facing persona, and your beliefs. The issue is that it's ultimately toxic and with the right leverage, can be used against you very easily. 

Think of pride as armor you get from Party City. It looks real from far away, but the moment someone really starts inspecting you up close, or even starts firing arrows at you, it's exposed pretty quickly that all that shine and show was fake, and you're kind of a scared, fragile little fraud. 

The real protection is the ability to take the joke, and to take the joke you can't have a lot of pride. 

And this is what makes the happy warrior so hard to beat. The attacks come and bounce right off. He (or she) enjoys them, even. They're not driven crazy by the fight because the fight is part of the fun. They're not brought down by jokes because they love telling jokes themselves. In fact, it's one of the happy warrior's greatest weapons. 

So, even if "South Park" is being intentionally mean-spirited, then they've already lost the fight. The PR battle was won the moment their jokes were used by the targets as trophies and opportunities to make their own jokes out of them. 

How do you defeat something like that? 



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