Thread by @ezralevant

1. My American friends don't believe me when I tell them that not only does Canada have a state broadcaster, but it also has government comedians who do government comedy on that government broadcaster.

I know you think I'm making that up, but this is one of their accounts. 👇

https://twitter.com/22_Minutes/status/1491879449985490950

2. It's a contradiction to be a government comedian unless your job is explicitly to mock the government itself, like Will Sommers. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Somm… He was a jester, a kind of official opposition given legal immunity for challenging the king where others would be punished.

3. We think of jesters as clowns or jugglers who just make jokes. But "many a true word is spoken in jest". Showtime's "The Tudors" has a wonderful depiction of a jester, as a bitter and biting critic of the king, genuinely relied on as an defence against lying flatterers.

4. Comedy -- like punk music -- is inherently anti-authoritarian. So you can't have a government punk band any more than you can have government comedians. If you can't mock the powerful, you mock the weak, and that's not funny:

https://twitter.com/22_Minutes/status/1491108875784839178

5. Scroll down the timeline of the government comedy show @22_Minutes. They do mock some powerful people. But only rivals of Trudeau -- so it's really an opposition research war-room, with a laugh track. Trudeau hates Jason Kenney, so his comedians do too:

https://twitter.com/22_Minutes/status/1491838597749776393

6. This was a terrible week for Trudeau. Two of his MPs publicly denounced his approach to the truckers. That's fertile soil for jokes. Instead, they loyally mock the dissenters. I'm surprised they don't tag Trudeau and say, "please notice me, boss."

https://twitter.com/22_Minutes/status/1491514747648454656

7. Donald Trump hasn't been president for over a year, but Trudeau's comedians still mock him. It's a simulation of speaking truth to power, a placebo -- holding another country's (former) leader to task, so bravely. And siding with "our guy":

https://twitter.com/22_Minutes/status/1490813122252349442

8. The legislative rationale for creating the CBC state broadcaster was to broadcast Canadian stories, especially ones that the private sector didn't do. That's obviously obsolete in the age of the Internet. But how are anti-Trump jokes possibly within its mandate?

9. All the funniest Canadian comedians move to the U.S. Mike Myers, John Candy, Jim Carrey, Dan Akroyd, the late Norm Macdonald, Phil Hartman, etc. SNL's Lorne Michaels himself. There's not enough work in Canada to sustain a professional comedian -- except gov't work at the CBC.

10. With few exceptions, it's the losers. But if you're willing to polish Trudeau's shoes, you can get a job at the CBC state broadcaster -- a guaranteed paycheque, without the gruelling town-by-town circuit. The CBC comedians are literally the government bureaucrats of comedy.

11. Half the reason they're obsessed with Trump is they hate him; they know Trudeau hates him; and he's a safe target that won't get them fired. But the other half is, they hope they'll get noticed in New York, scouted in the big leagues.

I don't think it's ever happened.ppend.

12. Now, some Americans might be saying, "we have unfunny comedians who run defence for the Democrats and mock Republicans too".

Sure. But imagine if it was a government department you were forced to pay for their crud through your taxes. $1.5B/year for the CBC.

13. But my main grievance with the government comedians at the CBC state broadcaster isn't their partisanship, or the fact that I'm forced to pay for them.

It's just that they're so deeply, painfully un-funny.

https://twitter.com/22_Minutes/status/1488245703704993792