Not funny
Re: “From the mouth of Donald” (2/20/2020): I am a game lover. The competitive, friendly nature drives me to search for new games all the time. Trump Roast: The Tremendously Huge Tasteless Party Game should not exist. While the idea behind poking fun at our administration is appealing, it’s a mockery of a real crisis in our country. We are facing a new era of fascism, and the best that the Offbeat Press can offer is “Orange Man Bad.”
A game that uses terminology like “BUILD A WALL” and “WHY ARE WE HAVING ALL THESE PEOPLE FROM SHITHOLE COUNTRIES COME HERE?” glosses over the reality that hate crimes in our country are at a 16-year high. While you join together for some catharsis with friends, it allows you to forget that our president is once again colluding with outside forces to win an election. But isn’t that the American way? To turn a blind eye or offer a limply extended hand in the face of oppression? Can you stomach laughing at these cards while children are dying at our border and families have been ripped apart and housed less than an hour away from Madison?
Media and entertainment industries continue to soften the blow for the atrocious realities of our country. I suggest picking up a different pastime — book, hobby, volunteering, phone-banking, or anything else that doesn’t jest and profit off of the fatal truths facing citizens every day. I understand the need to blow off steam in this era of the relentlessly hopeless news cycle, and I am guilty of the indulgent and mindless amusement to catch a break, but this feels different, this isn’t a game.
— John McCracken, via email
Rule of law
Re: “And then there were two” (2/19/2020): It’s hilarious that the brainwashed tools on the right think that [Supreme Court Justice Daniel] Kelly is a staunch “rule of law” [proponent] who will put his personal politics aside when the opposite is the case. It speaks volumes about the level of brainwashing involved. I am not a fan of either party, but [Judge Jill] Karofsky is orders of magnitude more likely to rule strictly based on the letter of the law, and Kelly is the corrupt, activist judge who will use the bench to legislate. The cognitive dissonance that passes for the GOP in Wisconsin is patently absurd.
— Sally Hoien, via isthmus.com
Correction: In “Dream team, strings attached” (2/20/2020), we incorrectly stated that Johannes Wallmann was a native of Vancouver Island. He moved there from Germany when he was 12.
