[[link removed]]

‘SOUTH PARK’ VS. TRUMP: AND THE LITTLE CHILDREN SHALL LEAD THEM
 
[[link removed]]


 

Mark I. Pinsky
July 26, 2025
The Hill
[[link removed]]


*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ Satan! Jesus! In its 27th season opener this week, titled “The
Sermon on the Mount,” the Paramount Plus animated show “South
Park” provided by far the most comprehensive and trenchant critique
of Trump’s first six months back in office. _

,

 

What does it say about America that the only people taking on
President Trump on his own terms — which is to say, in the gutter
— are two bad-boy cartoonists?

In its 27th season opener this week, titled “The Sermon on the
Mount,” the Paramount Plus animated show “South Park” provided
by far the most comprehensive and trenchant critique of Trump’s
first six months back in office.

The episode, which includes both Jesus and Satan as characters,
brutally and hilariously takes on Trump’s laundry list of fixations:
NPR, bathrooms, electric cars, returning Christianity to public
schools, tariffs, “wokeness,” “60 Minutes” and Stephen
Colbert. Characters also denounce Trump for looting the country for
personal benefit (“putting money in his own pockets”) and ruling
through fear and lawsuits. 

In its first return volley after viewing advanced episode clips, White
House spokesperson Taylor Rogers dismissed
[[link removed]] “South
Park” as a “fourth-rate show” that “hasn’t been relevant for
over 20 years and is hanging on by a thread.”

Series creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone replied to the criticism
with typical puckishness. On Thursday, appearing
[[link removed]] on an animation panel
at Comic-Con in San Diego, Parker was asked his reaction to the
controversy. “We’re terribly sorry,” he deadpanned
[[link removed]].

If past experience holds, we may hear more about this from the
nation’s number one amateur TV critic (and slashing Queens
street-fighter), and it won’t likely be pretty.

On Thursday, after 250 days of suspicious foot-dragging, the Federal
Communications Commission voted 2 to 1 to approve
[[link removed]] the
$8 billion merger of Skydance Media and Paramount Global, corporate
parent of CBS. Many believed the approval was delayed to force the
network into settling Trump’s lawsuit
[[link removed]] against
“60 Minutes” for $16 million, litigation which many legal and
media figures considered to be without merit.

But Parker and Stone have a benefit not afforded to other Trump media
critics. Unlike Colbert and “The Late Show,” their show makes
money for Paramount. Just days before the “South Park” season
opener, the pair signed
[[link removed]] a
five-year contract with the studio for $1.5 billion — yes, you read
that right, with a “b” — for 10 episodes per season.

The deal may make Parker and Stone bulletproof to any Trump lawsuits.
If not, their pockets are at least deep. In fact, factoring in their
“The Book of Mormon” financial behemoth, they may be worth more
than Trump himself.

As in seasons past, this episode of “South Park” weaves scatology
with eschatology, placing the Christian cosmos at its center, as I
have written pr
[[link removed]]e
[[link removed]]viously
[[link removed]].

This episode begins at South Park Elementary School, where the
principal had previously embraced diversity, equity and inclusion —
which he describes more simply as “kindness.” Since the November
election, he, like so many, has cravenly flipped. At a student
assembly, the principal now embraces compelling students to accept
Jesus as their personal lord and savior —to the point where Jesus
himself comes down from Heaven to make his pitch, even in the
lunchroom.

At first one parent objects. “What’s Jesus doing in your
school?” Randy Marsh asks the principal. Another character asks,
“What the hell is this president doing? He doesn’t even act like a
Christian.”

Without what Trump calls “wokeness,” student Eric Cartman, a bigot
and antisemite, says, “Everyone hates the Jews. Everyone is fine
with using gay slurs. It’s terrible. Because,” he says, near
tears, “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

Jesus cautions Trump’s “South Park” opponents that, as an
unhinged, omnipotent megalomaniac, the president “can do anything he
wants to anyone.”

“You really want to end up like Colbert?” Jesus asks at one point.

Jesus says he only returned to South Park to warn the townspeople.

“I didn’t want to come back to the school, but I had no choice
because it was part of a lawsuit and the agreement with Paramount. …
The guy can do whatever he wants now that someone backed down. … If
someone has the power of the presidency, and also the power to sue and
take bribes, then he can do anything to anyone.”

Rather than unalloyed outrage at what some would call (and have
called) the blasphemous portrayal of Jesus in this and previous
“South Park” episodes, some Christians take a more nuanced view.

Veteran speaker and writer Rusty Wright told me, “As a longtime
Jesus-follower, I can appreciate faith-skeptics’ criticisms, because
I once was one. ‘South Park’ gets it right in that too many
Christians can be pushy, controlling and intolerant. ‘South
Park’s’ Jesus portrayal might be more credible if he befriended
more of his critics, was less PR-anxious, and expressed confidence in
divine ability to bring good from difficult situations.”

The cartoon Trump, meanwhile, is literally in bed with Satan, his
longtime boyfriend. The devil is so upset with him that he refuses the
president sex, saying Trump is beginning to remind him of his previous
boyfriend, Saddam Hussein
[[link removed]]. Satan is also disturbed
to learn that Trump has appeared in the Jeffrey Epstein files.

When the town of South Park is sued by Trump for $5 billion for
opposing the president, they settle for $3.5 million, but with the
added requirement of producing 50 public service announcements
extolling the president’s virtues. The first one … well, let’s
just say it doesn’t help his cause.

There may be an actual political dimension to the episode. The
show’s key demographic is young males, precisely the cohort that has
been drifting toward Trump. If they are persuaded by the episode that
Trump is a tyrannical buffoon and a fair target for ridicule, that may
affect their next trip to the polls.

_Mark I. Pinsky is the author of __“The Gospel According to The
Simpsons”_
[[link removed]]_ and has
written extensively about the intersection of religion, popular
culture and politics._

* comedy
[[link removed]]
* south park
[[link removed]]
* Donald Trump
[[link removed]]
* Matt Stone
[[link removed]]
* Trey Parker
[[link removed]]
* stephen colbert
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit xxxxxx.org
[[link removed]]

Twitter [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 




[link removed]

To unsubscribe, click the following link:
[link removed]