When Stephen Colbert ran as a presidential candidate in South Carolina for the 2008 election, his campaign was quickly rejected by the Democratic Party for lacking seriousness — not a far-fetched accusation in light of Colbert’s attempt to run as Republican and Democrat simultaneously, as well as his promises to pander exclusively to South Carolina and “crush the state of Georgia.”
Though Colbert’s stunt shook things up, satirical political campaigns and parties are not a recent phenomenon. As early as the 1940s, US comedian Gracie Allen ran as the presidential candidate of the “Surprise Party,” with facetious slogans like “Down with Common Sense” and “It’s in the bag.” In 1963, the Rhinoceros Party of Canada was founded, delivering campaign promises of “instituting illiteracy as Canada’s third official language” and building sloping roads across the country so that Canadians could “coast from coast to coast.” During the 1967 March on the Pentagon, the US Youth International Party attempted to levitate and exorcise the building. Satirical political campaigns have even appeared in nascent democracies, such as 1990s Poland, where the “Polish Beer Lover’s Party” advocated beer-drinking as a preventative measure against vodka-induced alcoholism.
For the most part, such parties have remained politically inconsequential and have garnered only a tiny fraction of votes. In fact, it isn’t just voter appeal they lack, but political ambition in the traditional sense: the point is not to win, but to spoof the drama and theatrics of “real” politics. Some candidates parody the content of other campaigns, often by mocking their visionary language to the point of absurdity, vowing, for instance, to “rebuild the Berlin wall” or to “repeal the law of gravity.” Others poke fun at the vacuous nature of the election process itself, promising to “keep none of our promises.” Either way, by demonstratively going against what is considered political common sense, the campaigns provide comic relief before the serious business of governing resumes.
Enter the Danish “Union of Consciously Work-Shy Elements.” In 1994, its founder Jacob Haugaard was voted into the Danish National Parliament after running on a platform that included improving the weather and adding Nutella to the army’s field rations — with the latter promise kept by Haugaard. Granted, the electoral success of candidates who refer to their own platform as “twaddle” is a rare occurrence, but it is precisely this extreme unlikelihood which makes their victory worthy of consideration. How can we explain such extravagant outcomes?
Considering Haugaard’s trivial promises and exploits, his success may reflect a peculiar manifestation of voter apathy in a relatively prosperous and content society. Historically, however, the opposite is often the case; during periods of economic or political distress, satirical parties serve as sources of dynamism and renewal when voters are disillusioned with the establishment. Consider Iceland’s “Best Party,” led by comedian Jón Gnarr. In 2010, a few months after its founding, the self-proclaimed “anarcho-surrealist” movement, which promised “transparent corruption” and “a drug-free parliament by 2020,” won a majority in the mayoral race for the country’s capital Reykjavík — a significant victory, given that the city contains almost half the country’s population. The party’s victory was widely interpreted as a reaction to Iceland’s severe 2008 financial meltdown, in part caused by policies encouraging bank leveraging well beyond the country’s GDP. The crisis had considerable social and political repercussions, causing the national government to resign in 2009. By contrast, as mayor of Reykjavík, Gnarr successfully combined comedy — he once appeared in public dressed as a Jedi — with sound politics, fostering cultural and religious tolerance by participating in the gay pride parade and facilitating the construction of Iceland’s first mosque. Gnarr’s term even ended with a slightly increased approval rating.
The success of the “Best Party” highlights a crucial point. Satirical politics can become a deeply meaningful form of political expression, just as the “fake news” of Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert or Andy Borowitz offers definite — and highly influential — political opinions in the United States. The frequent use of animals as satirical political candidates is another case in point — and one with a rich history. In 1958, a rhinoceros was put up as a candidate in São Paulo’s city council elections to protest rampant corruption. In similar fashion, the previously mentioned “Youth International Party” ran a pig (“Pigasus”) for US president in 1968, with one of the group’s members stating: “If we can’t have him in the White House, we can have him for breakfast.” Animal candidates have recently been used in Mexico, where “El Candigato Morris” (a play words merging “candidate” and “cat”) was put up as a contender who promised to purge a municipality of “rats,” meaning corrupt politicians. The symbolism of such campaigns is self-explanatory, their disdain for the cynical business of politics obvious. But more than just mocking the style of political campaigning, these campaigns are a creative expression of popular discontent and constitute a highly significant form of political participation, especially when problems such as widespread corruption call into question the effectiveness of conventional electoral procedures.
However, a party that eschews conventional, serious politics should not automatically be lauded as an agent of progressive change. While it can be refreshing to hear a party reject dry, established political discourse, the same tactic can blur the lines between what is acceptable and what is not. It can obfuscate radicalism by making it appear like innovative subversion and may ultimately have a disrupting effect on politics. An example for this is Italy’s “Five Star Movement,” also founded in 2009 in a period of economic crisis. Its founder Beppe Grillo initially rose to prominence as a comedian and his skepticism towards established politics seems to echo the kind of criticism expressed by many satirical campaigns. In 2013, the “Five Star Movement” garnered a quarter of the vote in Italy’s general election and became a force to reckon with at the national level. Importantly, the party is not satirical in the sense of the “Best Party.” It sees itself as a serious political force and decidedly seeks political power. Nonetheless, Grillo’s unconventional style, for example his frequent use of expletives and his tendency to ridicule other politicians, has prompted direct comparisons to satirical political campaigns in a variety of media outlets. His style of governance was cast as a “mixture of humor and populism,” while the New Yorker even called him “Italy’s answer to Stephen Colbert.”
Yet many of Grillo’s critics cautioned against what they perceived as populist demagoguery deriving its power from the exploitation of resentment in a way that undermined democratic values and reasoned debate. In their view, Grillo’s rejection of compromise and his insistence on calling his party a “movement” bears traces of fascism. The “Five Star Movement” underscores an essential point. Satirical parties can use the momentum of popular discontent to strengthen democratic values, like in Gnarr’s case. However, the very fact that many campaigns (whether they’re satirical or just portrayed as such) embrace a language that categorically portrays all politics as a cynical business in need of renewal — exemplified by the ironic announcement to “break all campaign promises,” a slogan also employed by Gnarr — alerts us to the dark side of the anti-establishment coin. While voters should always remain open to emerging political forces, including and especially those who deviate from conventional politics, we must be careful to distinguish between expressions of democratic, humorous creativity and their glaring opposite.
Meanwhile, Germany’s “The Party,” the group that pledged to rebuild the Berlin wall, continues its efforts on a greater scale. Last year, it won one seat (out of 751) in the European Parliament. Asked about this small but unexpected electoral success, founder Martin Sonneborn stated “I don’t think we’re the craziest people sitting in the European Parliament.” Staying true to its spirit, “The Party” has since expanded its agenda to enclosing Switzerland in a wall.