It's been almost a decade and a half since Stephen Colbert — still in the midst of his faux-conservative blowhard persona — released I Am America (and So Can You), a collection of satirical writings on the various right-wing bugbears of the Bush era. And as befits any really good piece of satire, a new generation of aspiring Trump-ish neo-fascists have apparently missed the joke entirely.
Today Is America describes itself as "a network of 200+ social media creators generating content for a cumulative audience of 40+ million Gen Zers/Millennials," which "focuses on free-thinking, conservative, comedic, and societal content" and is "dedicated to the fight against the left-wing narrative dominating our media." In practice, that means it's an Instagram channel dedicated to the rantings of "Republican Hype House" residents on TikTok — a group of conventionally attractive zoomers who wear tank tops while they pose in front of American flags and say "what's up guys" before launching into a full-throated endorsement of the Grand Old Party. There's also a "Today IN America" Instagram account, which mostly just recycles headlines from conspiracy sites like One America News and white nationalist hubs like Breitbart.
And now, as first pointed out by The Daily Beast's Will Sommer, TIA has begun expanding into the streaming service wars, with a host of planned programs that — I swear to god — I needed to look up for myself just to confirm that someone is not pulling a huge, cruel prank.
I mean ...
As shared by Sommer, there's also, uh:
Be honest: If someone told you about a new conservative streaming network starring Morgonn, Dom, Lance, Gunnar, and Joie, you would absolutely assume they were making a joke, wouldn't you?
The shows don't appear to be live yet. Today Is America does have a mothballed YouTube channel, but that's been dormant since the moment Joe Biden was inaugurated. So I couldn't tell you exactly what Morgonn covers in her minute, or what makes Dom and Lance such mavericks (their haircuts?). I leave it to you to speculate on the actual content being produced by these freedom-loving creators. I can say, however, that their "endorsements" page is a murderers row of far-right lunatics, including diarrhea vector Rep. Lauren Boebert (Colo.) and white nationalist-embracer Rep. Paul Gosar (Ariz.), as well as Vernon Jones and Kari Lake, both of whom are identified as governors (of Georgia and Arizona, respectively), even though they're, uh, very much not.
There, fixed that for ya. Also, the vaunted "endorsements" are simply pictures and a name, and not actual, y'know, words of support. Huh.
Taken in aggregate, this all raises the obvious question: If Today is America, what horrors wait for us tomorrow?
