It's a comedy show.

That does not change it

@@TheLurker1647 It's satire, and comedy can break the heart in ways that tragedy doesn't even attempt

It would be nice if once in a while they decided to bring down the hammer on one of those scumbags, for being dumb enough to get caught if anything.

I'm confused. Are you a communist who's upset that democracy works?

What?

The joke started with the "little girl lost faith in democracy." As if the feelings of little girls could change anything.

That's not the joke. At the end all of the other corrupt congresspeople throw out that specific guy to restore popular trust without actually changing the system, keeping corruption around, but making it look like they did something about it. That's what happened with Nixon, that's what happened with the Iran-Contra scandal, and that is what is happening now with Trump. Kick out one of the corrupt bastards to make everyone else look better, when they are doing the same shit. Democrat and Republican. Its time for a change in system.

Brilliant really.

@@bikespj22 The joke is that in reality, the senator would've gotten away with corruption.

If this happened real life what would be different

@@americanpatriot8492 I'd love it if Cheeto-Head got taken down as quickly as Bob Arnold did here

That was performative justice to reinstate popular trust and support for the system. I think that was the point of that scene…

@@sadlobster1 Hell, if it would happen to a whole bunch of other corrupt senators on both sides of the aisle in real life.

@@sadlobster1 you mean corn pop

Trying to get sympathy from the fundies.

@@MinscFromBaldursGate92and it always works with that group

@@MinscFromBaldursGate92the what? Is that like a tv award or something?

What's wrong with people becoming Christians?

@@poletooke4691 Fundamentalists.

I'm guessing that some Tomorrow Never Dies type shenanigans are going on.

Very British

Many largest cities have an early edition newspaper, they might have the next day's comics and such, and some breaking news stories that will also be in the next day's regular edition.

It was big news. How often is there a politician involved in corruption?

It was an older convention that many cities would have a morning and an evening paper-this isn’t actually too far from accurate.

"NO!"

The joke is how he's booed

All: NO!

Exactly why we're trillions in debt and the dollar has a quarter of its buying power since this aired.

Wait a minute, I want to tack on a rider to that bill: $30 million of taxpayer money to support the perverted arts.

It is legitimately one of Lisa's best quotes to this day. I didn't like this episode as a kid, because political stuff bored me. Now I love it because it is so appropriate and still relevant.

One nation under the Orange Menace and the Russian Dwarf.

Even though she said that in this episode it's actually very true even now in real life America still sucks.

What does "under the dollar" mean?

​@@MinscFromBaldursGate92 Biden isn't orange 😂

Agreed. Though irl that style of governance adheres more to a populist philosophy, which can be both good and bad depending on the prevailing views of a leader's constituents.

Shame Bush Sr didn't have nice things to say about the show (he loved his moral panics like Reagan did), pardoned criminals involved in Iran-Contra and appointed Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court.

No, it's just cute he thinks they all voted for him.

@@jackmonaghan8477 Isn't Thomas the 1st and 2nd Amendment guy? Honestly you're making me like Bush Sr where I didn't before.

The Greater Bush

LOL anything can happen

It's that immigrant grindset, man.

that's propaganda for you

@@lionelhutz5137 the joke is that his family is scamming the country nation wide.

The cute thing is that he does include the small possibility that this success story might have been possible in Canada.

Cool a ruckus!

Bart is just chaotic neutral

“CESSPOOL‼️ CESSPOOL‼️”

You would be correct

250 million was our population in 1991-92 (when this episode aired).

So did I

I absolutely love that line

Damn the us population increased like crazy in only 30 years

Right

You bet. And in every nation not just USA.

It does. It just doesn't have any real impact. Arrest as many congresspeople as you'd like, it won't fix the faulty system that encourages & facilitates their scummy behavior.

Well to be fair to congress, gridlock is a way bigger problem than corruption

@@drugbuddy665 true, but that doesn’t mean the people who replace them can’t try to fix and reform the system.

lol about britexit too lisa views on it like thus be funny 🤣

How?

American democracy is a lie. That's the joke.

@@thedrinkinggamemaker9749 It turned sour.

While the country aged like room temperature milk

And it just keeps getting better.

There are people who do take pride in that. Not just military personnel, but civil servants who could earn more working for contractors and corporate officers, but who choose to work for the people of the United States in whatever capacity they can. We also take oaths to “preserve, protect, and defend” the Constitution and that does mean something important.

@@lightbringer34 Yes, just not enough people do that.

@@lightbringer34 Completely false. The government hates you, never forget it.

Now they just work for deep state-ers.

I was very young when I first watched this episode and I didn't really understand why Lisa did what she did but knowing what I know now I completely understand why she did it

That's the joke

@@CryptidMech Yeah, but he didn't just explain the joke; he added more information. So it's good.

@@Tzizenorec He didn't explain it at all! He just refuted it like someone who couldn't tell that was the joke in the first place. "Yeah, no."

​@@Onigirli True, but his refutation was still interesting. And the original joke _was_ of the "wrong in a way that's irritating" variety.

That's the joke Einstein

Or my my dad, or my older brother.

The wrong side won WWII

@@bloodwragei don’t know man I wouldn’t go that far

@@kentuckyfriedcommunist9496 Look at that, a communist having an objectively wrong take.

@@kentuckyfriedcommunist9496 Red detected. Opinion discarded.

Bush Senior was the president in this skit. Just a decade later, his son would send us to war based on lies; lies that the top people in this country consciously manufactured.

The government is run by a Satanic pedophile cabal btw.

[insert a somehow even less cohesive rebuttal]

It kind of sounds like the type of thing that Fox would force on them, and the type of sarcastic response they would make in return, that's for sure.

Totally believable

sounds pretty likely. imagine being a writer on the simpsons, and having fox breathing down your neck to do stuff that wasn't unamerican/unpatriotic. probably happened a lot. that whole scene with george bush seemed like pure propaganda, didn't seem like something the simpsons writers did themselves tbh, seems like something they were told to add in/change about the plot

Funnily enough, the current amount of voting age people is at 250million! And turnout was 160million in 2020!

Never got around to that securing that southern border.

@@curious1053 there are only 62 million Spanish speakers in the us, do you think they all got here after 1993?

A few of them do occasionally

Only when they go against the establishment. Otherwise they are above the law. These days if I hear a politician is being investigated by the FBI or DOJ it makes me like them more.

The FBI certainly aren't above that though are they? 😂

Like he should be worried? lol

@@Onigirli He also could've said "Calm down, son. What is it?"

Mfs printed and distributed a whole new paper in 30 mins.

What's the population now? 300 million?

I domt think you know what exponentially means.

@@shortydancer at a steady or rapid rate. “The American population has increased exponentially over the last 20 years.”

@@usonly101 growing exponentially means growing very rapidly. Like the graph of e^x. Steady is not exponential.

@@shortydancer the literal definition says “Steady or Rapid”

This isn't a political debate!

Tiffany Henyard. To support this fact

Yeah, I love how the writers made fun of the system while they please it

r/whoosh

@mm4350 yes I did unfortunatly

They kinda did since it lampoons the fact that the US would never be able to do this.

Considering the time the episode came out and Bob Arnold’s actions and fate, I would say this is based on Michael “Ozzie” Myers and his role in Abscam.

@@carguy3910 oh yeah from American hustle!! It’s probably that event although given the Simpsons ability to predict events that have happened, we can also say this episode sort of predicted santos 😂😂

The USA had exactly the same system back then xD The DNC started voting the Democratic candidates, if a majority wasnt reached, in the 80's.

Trump supporters would argue that the USA is a republic and not a democracy.

Lol there's always been corruption chief

@@victorfergn and it was only in the '60s that the concept that voters should have a say in who parties choose to run for president at all became a thing. smoke-filled rooms with party bosses choosing their candidate is how America had been for most of its history.

@@MP-dn4bs I'm not even American :V