Steve Braunias: The secret diary of Looking at the year in satire

Prime Minister Bill English and his negotiating team. Photo / Mark Mitchell

To be honest I approached another year of satirical intent with a heavy heart. Satire had the crap beaten out of it when Trump got the job of POTUS. His win — and it didn't matter how he achieved it, by fair means or Russian — wiped the smirk off satire's face. POTUS got the last LOL.

And so I was kind of tentative as I wrote the first few satires of 2017. I felt confused about the purpose of the exercise. Only a fool would think that satire changes anything. I wasn't that crazy but I can't stand the thought of any form of comedy which merely sets out to entertain.

I went back to the drawing board. I sketched a few definitions of satire. They weren't deep. I wasn't after that. I wanted something as basic as a chair.

I thought: satire is voice bubbles; satire is impersonation; satire is — man, I'd love to see this for real — a sign language interpreter making up their own wildly funny parody at a press conference. All these pithy little definitive mottos were the same idea of satire as a running commentary, an alternative comedy to the grinding reality of everyday politics and society.

I quite liked the sound of that. I got back to work. You could say I was away laughing. Besides, I didn't really have time for soul-searching; it was election year, and everyday politics was hectic.

Bill English, for instance, was a running joke. There wasn't a second that I could take the man from Dipton seriously. He was so ephemeral. He cast himself as The Rock but he was really just shifting sand. From the moment he stepped into John Key's shoes, I only ever referred to him in the diaries as "the interim Prime Minister". Christchurch journalist Philip Matthews came up with a good variation of that on Twitter, when he quoted a classic line from The Shining: "You've always been the caretaker ..."

But at least English lasted the distance to the election. Andrew Little died so Jacindamania could live. There was a terrible wretchedness about his leadership. I wrote a diary about Little in February, where I imagined him hiding behind the couch at his house, too afraid to answer the door in case it required him to say something from the heart without asking permission from caucus. "If someone knocks on the door," I had him think out loud, "but no one is inside to hear it, does it make a sound?"

There was much else of diverting satirical interest long before the election campaign. The secret texts of Bill English. The secret listening devices of Todd Barclay. Opportunities Party leader Gareth Morgan promised an end to traditional politics and was as good as his word. His world view seemed built on the principle that most people were idiots. The only trouble I had with Morgan in 2017 is that he provided his own alternative comedy to everyday politics. Really, he was a walking satire. He was doing me out of a job.

And then there was the campaign itself, which actually wasn't all that funny. No one really made a total goose of themselves — well, apart from Steven Joyce, and his amazing dancing fiscal hole. I wrote a diary in which English instructed him, "Well, seeing as you've dug this hole for yourself, you might as well just stay there for the rest of the campaign, and make yourself comfortable as best you can." But did I make that up, or was I just quoting English's actual advice?

Satirising politics in New Zealand is a pleasant kind of pastime. It's not a matter of life and death, or the destruction of the entire planet. As the year progressed I warily turned my attention to writing satires about the situation in America. That is, in Trumpland. What to do? What can any of us do? Is there any point in jeering the Donald, in calling him names, in wanting to make him look small, pathetic, a joke?

You wonder and worry about the right approach, and then one day Trump's press secretary Sean Spicer compares the Nazi regime to Syria's Bashar al-Assad, and actually says, "You had someone as despicable as Hitler who didn't even sink to using chemical weapons." Incredible. John Clarke would surely have savoured that one; the greatest New Zealand satirist died the same week, and I not so much channelled his spirit as flat-out plagiarised his style when I wrote a diary of Spicer. Some of Clarke's best work was his mock interviews with Bryan. I imagined a mock interview with Spicer, who announced the White House was fighting a war on truth.

Interviewer: "What will take its place?"

Spicer: "Alternative truth."

Final definition: satire is fake news. I like the sound of that, too. I'll very happily accept the challenge and pleasure of reporting it in 2018.