When there are kings, there are jesters

When there are kings, there are jesters. One glorious benefit of living through a time of political upheaval and uncertainty at the hands of a fickle ruler is watching the rich vein of satire surface from the bonfire of the king's vanities. Throughout history, whenever a tyrant settled in to brood over an empire, so did his jesters. Overlooked by most because they dealt in comedy and jokes, a jester's role to an all-powerful king seemed, on the surface, one of joshing the king into a finer mood. Poor kingdoms they were, their destinies in the hands of fickle and tempestuous kings, notorious for wandering attention and bloviating, thundering speeches of importance. What, though, could the people do? They lived under the king's thumb. Any means of appeal for their plight - say, equivalent to our highest court - would be stopped in its tracks, as the courts had thrown in behind the king. To do otherwise spelled trouble, when the nation's would-be king promised revenge and retribution to be meted out to any who criticized the king. In his dark ramblings, the king talked to his people about "pointing guns" at anyone he considered his enemies. Line up a former congresswoman before a firing squad, a military tribunal, he said. Shoot the press, he hinted. "I don't mind that so much," he said. In olden days, a jester in the king's court often was the only one who could aim well-pointed barbs at the king's follies, putting words to absurdity, speaking truth to power when little else could. "Jesters do oft prove prophets," as William Shakespeare wrote in "King Lear." With America only weeks away from the return of its felon president, the jester business here is about to enter a golden age. His term hasn't even started and already the promised hourly chaos of his first term is echoing through headlines as he made Cabinet appointments and demanded their positions be accepted without confirmation or vetting or well any old nod to how our government works. So far, we've got a roadkill enthusiast who doesn't trust science or vaccines in charge of our Health and Human Services; our Homeland Security handed over to a pet-dog-shooting governor who was banned, in her own state, from entering tribal lands; and we're handing off our Environmental Protection Agency to a guy with a cellar-level rating among environmental advocacy groups, but who voted to overturn the legitimate election of 2020 to favor the king. Sorry, I mean Trump. Naturally, there is the Fox News host, who announced "I'm straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles," who will now be Secretary of Defense. Then there is the one dropping jaws the most, - and I know that is pushing it, given this partial list - the congressman currently under investigation for having sex with a minor, who will now be the nation's top lawyer. Tell me what company you keep, and I'll tell you what you are. Into this breach, though, came a bit of news that, while not the same as hearing the cavalry had arrived, was perhaps the jovial equivalent of it: The witty masterminds over at the satirical news site The Onion won the bankruptcy auction to become the new owner of Infowars. InfoWars was the toxic wasteland where lie-peddler Alex Jones inflicted his personal brand of far-right conspiracies and fact-free viciousness to the masses. Jones lost his media empire - which included massive revenues from questionable "health and wellness" supplements - on the auction block, where he was forced to bend the knee after juries found Jones liable for defaming the families of Sandy Hook victims. For years after a gunman killed 20 first-graders and six adults at Sandy Hook in 2012, Jones spread that the shooting was a hoax. One father said conspiracy theorists, egged on by Jones, threatened to dig up his 7-year-old son's casket and urinated on his grave. Juries awarded the families $1.4 billion in damages in Connecticut, and $49 million in Texas. The amount of the winning bid was not released. Several Sandy Hook families backed The Onion. "The dissolution of Alex Jones' assets and the death of Informers is the justice we have long awaited and fought for," said Robbie Parker, whose daughter Emilie died at Sandy Hook, in a statement to the Associated Press. In a statement on The Onion's website, Chief Executive Officer Ben Collins described the old Infowars as "a shrewd mix of delusional paranoia and dubious anti-aging nutrition hacks, they strive to make life both scarier and longer for everyone, a commendable goal." Its new iteration will be entirely focused on spoofing and satirizing conspiracy peddlers like Infowars and its ilk. The site's exclusive launch advertiser will be Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit organization that advocates for gun control and against gun violence. Jones, predictably, is promising to fight it. Collins, unfazed, told The Boston Globe buying Infowars is just his style. "My whole family will fight you in a Dunkin' Donuts parking lot," he said. "I think the best satire rips off the face and reveals the wiring underneath. And that's what we're going to do with it." Long live the jesters. Contact Rini Jeffers at rinijeffers@gmail.com.