Chase me ladies, I'm in the cavalry

"Humourists have been scared out of the business by the touchiness now prevailing in every section of the community. Wherever you look, on every shoulder there is a chip, in every eye a cold glitter warning you, if you know what's good for you, not to...

Chapter 7: The double-bluff irony impasse
This arises when person A makes an ironic comment, to which person B replies mock-seriously in the same vein. Then person A, fearing a misunderstanding, says, no, I was joking, and person B says yes, I know, so was I. And an embarrassed silence endures...

In the U.S. election of 1796, the President of the U.S. Philosophical Society (Jefferson) ran against the founder of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Adams). The most popular musician around that time was Ludwig van Beethoven.
Looking back from the age of Trump, Clinton and Bieber, it's clear that things have gone to shit to an extent that hasn't been seen since Rome fell. I don't want to labour the point, but if standards continue to decline at this rate for another couple...

Hillary Clinton: "He should not have the nuclear codes because it’s very easy to imagine Donald Trump leading us into a war just because someone got under his very thin skin.''
Noam Chomsky on Trump: "Almost a death knell for the human species."
Both Clinton and Chomsky take it as read that the election of Trump and subsequent annihilation of the human race would be a sub-optimal outcome. Neither bothers to explain why this is the case; they just assume their audiences share their prejudices...