Tag Archives: Modest Proposal

When News Resembles an Onion Headline

By Robin Bates | Published: October 4, 2022

A recent case of an American man arrested for parodying a police department elicited a supportive brief from “The Onion.”

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Trump’s Modest Proposal

By Robin Bates | Published: March 31, 2020

It may be April Fools’ Day, but there are Republicans who are advocating a version of Jonathan Swift’s “Modest Proposal.” For real.

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In Praise of Literary Biography

By Robin Bates | Published: November 29, 2018

I share a discussion I had with John Stubbs, author of riveting biographies on Swift, Donne, and the cavalier poets.

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Imagining the Poor as Breeders

By Robin Bates | Published: June 27, 2018

Donald Trump has been using words like “infest” and “breeding” to dehumanize people of color. Swift’s Modest Proposer does the same.

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The GOP and Trump’s Modest Proposals

By Robin Bates | Published: June 12, 2018

The practice of separating immigrant children from their asylum-seeking parents is reminiscent of the Modest Proposer’s solution.

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Reflections on Internet Trolling

By Robin Bates | Published: May 30, 2018

Internet trolling is not contributing to discourse but poisoning it.

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Jonathan Swift, Master of Fake News

By Robin Bates | Published: January 18, 2017

Fake news, which played a role in the 2016 election, may have become particularly sophisticated, but satirists have been creating fake news since at least the days of Jonathan Swift. Take, for instance, Swift’s “The Last Speech and Dying Words of Ebenezer Elliston,” which supposedly lowered the crime rate but which, for that reason, is problematic.

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If Swift Had Known Donald Trump…

By Robin Bates | Published: November 27, 2016

Jonathan Swift would have had a field day with Donald Trump. I suspect I’ll say this often in the upcoming years.

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A Modest Proposal for Shooting Students

By Robin Bates | Published: March 5, 2014

Reacting against a proposal to allow guns on Idaho campuses, an Idaho professor has come up with a modest proposal of his own.

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