Comedians use satire to expose somebody’s flaw or discredit a false statement. They often embellish their satire with irony, a rhetorical flourish, or wit to highlight the contrasting virtue or truth. Sometimes their satire incorporates sarcasm in order to insult the character of somebody, literally to sneer at the targeted person. Although comedians do not always deploy sarcasm in their satire, politicians very often do, especially during campaigns.

In the next hundred days, Americans will task themselves with unravelling the snarling sarcasm inveighed by our two presidential candidates against each other. Both Party nominees want to win our trust by exposing the reasons why we should distrust their opponent. Part of our task is to weigh the legitimacy of the truth implied in the discrediting insult. But this task may become difficult in the melee already underway. Since sarcasm is meant to be hurtful, it easily invites retribution. In other words, this presidential campaign could well devolve into a bar brawl where the winner is whoever punches harder. One of the candidates has already used this metaphor to exclaim his intent to punch harder. But has reason ever won a bar fight? The value of satire is demeaned when sarcasm stands alone as pure meanness and insult. Stated more plainly, it is imperative upon us to evaluate the truth behind accusations that accuse Clinton of being a liar and a crook and Trump of lacking the temperament and competency to be President.

Both candidates have used satire touched with sarcasm. You can judge their relative success by simply reviewing their respective use of satire. For example, in past years Mr. Trump has pointed out the irony that Obama won the Presidency even though he should have been disqualified by reason of his alleged foreign birth. He now offers the irony of Clinton seeking the office of Commander-and-Chief while violating national security and failing to protect our Foreign Service personnel overseas. He accuses her of being a crook who has violated the law and lied about knowingly receiving classified documents on her personal email server and who repeatedly denied responsibility for the deaths of foreign officials who were killed during the attack on the CIA protected consulate in Benghazi. Mrs. Clinton, for her part, has called attention to the irony of Mr. Trump’s claim to be “the voice” for working Americans whose wages have not kept pace with the growth in our economy. She has sarcastically referred to his lack of experience as an employee, to his propensity to hire overseas workers, to fight union participation for his domestic laborers, to his hiring of illegal immigrants, to his several bankruptcies that relieved him of any obligation to his creditors, and to his tendency to engage small business owners in lengthy legal battles rather than meet their demands for either his adherence to mutually signed agreements or to a fair settlement of their contributions to his business.

When sarcasm has no basis in fact, then it is not satire, but simply unabashed insult. In the political arena, too often the only irony is that there is no irony, for there is very often not even the semblance of truth. I don’t believe the previous paragraph misrepresents either candidate’s statements. It is not at all difficult to assess the truth behind their scathing sarcasm. Which one deserves your trust? You be the judge.

My readers know I have a propensity to delve into the roots of language. So, in closing, I feel compelled to point out a strange linguistic anomaly: the word “satire” and “sad” have the same Latin root, satis, which literally mean “enough.” It seems that feeling sad is a surfeit of grief or unhappiness; and satire expresses a surfeit of another’s vice or folly. We very quickly reach our fill of unhappiness, but we can revel endlessly in another’s falseness. If you will excuse a little linguistic gymnastics on my part, satire might just be our way of keeping sadness at bay. Certainly, you never see a politician pounding his/her chest with a resounding mea culpa when it is so much easier to find fault with an opponent, even if that fault is based upon a lie.

This campaign season has already suffered enough from misused satire. When based upon a lie, sarcasm is not satire. It is simply an insult intended to malign an opponent and repel any assessment of the self.

Are you dissatisfied with this campaign? Have you had enough already?