While we were entering hour 3 of Jake Tapper trying to bait candidates into slap fights with Trump, South Park was kicking off its new season by ripping on the social justice mafia.  The premiere episode, which you can watch for free on Comedy’s Central site, opens with a jab at Bill Cosby’s expense to explain that the kids will now have a new school principal.  PC Principal, as he’s called, is on a mission to bring South Park into the politically correct era of 2015, and he’s got no tolerance for intolerance, especially if that “intolerance” comes in the form of saying anything about Caitlyn Jenner that doesn’t involve explaining how she’s a hero and a strong, beautiful woman.

He quickly goes to work slapping people with detentions for every triggering and microaggression he hears about, and it’s not long before even Cartman has decided to back down.  It was actually kind of strange to have Kyle be the one who tries to hold out until the end rather than Cartman, but clearly they wanted a reason to make some Brady/DeflateGate jokes and that gave them an excuse.

For the most part, the episode pulls no punches, brilliantly lampooning the social justice warriors who plague every aspect of our culture with their constant need to be offended on everyone else’s behalf.  In fact the most over the top moment of the episode where Cartman catches a royal beatdown seems like it’s just South Park turning things up to 11, but it actually mirrors one of the latest things to come out of the battle gamers are waging to keep the PC Police out of their industry.

As Milo Yiannopoulos reported over at Breitbart, it turns out one of #GamerGate’s most strident opponents once claimed to be a pedophile who lusted after her 8 year old cousin:

Sarah Nyberg, a transsexual formerly living as Nicholas Nyberg, sometimes known as Sarah Butts, is a well-known critic of the GamerGate movement who was recently quoted on the topic by The Washington Post. She enjoys the support of prominent progressive commentators including Salon columnist Arthur Chu, former NFL punter Chris Kluwe and academic Katherine Cross.

But a recent leak from an online chat room owned by Nyberg reveals Nyberg’s disturbing past. In 2005, Nyberg described herself as a pedophile, revealed how she was obsessed with her young cousin, who was 8 years old at the time and whom we will refer to as “Alice,” defended white nationalism, and orchestrated a cyberattack against a rival’s website. Public records reveal that she currently owes at least $100,000 in back taxes and is classed as a “delinquent” by the Wisconsin Department of Revenue.

Since this played out on the Internet and not a school bathroom, it didn’t come to blows as it does in the episode, but PC Principal’s total lack of concern about being linked to pedophilia does match up with how the real life arbiters of political correctness responded to the situation. They quickly closed ranks around Nyberg and went on the attack.  One defender even Tweeted her a picture of his kid to help cheer her up.

Sadly, despite that surprising twist, South Park chickens out in the end.  Just as it’s time for the final blow and the message of the week, the kids choose to make nice rather than engage in further conflict, and so the PC Police are here to stay. Maybe they plan to keep the PC Principal character around to lampoon regularly for the rest of the season, but the kind of appeasement we see at the end of the episode is how things got to this point in the first place.  Rather than standing up to all the bogus accusations of sexism, racism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, and any other -isms and -phobias yet to be named, people just shrugged and apologized, and rather than be pacified by these offerings, the PC Police just grew more vehement over even lesser offences.

Fortunately nothing drives the PC Police crazier than being mocked, so no doubt this episode will still send those so-called SJWs into histrionics even with that bit of conciliation at the end, and that makes it worth watching all by itself.

Update: Fixed to correct version of “principal.”

For more of my takes on entertainment and politics, follow me on Twitter @crankytrex or check out my other writing at buzzpo.com.