“I hate conservatives, but I really fucking hate liberals,” bemoaned South Park co-creator Matt Stone in 2005. The line was cited ad nauseum in the early 2000s to seemingly prove South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker as more right-leaning. Of course, one must not gloss over the first part of Stone’s statement, either. Parker and Stone have always been equal opportunity offenders, going after whatever they find most ridiculous in the days leading up to airtime. Inspired by Monty Python and driven by a desire to never take themselves too seriously, the two Colorado-born troublemakers have put American culture on blast for nearly thirty years.

Since its 1997 premiere, South Park and its creators have been notoriously difficult to pin down politically. They went after liberal celebrities in early seasons, mocked extremism in the post 9/11 world, poked at Michael Moore, limousine liberals, and jingoistic conservatives in Team America (2004), criticized political overreactions on both sides after the 2008 election, made fun of cartoonish media personalities like Glenn Beck, attacked the politically correct Left while simultaneously going after MAGA attitudes, and they’ve always made fun of Christians.

In short, it’s complicated.

The show’s first seasons were focused on salacious humor. Alien anal probes, stupid celebrities, Cartman’s mom being a slut, and defending the show-within-the-show Terrence and Philip. T&P was what the Christian moral crusaders assumed South Park was – oversimplified vulgarity. Groups like Action for Children’s Television lobbied against the show and the Christian Family Network referred to the show as “a steady stream of violence.” An early review from The Hollywood Reporter also dismissed South Park as “dismissible juvenilia.”

Politically, the show’s first seasons were relatively tame. The Clinton years saw numerous jabs at the President as a sexual philanderer, but nothing that would warrant a response from the White House. These early years emphasized goofiness, offensiveness, and mocking arrogant celebrities who pushed their platforms at award shows. South Park also used gay stereotypes to attack homophobia with Big Gay Al, making fun of hippies when Cartman goes to San Francisco, caricaturing blind faith in big business with the Underpants Gnomes. The first seasons were about pushing boundaries anywhere Parker and Stone found humor.

South Park also went relatively easy on George W. Bush (though Parker and Stone lampooned him in a separate series called That’s My Bush). One must remember that in the post 9/11 years, compared to today, there was arguably a bit more cultural unity. A brand of socially liberal conservatism was growing; it was much easier to speak to people with differing views. South Park’s 100th episode had characters debating the War in Iraq, only to realize they could go to war and complain about it because the United States is “an entire country founded on saying one thing and doing another.” A more direct target of Parker and Stone were Christians (“Red Hot Catholic Love”) along with a large lens on organized religion. Jesus had a public access show in town. Religious figures — Muhammad, Buddha, Moses, Joseph Smith, Krishna, Laozi, and (in an Aquaman parody) Sea Man — worked together as the Super Best Friends. Mormons were often lampooned as being as kind as they were stupid.

Still, the early 2000s saw conservative commentators maintaining the show was in their camp. Andrew Sullivan claimed “South Park Republicans” as a new brand of politically oriented youth in 2003, and City Journal’s Brian Anderson penned a book titled South Park Conservatives in 2005. The show clarified its presidential preferences in a 2004 episode titled “Douche and Turd” that lampoons PETA “eco-terrorists” who lecture kids about a school mascot. The school is forced to vote on a new mascot, which sets up a great election parody that argues any vote is always between a “giant douche” or a “turd sandwich.” 2006 episodes “Smug Alert” and “ManBearPig” mock hippies in San Francisco and climate fearmongering from Al Gore – a topic they would backtrack on years later.

The entire premise of South Park has always been the town’s kids trying to make sense of the adult’s overreactions. The children’s viewpoint is a perfect conduit for asking honest questions, like “isn’t this a bit extreme?” In 2006, Trey Parker told Reason that “Michael Moore being an extremist is just as bad, you know, as Donald Rumsfeld. It’s like they’re the same person. It takes a fourth-grade kid to go, ‘You both remind me of each other.’” Parker continued, “the show is saying that there is a middle ground, that most of us actually live in this middle ground, and that all you extremists are the ones who have the microphones because you’re the most interesting to listen to, but actually this group isn’t evil, that group isn’t evil, and there’s something to be worked out here.”

Always skirting around labels, the truth is that South Park’s most consistent stance is against extremism. Radicalism is easy to see, fun to mock, and once upon a time, remained on the fringes of society. Parker and Stone identified as libertarians in the mid 2000s, but mostly because it wasn’t necessarily the right or the left. They simply despised whoever was trying to control people’s lives. They were raised agnostic, so they also don’t have a flag planted with a given religion, either.

Perhaps the best example of the show’s ability to call attention to emotionally driven, extreme reactions, is the 2008 election episode “About Last Night.” The town is split into two camps. The first, Obama voters overconfident that everything was going to change overnight with their win. Randy Marsh screamed “Change!” to the sky and taunted “losers” to his McCain voting neighbors. The second, McCain voters convinced the world was over, now fighting for space in a survival bunker. Meanwhile, the episode evolves into an Ocean’s 11 parody where Barack and Michelle Obama, John McCain, and Sarah Palin are all working together to steal a diamond. The metaphor is apt – politicians keep us fighting each other while they run off with the money.

The larger controversy during the Obama years was South Park’s 200 and 201^st episode, both of which were banned from HBO Max and are currently barred on Paramount+ streaming services. The story begins when the kids are on a field trip and see Tom Cruise packing fudge in a fudge factory in a silly nod at Cruise’s sexuality (Tom Cruise tried to get South Park taken off the air after they savaged the Church of Scientology during their ninth season). The actor threatens to sue the town of South Park and gets a range of previously South Park-lampooned celebrities – like Bono, Rob Reiner, OJ, Mel Gibson, Brook Shields, John Travolta, and Paris Hilton – to go along with him. The only recourse the town had, was to allow Cruise to meet with the Prophet Muhammed.

That was a hot button topic for many years in the post 9/11 world, where a simple depiction of Muhammed could land an artist on the business end of a deadly fatwa. “200” was two-parter where “201” was to culminate in a depiction of Muhammed along with a message of free speech and tolerance. After the first episode aired, a radical group called Revolution Muslim released a death threat on YouTube telling Parker and Stone that if they go forward with showing Muhammed that they will end up murdered like Theo Van Gogh (who spoke out against criticism treatment of women in the Middle East).

“201” aired, but Muhammed was censored and the final speech at the end of the episode was also censored by the network. “I think Comedy Central totally fucking pussed out,” lamented Stone, who also understood that every newspaper and network was backing away from similar issues. “That was one of my most disappointing moments as an American,” he continued, “the American press’s reaction to the Muhammad cartoons. It was completely wimpy.” Especially since South Park had already depicted Muhammed in a previous episode and appeared in the show’s opening montage for ages.

Leading up to the 2016 election, South Park went all in against political correctness with the addition of PC Principal, a frat bro with arrogantly aggressive progressive takes on everything. “Safe Spaces” were also targeted in a memorable episode. The series of women accusing Trump of sexual assault got noted in a 2016 episode “Douche and a Danish” that was part of a lengthy storyline where teacher Mr. Garrison ran for president on a MAGA-type campaign. The focus was less on politics and more on the comical passion some people had for a person as phony as Trump – a man who had been the punch line of popular culture for decades.

During the pandemic and Biden years, South Park focused on poking anti-vaxxers that were making it into the mainstream. It continued to attack political correctness and maintaining their much more regular, silly narratives about Randy’s Tegrity Weed farm. The show also targeted recent discussions about China. Signaling out LeBron James’ statement about consequences of free speech while seemingly siding with the Chinese government. Protestors in Hong Kong applauded South Park for calling out public figures whitewashing the oppressive Chinese government, which would swiftly ban the show. South Park responded, when Towelie forced Randy to say, “fuck the Chinese government,” twice.

After 26 seasons, Parker and Stone spoke to Vanity Fair about going into a 27^th season amid such political turmoil. “We’ve tried to do South Park through four or five presidential elections, and it is such a hard thing to,” Matt said. “I don’t know what more we could possibly say about Trump,” added Trey. South Park skipped the 2020 election cycle, with one longer episode in September and a second one the following spring. The most memorable episodes lampooned loud-mouthed celebrities, like wannabe Nazi Kanye West in “Cupid Ye” and Royal Couple Prince Harry and Meghan Markle proclaiming from the rooftops that they want privacy in “The Worldwide Privacy Tour.” A series of longer specials were released in 2024, such as “The End of Obesity” that targets the Ozempic craze and highlights the difficulty of the American healthcare system.

In 2025, however, things are different under Trump 2.0. While Parker and Stone avoided nailing Trump specifically by using Mr. Garrison as a MAGA stand-in obsessed with campaigning and spewing hateful rhetoric during previous seasons, they must have realized that Donald Trump’s increasing instability made him appear as a character tailor-made for their show. There was no choice. Trump is childish, petty, insecure, racist, sexist, and vindictive. Donald Trump is the embodiment of Randy yelling “loosers!” to his McCain-voting neighbors after Obama’s victory. Because there is no way to animate Trump any further, South Park simply uses a cutout of the President’s head. After all, how do you make a cartoon out of an already cartoonish person?

Proving his innate insecurity, the White House lashed out against South Park claiming the show was culturally irrelevant – completely overlooking that a response from the Oval Office proves relevancy. Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Biden never lashed out against popular culture, understanding that the Presidency is a platform that will be mocked on nightly talk shows, Saturday Night Live, and, of course, South Park. Past presidents could handle ribbing from the entertainment world, knowing it came with the territory, and handled it with class. Trump’s nightly rants on social media painting anyone critical of him as talentless only expose further his own weakness. It is Trump’s embarrassment over South Park’s depiction that has made it the must-watch show of the season.

As for Matt and Trey, we shouldn’t assume they are hardline Democrats now. They are still mocking extremism wherever it is, and right now, the dog-killing, billionaire fellating, science-denying, immigrant bullying, religiously manipulated MAGA crowd is it. South Park understands the importance of speaking truth to power. Parker and Stone have done it for nearly thirty years, have taken flak from every political and religious group for three decades, and we can only hope they’ll continue for many years as a much-needed social safety valve in today’s exhausting and emotionally driven attention economy.