CNN Laments Popularity of 'Fascist' 'Thomas the Tank Engine,' 'Paw Patrol'

Is it universal for leftists to be without the ability to simply enjoy entertainment without finding offense? In this day and age, it sure feels like it. To make matters worse, it seems they can’t handle anyone else finding enjoyment in anything they find bad.

Especially children.

“Parents like to see themselves as purveyors of possibility. We want our children to inhabit a world in which identities are both mutable and equal, and imagination and empathy reign supreme!” Alissa Strauss wrote at CNN.

“But young children, as dictated by their tastes in popular culture, have something else in mind. They’re drawn to worlds in which identities are fixed, order trumps imagination and transgressions are met with routine punishment,” she said. “This clash between what parents desire for their children and what children desire for themselves is most easily observable in cartoon preferences. So often, the more parents dislike a show, the more their children love it.”

Strauss went on to single out two popular children’s shows: “Two of the most divisive shows are ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’ and ‘Paw Patrol,’ both of which have been eviscerated by grown-ups on discussion boards, in social media and in widely shared essays in prestigious publications.”

“‘Thomas,’ the long-running television franchise about a group of working trains chugging away on the Island of Sodor, has been called a ‘premodern corporate-totalitarian dystopia’ in the New Yorker, imperialist and sinister in Slate, and classist, sexist and anti-environmentalist in the Guardian. And yet people — presumably parents — spend $1 billion on ‘Thomas’ merchandise every year,” Strauss said.

The problem is, kids like these shows, which weren’t meant to be political. These shows tend to revolve around following the rules, something the left had no problem with prior to a total GOP takeover of the government. Now that we have President Trump, it’s an issue.

It’s not an issue in places like schools, where teachers prefer students to adhere to order and rules.

Perhaps the bigger problem, one that CNN isn’t asking, is just why so many adults are this worked up over the content of children’s programming all of a sudden.

Unfortunately, the answer is simple. It’s another example of the left trying to destroy things people enjoy in an effort to sound intelligent and “woke.”  None of these programs are harmful or do anything except make children sit down and be quiet for a few minutes, something any parent can tell you is a blessing that shouldn’t be overlooked. Yet the wannabe intelligentsia can’t let that be enough. They overanalyze every aspect of the show until they find something to lash out at.

Ironically, they target television folks who, by and large, tend to be liberals with a strong disdain for the modern right. In other words, they’re accusing their own side of shilling for the enemy. In reality, they were shilling for Obama and didn’t bother to change the formula when Trump won.

That fact doesn’t make them sound smart or particularly sane, so they leave that part out.