Patriot Act: 20-Minute Episodes of Entertaining Satire

Hasan Minhaj is a standup comedian who some of you might have heard of from the Daily Show or the White House Correspondents’ Dinner speech. He also does an American TV show called The Patriot Act.

What caught my eye about the program was Hasan’s “Affirmative Action” video, where he was able to fit both comedy and the tragic truth in just 20 minutes. To explain the complicated foundation and procedures of affirmative action, he used excerpts from the speeches of different politicians, humorously calling them out along the way. The very next episode of the show, which was banned in Saudi Arabia, criticised the way the crowned prince governs his country. Hasan also questions the Jamal Khashoggi incident; this captured the eye of the Saudi Crown Prince, which led to the video being removed from Netflix. This was followed up by a second video titled “Saudi Arabia + Censorship In China,” where he makes a reference to his removed video by starting the video with “Error 404 Not Found.”

The content of the show is generally political satire, and covers culturally relevant, modern topics. Furthermore, in volume one, he discusses interesting concepts of corruption regarding student loans, oil, Supreme (the brand), immigration enforcement, content moderation, free speech, and others.

Educational and hilarious, this show is the perfect 30-minute break that you need. Patriot Act can be found on Netflix and Youtube. It’s definitely worth the watch: enjoy!