Season 19 of South Park started with a fake-out true to Stone and Parker form, where the biggest joke was in the obvious reactions it would draw from the community it depends on. When people began to doubt the ethos of the long standing libertarianism that fueled the satirical force that is South Park, the season’s second episode quelled any questions about their abandonment of social critique. The season's first episode premiered a new character, PC Principal who, at first, seemed like a typical condemnation by conservative culture of the politically correct movement.

This portrayal of the white, dogmatic, social justice frat guy appeared as a superficial and easy jab at sensitivity. The internet was abuzz with people’s reactions to the depiction, lamenting that South Park had fallen from grace as the show which cut through what Jon Stewart calls Bullshit Mountain. With second episode’s unquestionable condemnation of Trump and his culture, however, it became clear that Stone and Parker had more nuanced intentions than the parrots people at Fox News.

Recently, what the 'PC movement’ — as inadequate and more representative of its detractors as that term is — has been characterized by on social media is rhetoric and dogmatism reminiscent of the conservative pundits who sorely need politically correct training. The term ‘PC’ has become less about sensitivity and social justice, and increasingly descriptive of the kind of reactionary shame culture that our media so happily pursues in the name of viewership.

There’s no reasonable or informed question that sensitivity, education, and acknowledgment of privileges dependent on race and economic status are critical in bettering American society for all — South Park doesn’t argue against that. No, PC Principal is a critique of the dogmatic shaming over social media that is seemingly taken up, not by people of minorities, but rather other privileged white people.

People that are looking to espouse some newly socially acceptable medium through which to dominate others. Are Trump and the white social justice bro's equal? Hardly. The Canadian trump-doppleganger in South Park is depicted as having totally ruined the country. It’s desolate, and Canada-Trump is insane — not too much nuance there, but South Park’s best moments are hardly ever blunt.

People like PC Principal however, are just hurting the very causes they purport to represent. The town of South Park, after PC Principal shows up, decides to gentrify. Parker and Stone smartly demonstrate that gentrification, the whole-foods movement, and people like PC Principal, are all exemplary of a systemically privileged class of people falsely donning faces of sincerity in order to continue the cycle of profiting off of others.

Skillfully, South Park doesn’t make its 19th season a condemnation of any one person — social issues go beyond individuals, even those as bad as Trump. The satirical tour de force identifies the one thing that affects change, or forestalls it, and it’s economic systems. Whole Foods, ads, and gentrification itself, are all emblematic of the economically supported action of oppressing others.

Corporate entities like Whole Foods advocate ‘knowing your food’ and eating better, but those platitudes are less endearing when you consider the bill they send customers. Moreover, their relationship to gentrification really underscores the business end of ‘revitalizing’ lower income neighborhoods when you consider the fact that it only serves to force out existing residents. Kenny’s family in South Park experiences this very phenomenon; the poorer neighborhood is relabeled ‘Sodosopa’ and businesses capitalize on wealthier people’s fetishizing of the mythologized artisan image of ‘historical’ areas.

There’s a lot of humor in Parker and Stone’s use of PC Principal, he’s a walking caricature of frat guy personalities infused with social justice ideology. Like The Daily Show, the duo only make fun of the ridiculous, and white people shaming each other over twitter by calling each other racist to get a leg up on one another — on behalf of black people who aren’t benefitting from these exchanges at all — is ridiculous. Not that identifying racism openly isn’t important, it is, but that the purpose has become enjoying a newly privileged position above other white people atop a high horse, rather than looking to spur any kind of change benefitting others. As South Park puts it, P.C. bros aren't interested in helping anyone; like Whole Foods and lower income neighborhoods, people like PC Principal are just gentrifying language.

“What is PC but a verbal form of gentrification? Spruce everything up, get rid of all the ugliness to create a false sense of paradise.” - South Park, Season 19, episode 10