Highlights
- Mr. Garrison became South Park’s Trump stand-in.
- The show turned Trump’s presidency into a recurring joke.
- South Park later went after Trump directly.
- Its latest Trump jab helped the show win an Emmy.
Donald Trump has been a recurring target of South Park’s political satire for years, although the show often avoided using his name directly.
The clearest example came during the 2016 presidential campaign, when the series turned Mr. Garrison into its Trump stand-in. The character went on to become president in the show after Trump won the real election, allowing the creators to keep parodying the president through Garrison.
In 2025, however, South Park moved from allegory to a much more direct Trump parody. The show’s latest jab came in September 2026, when creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker announced that the series would be renamed ‘South America’, mocking Trump’s efforts to rename geographical locations and Apple and Google for reflecting some of those changes on their Maps services.
Here are some of the most notable times South Park has taken aim at Trump.
1. Mr. Garrison became the Trump stand-in
During the 2016 election campaign, South Park used Mr. Garrison as its primary representation of Trump rather than putting the real candidate at the centre of the story.
The Season 19 episode ‘Where My Country Gone?’ featured Garrison responding to immigration with increasingly extreme rhetoric. The episode also introduced a Canadian presidential candidate who was explicitly described as a parody of Trump and his positions on immigration.
According to the official South Park site, the creators were concerned during production that Trump’s campaign might not last, and deliberately used Garrison and the Canadian character rather than giving Trump the satisfaction of appearing on the show.
2. Garrison actually became president
The joke became much bigger when Trump won the 2016 election.
South Park had originally written Garrison as a Trump-like candidate, but the real election forced the creators to change their plans. The official South Park site notes that the episode ‘Aw, Jeez’ was rewritten after Trump's victory, with Garrison adopting more of Trump's mannerisms.
From that point, Garrison became the show's fictional version of Trump, including his angry tweets, presidential decisions and increasingly chaotic behaviour.
3. ‘Members Only’ turned Garrison into the president
Season 20's ‘Members Only’ took the Garrison storyline directly into the White House.
The episode followed Garrison after he had become president-elect, continuing the show's parody of Trump's unexpected political victory. The official character page lists the episode among Garrison's key appearances during the Trump-era storyline.
The joke worked because South Park had created its Trump stand-in before the election, then had to deal with the uncomfortable fact that the parody had become reality.
4. Trump’s presidency became part of Garrison’s story
After Trump's inauguration, South Park continued using Garrison as its Trump counterpart rather than repeatedly introducing a separate Trump character.
The show's official material describes Garrison's post-election character as a representation of Trump, with storylines involving presidential decisions, angry social-media posts and even declarations of war.
That made Garrison one of the show's longest-running political parodies of a sitting president.
5. The show eventually put Trump himself on screen
Trump did appear as himself in South Park before the 2016 campaign, but his role was very different from the later Garrison storyline.
The official South Park character database lists Trump's first appearance as ‘The Entity’, a Season 5 episode. The character was portrayed as the businessman Trump rather than as the show's presidential parody.
That distinction is important because South Park later chose Garrison as its main Trump analogue during the 2016 campaign and Trump's first presidency.
6. ‘Sermon on the ‘Mount’ went directly after Trump
In July 2025, South Park dropped much of the distance created by the Garrison character and directly satirised Trump in ‘Sermon on the ‘Mount’, the Season 27 premiere.
The episode portrayed Trump in an intentionally outrageous storyline involving Satan and included an explicit parody of the president. The episode also targeted Paramount and its relationship with Trump, making the satire as much about corporate and political power as Trump himself.
The White House responded by attacking the show as irrelevant and desperate for attention. Co-creator Trey Parker later responded sarcastically when asked about the controversy, saying the creators were “terribly sorry”.
7. ‘Sermon on the ‘Mount’ won an Emmy, and South Park used it to mock Trump again
The Trump episode came full circle in September 2026 when ‘Sermon on the ‘Mount’ won Outstanding Animated Program at the Creative Arts Emmys.
Rather than simply celebrating the award, South Park used the victory for another Trump joke. The show's social-media account shared an image of its fictionalised Trump holding an Emmy with the message “You finally got your Emmy”, referencing Trump's previous Emmy nominations for The Apprentice.
The Emmy win was followed almost immediately by the show's latest Trump-related stunt: Parker and Stone announced that South Park would be renamed ‘South America’, parodying Trump's efforts to put “America” into the names of geographical locations and sarcastically crediting Apple and Google for their role in the trend.
The ‘South America’ joke continues the tradition
The new name is therefore not an isolated Trump joke. It follows a much longer history, beginning with Garrison's transformation into a Trump-like presidential candidate during the 2016 campaign and eventually moving to direct portrayals of Trump himself.
What makes the latest gag different is that South Park is also taking aim at the companies that have followed Trump's naming changes. The result is a joke about Trump, corporate compliance and the politics of naming all at once.
