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That's absolutely correct, Wirthling. At least that is how it seems to Laura. It does keep turning out the same way, though it is open to debate whether the guys she keeps falling for are truly leftist nuts. She forms the opinion that a guy is a leftist nut only when he asks her to have an abortion. The strip actually lampoons an infamous conservative who makes snap judgements about people.
I understood the leftist nut thing, but the rest is a bit much to expect a person to have absorbed from that one repeated panel.
Of course, it would be ridiculous for me to expect everyone to get it. Effective humor relies on a sudden intuitive shift in perspective, which depends on a person's prior knowledge and on how the person's mind pieces together details. I could have written the strip to make it more obvious. For example, I could have called the character Dr. Laura instead of just Laura. But that would have given too much away, because the humor of a joke depends not only on whether a person gets it but also on how much a person has to figure out to get a joke. (Besides that, it wasn't factually accurate about Dr. Laura anyway.) When a person has to figure out more stuff to get a joke, the shift in perspective is greater, and the humor is greater. Thus, effective humor involves a balance between giving someone enough information to get the joke but not so much to dilute the shift in perspective. Unfortunately, there is no perfect balance at which everyone will get a joke and also think it's extremely funny. When information is hidden to strengthen the impact of a joke, it increases the chance that someone won't get it.
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