It was never a joke, even back whenever you are thinking of it was based on legitimate problems.

The fact that people took over a decade to "wake up" to the problem and then suddenly "oh, /pol/ was right again" is why things are so shit now.

Not that most of /pol/ isn't retarded, they absolutely are. But they were also willing to openly talk about and discuss this problem years before most everyone else, and before it might have been too late to push back on a lot of it.