Sacha Baron Cohen is about to add jet fuel to Showtime’s rise, starting tonight

Netflix has been killing competitors with its original TV shows and movies. A Morgan Stanley survey released back in May had 39 percent of U.S. consumers naming Netflix as offering the “best original programming” among subscription video services, with everyone else eating its dust, including HBO, which nabbed 14 percent, Amazon Prime Video (5 percent) and Showtime Networks, with a measly 3 percent of the votes.

That could well change with a new, seven-part Showtime series by Sacha Baron Cohen, the English actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer who has played fictional characters Ali G, Borat Sagdiyev, and Bruno, and who is back in brilliant form, including as Israeli anti-terrorist expert Col. Erran Morad.

If you doubt that the series — “Who is America” — is going to be the talk of the internet (and offline word), check out this clip streamed last night ahead of its premiere tonight at 10 p.m. EST.

Among other things, it features former U.S. Senator Trent Lott promoting putting guns in the hands of “law-abiding citizens, good guys, whether they be teachers, or whether they actually be talented children or highly trained preschoolers.“ (Lott hardly appears to have an, ahem, gun to his head, either.)

The clip may well leave you speechless at first, especially if you have parented a preschooler, momentarily interacted with one, or possibly just seen one on television.