The attraction for Trump among many conservatives is that he’s already a comedian. The way he talks, how he insults people, all the outrageous things he does, are all already hilarious to conservatives, because he’s trolling the libs.
Humor can’t beat down Trump because Trump already used humor constantly. If anything, it just makes his trolling seem even more effective, since it gets so many people angry.
This is one reason why a guy like de santis can’t replace Trump. He’s not funny or genuine. If you call desantis Hitler he gets defensive and wants to offer you a policy brief. Trump would just make a joke and call you a clown.
Yeah, the "he's got small hands" thing never resonated with me, probably because I don't have a penis to be anxious about its size.
"He's orange" does work, because Trump is indeed very orange. But a lot of people do use cheap spray-on tan that leaves them looking orange, in the delusion that it makes them look tanned and stylish. I guess if you are going for a tan, better to have the spray-on kind than the skin cancer risk from sunbeds or sunlight.
Hmm, do I remember something about it being a bad thing to mock people for their weight? Rosie somebody or other?
The odd thing here is that the appearance-shaming approach is one that has been used against *female* politicians, so it's really a feminist issue in a very weird way to turn it on Trump. I don't know. I think "oh, old guy is not fit like he used to be" isn't the killer zinger either.
After the election, I thought to myself what a sinister move it would be by SNL to not mention him once for the entire season. I think the lack of attention would bother him far more than the barrage of insults.
I genuinely believe that if the media had been able to stop talking about Trump after 2020 and if the Democrats hadn't mistakenly believed that the sure-fire way to be relevant was to keep banging on about the danger of Trump, that he would have faded away off the scene.
The better way would have been to answer questions about Trump with something like "Who? Him? Well he's not important any more, is he? What's important is (talk about this issue)" and let him be perceived as irrelevant. But they could not stop themselves from pursuing the high of "it worked great to win the election to call him Hitler the Second, let's keep doing this!" and that kept Trump relevant and more importantly, made him the power in the Republican party. Nobody was able to position themselves as the reasonable alternative to Trump, because nobody was getting the same constant "the Dems are afraid of him/her" message.
Hard to crack wise effectively on a guy who constantly talks and acts like a science experiment gone awry involving the genes of Jerry Lewis and Andrew Dice Clay.
The fact that liberals are seen as humorless scolds even while firing "jokes" against Trump like a ship desperately emptying its torpedo bays into an unbothered Borg cube tells me something has gone wrong with our side's humor.
Maybe developing a less judgmental sense of humor might help liberals, even if indirectly. The new jokes may not do anything to Trump, but the changes to social structure this would imply might.
That they seem to think Walz' "The Republicans are weird" bit worked, and they should have kept at it, tells me they had no idea.
"X is weird" comes across as schoolyard bullying, the cool kids picking on the outsiders. For the party of "we're inclusive and tolerant, we accept you as you are, welcome to the White House lawn for transgender celebration", turning around and going "nyah-nyah, you're a weirdo!" isn't a good look.
"What are your substantive policies?" "Our opponents are weird!"
Yes, that makes me confident you will do a good job of running the country.
I feel like any lessons from the past about using humor or music or art or even protest to Get The Word Out needs to be tempered with an understanding that in our brave new media landscape everybody is watching a different show. Any "message" conveyed in entertainment is only going to be heard by people who have already upvoted other entertainment with a similar message.
Someone said that making fun of him doesn't work because he's such a joke IRL, which is true. You can't really parody someone who's already way past ridiculous.
Concerning the effectiveness of political humor, I recall Jon Stewart himself saying (I think this was when Bush was President) that he imagined Weimar-Republic-era comedians saying circa 1933-34 “boy, we really showed those Nazis what was what.”
That's also the weakness when trying to criticise the Republicans. Every guy of theirs is Hitler, until the new guy comes along and then the old guy is, in retrospect, a respected and principled politician.
As you say with Bush and Stewart: back then - he's Hitler! now - he's a good guy who gave us PEPFAR, not like the current bunch in charge!
Mitt Romney - theocrat who hates women and is cruel to dogs! Then he was "only principled Republican" when opposed to Trump.
What really made me go "What the everliving hell?" was seeing Liz Cheney being brought on board to support Kamala Harris' campaign. Well okay maybe. But then Liz trotted out her dad? Dick Cheney? The Great Satan himself of past Democratic invective? And now he's all in for Kamala?
Who on earth was that supposed to convince? "You guys like the Cheneys, don't you? And now they like us! So that means you have to like us too, right? Right?"
Moderates? Swing voters? "Well gosh, I was hesitant about whether Kamala has the chops to do the job, but now she's been endorsed by the most hated war-mongering profiteering torture-supporter, I'm with her!"
Who could forget that classic line "Fuck bitches, get goats"? Some will insist that the line is "get money", and will point to the title of the song as evidence, but I think this is a yanny/laurel situation.
(also, laugher curve is peak comedy, exactly what I pay for)
I love your comedy, and don't stop writing it, but to me it feels like the comedy and other snarkiness against Trump helps to make us feel complacent about the current situation, like we're smart and so maybe it isn't really happening or someone will stop it.
Another problem is that anti-Trump humour just isn't as funny as the unintentionally hilarious shit Trump does every day. We have to remember that as authoritarian and awful as Trump is, he comes off more like a goofy sitcom character most of the time- more Peter Griffin than Pol Pot. Unfortunately, the same repackaged jokes are no match for complaining about why you have to flush low flow toilets 10-15 times.
Part of the problem is that the left thinks it is living in an authoritarian dictatorship, and everyone else doesn't.
Humor requires at least some awareness of reality, and jokes based on a premise that isn't shared widely are going to fall flat.
I think the more accurate way to say that is the left thinks it's living in an authoritarian dictatorship and the right thinks it's RUNNING one.
The right thinks the left is the authoritarian party.
Imagined victimhood is a time-honored justification for atrocities.
I would argue utopianism is. And the modern left is like their brethren of a century ago, highly utopian.
You're not actually disagreeing with me, which is commendable (if somewhat unintentional) honesty.
Jeff's audience is pretty liberal, so I assumed you were. But whatever - its all good
The "Laughter Curve". Nice.
My trademark attorneys will be in touch.
Arthur B. Laffer
The attraction for Trump among many conservatives is that he’s already a comedian. The way he talks, how he insults people, all the outrageous things he does, are all already hilarious to conservatives, because he’s trolling the libs.
Humor can’t beat down Trump because Trump already used humor constantly. If anything, it just makes his trolling seem even more effective, since it gets so many people angry.
This is one reason why a guy like de santis can’t replace Trump. He’s not funny or genuine. If you call desantis Hitler he gets defensive and wants to offer you a policy brief. Trump would just make a joke and call you a clown.
Well Trump's humor is novel. The last time anyone made fun of the left was the 1980s with Reagan and P.J. O'Rourke.
Yeah, the "he's got small hands" thing never resonated with me, probably because I don't have a penis to be anxious about its size.
"He's orange" does work, because Trump is indeed very orange. But a lot of people do use cheap spray-on tan that leaves them looking orange, in the delusion that it makes them look tanned and stylish. I guess if you are going for a tan, better to have the spray-on kind than the skin cancer risk from sunbeds or sunlight.
Yeah, but what about Trump's hair? Some comedian should target that. Might be a game changer.
I respectfully disagree. I think perhaps his weight is a better target. He's fairly tubby and unfit!
ʰᵃⁿᵈˢ
Yes because appearance shaming wins the war……says nobody ever.
Hmm, do I remember something about it being a bad thing to mock people for their weight? Rosie somebody or other?
The odd thing here is that the appearance-shaming approach is one that has been used against *female* politicians, so it's really a feminist issue in a very weird way to turn it on Trump. I don't know. I think "oh, old guy is not fit like he used to be" isn't the killer zinger either.
People in these professions think that words will change the world because their business is words.
Dems have become very disconnected from materiality.
After the election, I thought to myself what a sinister move it would be by SNL to not mention him once for the entire season. I think the lack of attention would bother him far more than the barrage of insults.
I remember how mad people got when South Park basically followed suit on that by having Mr. Garrison play the stand-in for Trump.
I genuinely believe that if the media had been able to stop talking about Trump after 2020 and if the Democrats hadn't mistakenly believed that the sure-fire way to be relevant was to keep banging on about the danger of Trump, that he would have faded away off the scene.
The better way would have been to answer questions about Trump with something like "Who? Him? Well he's not important any more, is he? What's important is (talk about this issue)" and let him be perceived as irrelevant. But they could not stop themselves from pursuing the high of "it worked great to win the election to call him Hitler the Second, let's keep doing this!" and that kept Trump relevant and more importantly, made him the power in the Republican party. Nobody was able to position themselves as the reasonable alternative to Trump, because nobody was getting the same constant "the Dems are afraid of him/her" message.
Hard to crack wise effectively on a guy who constantly talks and acts like a science experiment gone awry involving the genes of Jerry Lewis and Andrew Dice Clay.
The fact that liberals are seen as humorless scolds even while firing "jokes" against Trump like a ship desperately emptying its torpedo bays into an unbothered Borg cube tells me something has gone wrong with our side's humor.
Maybe developing a less judgmental sense of humor might help liberals, even if indirectly. The new jokes may not do anything to Trump, but the changes to social structure this would imply might.
I can't believe you would waste time criticizing honest comedians when Trump
That they seem to think Walz' "The Republicans are weird" bit worked, and they should have kept at it, tells me they had no idea.
"X is weird" comes across as schoolyard bullying, the cool kids picking on the outsiders. For the party of "we're inclusive and tolerant, we accept you as you are, welcome to the White House lawn for transgender celebration", turning around and going "nyah-nyah, you're a weirdo!" isn't a good look.
"What are your substantive policies?" "Our opponents are weird!"
Yes, that makes me confident you will do a good job of running the country.
I feel like any lessons from the past about using humor or music or art or even protest to Get The Word Out needs to be tempered with an understanding that in our brave new media landscape everybody is watching a different show. Any "message" conveyed in entertainment is only going to be heard by people who have already upvoted other entertainment with a similar message.
Someone said that making fun of him doesn't work because he's such a joke IRL, which is true. You can't really parody someone who's already way past ridiculous.
Right. He is a vivid caricature of an unscrupulous and uncouth blowhard bully billionaire.
Concerning the effectiveness of political humor, I recall Jon Stewart himself saying (I think this was when Bush was President) that he imagined Weimar-Republic-era comedians saying circa 1933-34 “boy, we really showed those Nazis what was what.”
That's also the weakness when trying to criticise the Republicans. Every guy of theirs is Hitler, until the new guy comes along and then the old guy is, in retrospect, a respected and principled politician.
As you say with Bush and Stewart: back then - he's Hitler! now - he's a good guy who gave us PEPFAR, not like the current bunch in charge!
Mitt Romney - theocrat who hates women and is cruel to dogs! Then he was "only principled Republican" when opposed to Trump.
What really made me go "What the everliving hell?" was seeing Liz Cheney being brought on board to support Kamala Harris' campaign. Well okay maybe. But then Liz trotted out her dad? Dick Cheney? The Great Satan himself of past Democratic invective? And now he's all in for Kamala?
Who on earth was that supposed to convince? "You guys like the Cheneys, don't you? And now they like us! So that means you have to like us too, right? Right?"
Moderates? Swing voters? "Well gosh, I was hesitant about whether Kamala has the chops to do the job, but now she's been endorsed by the most hated war-mongering profiteering torture-supporter, I'm with her!"
I hadn't seen that Vietnam thing.
There's like one scandal a week that would end any other administration.
Who could forget that classic line "Fuck bitches, get goats"? Some will insist that the line is "get money", and will point to the title of the song as evidence, but I think this is a yanny/laurel situation.
(also, laugher curve is peak comedy, exactly what I pay for)
I love your comedy, and don't stop writing it, but to me it feels like the comedy and other snarkiness against Trump helps to make us feel complacent about the current situation, like we're smart and so maybe it isn't really happening or someone will stop it.
Another problem is that anti-Trump humour just isn't as funny as the unintentionally hilarious shit Trump does every day. We have to remember that as authoritarian and awful as Trump is, he comes off more like a goofy sitcom character most of the time- more Peter Griffin than Pol Pot. Unfortunately, the same repackaged jokes are no match for complaining about why you have to flush low flow toilets 10-15 times.
Laugher Curve is epic, Maurer. As was the opening Mesopotamia joke with the racist accusation following.
Good insight here, sir.