Political jokes: too early?
The answer from many quarters midweek was a resounding yes, days after an assassination attempt on Republican former President Donald Trump roiled the nation over the political violence that has been brewing in the United States for decades.
Several late-night shows that thrive on political comedy immediately changed their plans, with Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” canceling its Monday show and its plan to broadcast this week from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. The host, Jon Stewart, and his counterparts delivered somber monologues.
On Tuesday, the comedy rock duo Tenacious D, consisting of Jack Black and Kyle Gass, had canceled the remainder of its world tour “and all future creative plans” after Gass expressed his birthday wish on stage: “Don’t miss next time.” Gass apologized.
Democratic President Joe Biden, no stranger to mocking Trump, called his wounded rival, pausing his political ads and messaging and calling on the nation to “cool down” the rhetoric.
So if comedy is tragedy plus time, when is joking okay again? And who’s giving the thumbs up, considering the gunman who targeted Trump also killed former fire chief Corey Comperatore while protecting his family?
There is nothing funny about Saturday’s assassination attempt or the violence that has plagued the United States since its inception. Trump was punched in the ear while speaking to rallygoers in Pennsylvania. A Trump supporter and the shooter were killed and two bystanders were injured. The attack raised serious questions about security shortcomings. It was the latest episode of political violence in America, where attacks in politics date back to at least 1798, when two congressmen from opposing parties clashed in the U.S. House of Representatives.
History books are littered with other examples, but this century’s list is shocking. Former Rep. Gabby Giffords, D-Ariz., was shot in the head in 2011. Republican Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, now the House majority leader, was shot and seriously injured in 2017. A mob of Trump supporters attacked the US Capitol. January 6, 2021 to prevent Congress from certifying Biden’s election. Paul Pelosi was gunned down in his home in 2022 by a man hunting for his wife, former Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi.
Add that to unyielding concerns about Biden’s fitness for office after his disastrous debate performance, Trump’s convictions on 34 felonies — and American politics in 2024 seem anything but amusing.
But political humor is as old as politics and government.
It takes some of the edge off the democratic decisions at hand and is a powerful weapon for politicians looking to allay concerns about themselves or raise concerns about their rivals. And in recent years, Trump has been the subject of more jokes than others in recent history. A 2020 study from George Mason University’s Center for Media and Public Affairs found that 97% of late-night anchors’ jokes revolved around Trump.
“It’s never too early unless it’s not funny,” Alonzo Bodden, a stand-up comedian for 31 years, asserted during a telephone interview on Wednesday. Not a Trump fan, he said, “comedians will always make it funny no matter what. That is what we do. It’s how we communicate.”
“In this case, Donald Trump is one of those characters and the fact that he wasn’t killed immediately started the joke,” Bodden said. “And I don’t think he minds. He’s one of those people that as long as you talk about him, it’s a win.”
Perhaps most effectively, political humor can make pompous leaders more human, or at least more self-aware.
See “covfefe,” Trump’s mysterious 2017 middle-of-the-night tweet that went viral and caused Jimmy Kimmel to complain that he’ll never write anything funnier. Or “Make the Pie Higher,” a poem by the late Washington Post cartoonist Richard Thompson composed entirely of the garbled statements of President George W. Bush and published on the occasion of his inauguration in 2001.
“It’s a very complicated economic point that I made there,” Bush explained a few months later, with a nod to the Radio and Television Correspondents’ Dinner. “Believe me, what this country needs is a bigger pie.”
Biden has tried to use humor to highlight the age issue before the debate clarified that the question is more about his cognitive abilities. “I know I’m 198 years old,” Biden has said to loud laughter and applause.
Humor is such a valuable campaign tool that candidates are flocking to the guest seats of late-night shows, which have grown in political influence. But after the murder, everything came to a lull, as evidenced by Stewart’s serious monologue Monday.
“None of us know what’s going to happen, except that there’s going to be another tragedy in this country that we brought upon ourselves, and then we’re going to have this feeling again,” Stewart said.
“Stephen Colbert of The Late Show described his horror at the attack, relief that Trump had survived and “sadness for my beautiful country.”
“Although I might as well start the show groaning on the floor,” he said, “because how many times do we have to learn the lesson that violence plays no role in our politics?”
Social media showed less restraint, as is now the case. “I find it ironic that Trump almost died by a gun today because he leaned too far right,” comedian Drew Lynch said on YouTube. “Agreed. That’s all I have. I think my neighbors are within earshot.”
___
Kellman reported from London. AP Media Writer David Bauder contributed to this report.
