Are You Laughing Yet?
Remember, censorship is when people don't laugh at your jokes. Freedom is when your late-night show gets permanently taken off the air for financial reasons (16 million of them) and the president expresses his approval. Comedy is great again, which is to say, it's funny only if the president says so. Jokes are back, baby! Airplane travel is the worst! Take my wife, please. She's a green-card holder who's been in the country for 25 years! Knock, knock! Who's there? Sorry, they won't identify themselves, but they say they're here about the op-ed.
The Norwegian tourist who was denied entry by border officers—after the agents took a special interest in the meme of J. D. Vance he had on his phone —didn't understand that when we say that comedy is legal again, we mean real comedy. This was clearly not comedy. This was somebody laughing at J. D. Vance. Comedy is when you laugh with J. D. Vance about people who don't look to him like their ancestors fought in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. Comedy is the memes that the Department of Homeland Security and the White House keep sharing about how Donald Trump is Superman and 'my body is a machine that turns ICE funding into mass deportations' and 'even E.T. knew when it was time to GO HOME'!
If you need any more clarity about what comedy is, here's one of Trump's favorite comedians ('I absolutely love that Colbert' got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert! Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined.') offering what has been identified as a joke: 'You know what?' Gutfeld said on Fox News. 'I've said this before: We need to learn from the Blacks, the way they were able to remove the power from the N-word by using it. So from now on, it's 'What up, my Nazi?' 'Hey, what up, my Nazi?' Hey, what's hanging, my Nazi?''
Laugh? I thought I'd die! This joke is funny, because people are constantly saying that Gutfeld is a Nazi, and he is getting a little sick of it. So, to dodge the Nazi allegations, he's riffing on the N-word! This is comedy now!
Comedy is legal again. You are free to say whatever you want, provided it's a slur. You must say it, or President Trump won't approve your new stadium! No, that's not a joke. That's completely serious.
You should know by now: Everything is serious, until it's suddenly a joke and you were a fool for not laughing. Everything is a joke, until suddenly it's serious and how dare you laugh. Everyone is trolling, until they aren't, and even when they aren't, they are. Everyone is always and never joking. It's not a threat. It's a joke. Comedy is legal again!
Tragedy, to paraphrase Mel Brooks, is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you fall into an open sewer and die. More and more people are getting pushed into open sewers lately. Boom times for comedy. Boom times for laughing at. From the open sewer, you can hear a lot of laughing.
They are so glad not to have to remember anymore that other people are in the room. What an enormous relief! Finally, they can say it! That is the project of Trumpism: becoming the only people in the room again. Becoming both the protagonists and the intended audience, the only people whose laughter counts.
What you think is funny depends on what you believe to be true. When you make a joke, you are asking someone to look at something and see the same thing you see. When the response is laughter, it is a way of making eye contact, of looking through the world at one another. That is the terror of bombing onstage: the realization that what you are seeing is not what everyone else is seeing. The anxiety that you have got the world by the wrong end, that you are alone in what you think.
But there are two reasons you can laugh. One is recognition, and the other is coercion. Some jokes are funny only with a power differential to back them up. This is the kind of comedy that's legal now: the joke whose punch line you're afraid to be. The kind of joke you have to take. Laugh, so they'll know you're one of them. Laugh, or he'll kill you. Laugh, and maybe you won't be next.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Fox News
13 minutes ago
- Fox News
Trump critics wait 'feverishly' for some sort of sign that inflation is up, says Charles Payne
Fox Business host Charles Payne weighs in on President Donald Trump's efforts to secure new trade deals and why his critics won't give him credit on 'Jesse Watters Primetime.'
Associated Press
13 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Sen. Cory Booker in angry outburst says 'complicit' Democrats need a 'wake-up call'
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a rare public outburst on the Senate floor Tuesday, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker took his Democratic colleagues to task, declaring his party 'needs a wake-up call!' Angrily screaming at two of his shocked Democratic colleagues, his words all but reverberating off the chamber walls, Booker blocked the passage of several bipartisan bills that would fund police programs, arguing that President Donald Trump's administration has been withholding law enforcement money from Democratic-leaning states. 'This is the problem with Democrats in America right now,' Booker bellowed. 'Is we're willing to be complicit with Donald Trump!' The surprise Senate spat over bills that have broad bipartisan support — mental health resources and other help for police officers — strikes at the heart of the beleaguered Democratic party's dilemma in the second Trump era as they try to find a way back to power, and also their frustration as Republicans have pushed through legislation and nominations that they vehemently disagree with. Do they cooperate where they can, or do they fight everything, and shut down governance in the process? 'A lot of us in this caucus want to f—— fight,' Booker said with an expletive as he left the Senate floor after the exchange. Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, one of the two Democrats on the floor who tried to pass the law enforcement bills that raised Booker's ire, said she had a different view. 'We can do both,' she said afterward. 'Support our communities, keep them safe, and take on Donald Trump and his bad policies.' Booker's tirade began Tuesday afternoon when Cortez Masto tried to pass seven bipartisan bills by unanimous consent. But Booker objected to five of the seven bills, which would have directed resources to law enforcement agencies, arguing that the Trump administration is 'weaponizing' public safety grants by canceling them in many Democratic-leaning states like New Jersey. 'Why would we do something today that's playing into the president's politics and is going to hurt the officers in states like mine?' Booker asked. Things escalated from there, with Cortez Masto and Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., saying that Booker should have objected when the bill was passed unanimously out of committee. 'This is not the way to go about it,' Cortez Masto said. Klobuchar said to Booker: 'You can't just do one thing on Police Week and not show up and not object and let these bills go through and then say another a few weeks later on the floor.' 'I like to show up at the markups and I like to make my case,' Klobuchar said. Booker responded with a booming tirade. 'The Democratic party needs a wake up call!' he yelled, walking away from his desk and out into the aisle. 'I see law firms bending the knee to this president, not caring about the larger principles,' he said, along with 'universities that should be bastions of free speech.' He added: 'You want to come at me that way, you will have to take it on with me because there's too much on the line.' The arguments points to the tensions below the surface of the Democratic caucus as they head into important moments — both this week, as Republicans push to quickly confirm dozens of Trump administration nominees before the August recess, and this fall when Congress will have to pass bipartisan spending bills to avoid a government shutdown. Democrats suffered a swift backlash from their base in the spring when Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., helped advance a Republican spending bill that kept the government open instead of forcing a shutdown. Schumer argued that shutting the government down would have been worse, and that they were both 'terrible' options. It is unclear whether Schumer and Democrats will want to force a shutdown in the fall if Republicans don't include some of their priorities in spending legislation. Booker did not have specific advice for his colleagues beyond the need to fight harder. But other senators say they will have to find a balance. Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut says he hears both things at home — 'why can't you all get along' and 'thank you for fighting.' 'Both are absolutely necessary at this moment in history,' Blumenthal said.
The Hill
14 minutes ago
- The Hill
Thomas Kinkade's family denounces DHS use of painting, weighs legal options
The family of American artist Thomas Kinkade is pushing back on the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) use of the late artist's painting to promote what the family views as an anti-immigrant message. In a statement posted to the Kinkade Family Foundation website, the family said DHS failed to get authorization before posting an image of Kinkade's painting on social media on July 1. The family is now weighing its legal options. 'The use of his artwork was unauthorized, and we have requested that DHS remove the post, and we are consulting with our counsel on our options,' the statement said. The painting depicts young children walking to school in a quintessential American town. Several children gather around a flagpole as they raise the American flag, and some place their hands over their hearts. The painting is called 'Morning Pledge.' DHS posted an image of the painting and added: 'Protect the Homeland.' The DHS social media page has touted the agency's immigration enforcement efforts and mass deportation campaign and often highlights depictions of immigrants as criminals. The family objected to Kinkade's legacy being associated with that message. 'At The Kinkade Family Foundation, we strongly condemn the sentiment expressed in the post and the deplorable actions that DHS continues to carry out,' the foundation wrote in the statement. 'Like many of you, we were deeply troubled to see this image used to promote division and xenophobia associated with the ideals of DHS, as this is antithetical to our mission,' the statement continued. 'We stand firmly with our communities who have been threatened and targeted by DHS, especially our immigrant, BIPOC, undocumented, LGBTQ+, and disabled relatives and neighbors.' The Washington Post first reported on the foundation's statement Tuesday. DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told the Post that the agency is highlighting artwork that 'celebrates America's heritage and history.' 'If the media needs a history lesson on the brave men and women who blazed the trails and forged this republic from the sweat of their brow, we are happy to send them a history textbook,' she said in the statement to the Post. 'This administration is unapologetically proud of American history and American heritage.'
