Trump is fueling a young, male and conservative comedy comeback
Liberals have dominated American comedy news for the past 50 years. Jon Stewart, John Oliver, Stephen Colbert, and Bill Maher are among the most prominent voices in political satire.
But since the rise of Trumpism, conservatives have begun getting in on the joke. There has been a noteworthy growth in mainstream success for roast-style comedy podcasts and conservative stand-ups — a renaissance of hyper-masculine, offensive humor targeted at young men. During Donald Trump's campaign for U.S. president in 2024, the revitalization of right-wing politics breathed new life into an untapped comedic market.
It hasn't always been this way. The earliest American comedy news dates back to radio in the 1930s and the rise of political satirists like Will Rogers in the 1950s. The origins of network comedy shows were rather apolitical — such as Johnny Carson on 'The Tonight Show,' who steered clear of current events while reaching broad audiences.
Jon Stewart's influence on Comedy Central's 'The Daily Show' in the 1990s marked a pivotal shift in the modern understanding of comedy news — increasingly politicized, nationally broadcast comedy.
The most dominant comedy news of past decades came in the form of left-leaning shows usually attack right-wing politicians. Ten of the top 15 political figures targeted by jokes on 'The Daily Show' were Republicans, according to Pew Research Center's analysis in 2007.
Companies are now seeing an opportunity to program against liberal satire, catering to an untapped conservative audience that has been blooming since the rise of MAGA Trumpism in 2015. 'Gutfeld!,' 'The Daily Show's' conservative cousin on Fox News, delivered its highest-rated quarter in program history in the last three months.
Beyond traditional broadcast comedy news, young male conservative comedians who were shunned by the liberal entertainment community are now finding a new audience — one searching for respite amid the media saturation of politically correct comedy. Many of these right-wing comedians have met and directly received the praises of Trump himself.
In 2019, Shane Gillis was fired from SNL before his debut as a cast member for racist and homophobic comments that resurfaced. Since then, he has hosted SNL twice, most recently in March 2025. Gillis has also appeared in a Super Bowl commercial for Bud Light and has a stand-up special and a two-season sitcom on Netflix. Trump praised the comic, saying that Gillis was 'on our side' after meeting Gillis at Super Bowl LIX.
Sometimes right-leaning jokes didn't land with audiences. Tony Hinchcliffe, a comedian and host of the comedy podcast Kill Tony, went viral for his remarks at a Trump rally at Madison Square Garden during Trump's 2024 U.S. presidential campaign. 'There's literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it's called Puerto Rico,' said Hinchcliffe. He received backlash from several Republican leaders.
Still, Hinchcliffe's roast-style comedy has been successful with conservative audiences. 'Kill Tony's' most popular podcast episode has 25 million views on YouTube — it was a parody mocking Joe Biden's performance in the U.S. presidential debate last summer.
Conservative podcasters and influencers have given rise to the 'manosphere,' an online culture targeting young men that espouses hypermasculine and sometimes misogynistic messages. During Trump's 2024 presidential campaign, he became a frequent guest of the manosphere, appearing on Joe Rogan, Theo Von, and Logan Paul's podcasts. Each of these podcasters have considerably more reach than cable news, and some of them have far larger audiences than any television broadcast news network.
Several media outlets have theorized that podcasts were critical fuel contributing to Trump's 2024 win, due to their reach in the young male demographic. Historically, young men have had lower voter turnout, according to data from the Center for American Women and Politics.
These influential manosphere podcasters exist at a dangerous junction between joking and truth-telling, where hosts riff on news-like content, but are not held to the journalistic standards often present in liberal satire shows.
Unlike network broadcast shows, podcasts lack teams of fact-checkers and systems of accountability when joking about the news. This situation can become complex when the line between truth and comedy becomes more blurred.
People are becoming less trusting of legacy news outlets. According to a Gallup poll, Americans' trust media is at a record low in 2024, with 36 percent of respondents having no trust at all in the media. In an increasingly fragmented media climate, influencers become a lot more appealing.
The cultural dominance of conservative comedy has given a prominent, political voice to individuals who do not operate under journalistic principles like fact-checking. The world of political satire is one that rests upon a foundation of outrage at both ends of the political spectrum. Therefore, once provocative humor and its provocative statements create profitable platforms, right-wing influencers making money off misinformation have no incentive to change what they're doing.
Comedians are only one gear in the machine that propels the rise of this offensive speech on the right. But ultimately, the binary of the 'us versus them' mentality that propels anger and conflict between groups has been an essential element of politics. On the right, Trump propels an anti-woke agenda. On the left, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are spearheading an anti-oligarchy message.
At war are the scandalized left and the politically incorrect humor of the right. Trump has successfully revived being anti-woke and boastfully hypermasculine in the comedy world — a mere reflection of what his politics are all about.
Allison Jiang is a freelance writer studying sociology at Princeton.
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