Is satire enough?

The most vocal and effective response thus far to the Trump presidency appears to be comedy; it often feels like the liberal left has a powerful command of comedy beyond that of the conservative right. At the very least, as Jonah Herzog-Arbeitman ’19, a member of Quipfire! Improv Comedy, notes, “The left is much funnier because the right is largely the party of tradition, and it’s much more satisfying to laugh at our old mistakes than our new progressive ideals.” It is this idea of being “funnier” that I argue leads to the idea that comedy allows one to defend against Trump. As my fellow columnist Kaveh Badrei ’20 argues in a March 2017 opinion piece, “Comedy can cut through falsehoods and clearly critique society.”

While I agree that comedy has its uses in providing critical perspective and holding politicians accountable, it is also limited. Foremost among these issues is the subjective nature of humor. Is liberal comedy funny to those who aren’t liberals? Humor is very subjective, and political humor that is funny to liberals is unlikely to be funny to conservatives, and vice versa. I have often been accused by more conservative Facebook friends of “not getting the joke” when they post a particular political meme. And they’re right: I don’t. As Herzog-Arbeitman notes: “Tons of people have coined terms to describe the echo chamber effect of social and conventional media, and comedy is beholden to the same effect.”

In a powerful piece, New Yorker writer Emily Nussbaum argued that one of Trump’s main advantages in the election was his grasp of comedy. He was funny to conservatives, which increased his appeal. Herzog-Arbeitman seems to agree and disagree with the notion that Trump effectively uses comedy. Trump has a strong understanding of how to engage an audience. His campaign was more game show than politics or comedy, and his victory is more akin to reality TV refusing to cut a poor contender because of his or her knack for creating drama.” Yet I again wonder if these sorts of arguments leave out what appears to be substantive evidence that he is utilizing comedy in ways we simply are not accustomed to.

Still, I believe liberal humor is not effective with conservative (or undecided) voters, given that political humor is inherently polarized. It makes sense to imagine this is lost on left-leaning political observers due to their bias; when I say humor is useful when it is “politically effective,” I am speaking to the sense that political effectiveness is used to gain votes and win elections. Conservative humor and Trump’s humor were more effective than liberal humor, given the results of the election. Therefore, we should be weary that an “army of comedy” would generate any different results.

Some will argue that we don’t expect SNL or The Onion to swing the results of an election. Yet we’re no longer interested in the results of an election, but rather the ability to project political objectives and hold elected leaders to bipartisan standards of accountability. Does comedy help us with these goals, or does it distract us?

We should be leery of comedy’s effects alone. We cannot only make fun of policies or criticize ideas. We should actively consider our use of comedy as part of a larger struggle to defend our political values. Princetonians who are invested in the wellbeing of the country are obligated to laugh, sure, but we also have to be able to take Trump seriously. Trump has proven himself incompetent and dangerous. Against a man like Trump with his little hands on the nuclear buttons and the armed forces, can anyone seriously believe that satire alone is enough?

Ryan Born is a sophomore from Washington, Michigan. He can be reached at rcborn@princeton.edu.