[There’s no question that it is easy to make fun of the two top
presidential candidates for 2024. But as I explain in my new book,
“Trump Was a Joke: How Satire Made Sense of a President Who
Didn’t,” not all political comedy is equal. ]
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NOT ALL POLITICAL COMEDY IS EQUAL – HOW COMICS CAN EITHER DEPRESS
TURNOUT OR ACTIVATE VOTERS IN 2024  
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Lorna Grisby
May 26, 2023
The Conversation
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_ There’s no question that it is easy to make fun of the two top
presidential candidates for 2024. But as I explain in my new book,
“Trump Was a Joke: How Satire Made Sense of a President Who
Didn’t,” not all political comedy is equal. _

Former President Donald Trump’s many missteps made him an easy
target for amateur jokesters. , Ron Adar/SOPA Images/LightRocket via
Getty Images

 

Biden is old. Trump has weird hair. Biden mangles the English
language. Trump barely seems to understand it.

There’s no question that it is easy to make fun of the two top
presidential candidates for 2024.

But as I explain in my new book, “Trump Was a Joke: How Satire Made
Sense of a President Who Didn’t
[[link removed]],”
not all political comedy is equal.

Jokes that focus on physical traits – fat bellies, bald heads,
bumbling speech – foster negative candidate views that can exhaust
voters, as does mocking scandals, whether it’s the mishandling of
classified documents, sexual misconduct or family drama.

 
In contrast, satire – which centers on faulty logic, abuses of power
and flawed thinking – can compel citizens to volunteer, donate to
campaigns and vote.

Averting apathy

A key factor to watch this election cycle is voter fatigue.

There was record turnout
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during the 2020 election. Nearly two-thirds of eligible voters cast a
vote, 7 percentage points higher than in 2016. However, recent polling
data
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suggests that 2024 may be different, with 38% of voters saying they
were already exhausted at the prospect of another matchup between
Trump and Biden.

Voter fatigue [[link removed]]
typically translates into lower voter turnout, and low voter turnout
correlates to weaker democratic institutions.

This is where comedy comes in. Humor can alleviate
[[link removed]] depression, fear,
sadness and other negative emotions.

The catch, though, is that even if humor combats exhaustion, it might
replace it with negative views of the candidates and cynicism about
the entire democratic system.

Mocking leads to burnout

Political comedy is complex and highly varied, but it can be divided
roughly into two camps: mockery
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and satire [[link removed]].
Mocking comedy tends to negatively affect political participation in
two ways. It can create negative views of candidates, and this, in
turn, can lead to voter apathy.

Communications professor S. Robert Lichter and political scientists
Jody C. Baumgartner and Jonathan S. Morris surveyed years of joke data
in their 2015 book
[[link removed]],
“Politics is a Joke!” They concluded that the political humor on
late-night television was inherently negative and tended to focus more
on scandals than on policy. What’s more, they found that there was a
connection between negative jokes and negative public perceptions of
candidates.

The catch, though, is that voter apathy will happen only if voters
feel burned out by both candidates, because that leads to exhaustion
with the system they represent.

During the 2008 election, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin
found herself the butt of countless jokes, while then-presidential
candidate Barack Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden, were largely
able to duck the searing critiques of comics.

         
Research shows that [[link removed]] Tina
Fey’s impression of Palin on “Saturday Night Live” as a fool who
was ill-equipped for national office changed perceptions of Palin –
and, most importantly, were even more likely to negatively affect the
views of independents and Republicans.
After Trump was elected in 2016, some worried
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that late-night comedy had become too partisan, which could make it
less effective and more divisive.

Yet, concerns that late night leans too much to the left – and
therefore has a negative effect on politics – may miss the fact that
jokes that mock Trump can help remind Democrats that they don’t want
him back in office. Similarly, right-wing memes and mockery of Biden
– the sort of humor that can be found on Greg Gutfeld’s comedy
show on Fox News
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– can motivate Trump voters to support their candidate.

In the end, it is the jokes that suggest that both candidates are not
worth voting for that have the highest risk of depressing turnout.

[Man in suit sits in chair while grinning.]
Some see ‘Gutfeld!’ as a conservative answer to the left-leaning
bias of late-night television. Steven Ferdman/Getty Images
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Satire spurs voter engagement

In contrast with mocking, negative comedy, satirical comedy uses
ironic wit to engage critical thinking about the status quo. This
means that there is a marked difference between most late-night comedy
and the specific genre of political satire, which can be found on
“The Daily Show” and “Last Week Tonight.”

Research by communication professors Hoon Lee and Nojin Kwak
[[link removed]] indicated that
satirical comedy engages viewers and makes them more interested in
being politically active. Another recent study
[[link removed]] found that humor increases the
likelihood to share political information with others and enhances
information recall – both of which increase voter engagement. And
audiences of political satire have been shown
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their political views and a better understanding of the issues.

Furthermore, satirical comedy creates a community ready to engage and
participate in politics. In her 2011 book “Satire and Dissent
[[link removed]],” English
professor Amber Day explains that satirical comedy has “an integral
community-building function, which is a crucial component of nurturing
a political movement.”

[Porta potties with signs reading 'Joe Biden voting booth.']
Joe Biden is targeted with some good old-fashioned toilet humor.
Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images
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After Trump was elected in 2016, left-wing filmmaker and activist
Michael Moore called for Trump’s critics to form an army of comedy
[[link removed]]. He
knew from his own work as a satirist and activist that politically
engaged comedy can help mobilize communities. Academic research
confirms [[link removed]] Moore’s instincts,
showing that people who consume satire are more likely to attend
rallies, discuss politics, donate to a political party, wear political
buttons and vote than viewers of traditional late-night comedy shows.

When actor Kal Penn guest hosted “The Daily Show” in March 2023,
he did a segment [[link removed]] on how
the Republican Party is fixated on “woke culture.” He performed a
spoof of the hit TV series “House,” in which he tries to diagnose
a patient with “woke mind virus,” asking the patient questions
like, “Are you pissed off that Mr. Potato Head doesn’t have a
penis?”

He then jokingly explains that being woke “is the greatest threat
facing civilization” – a position held by many on the right, but
one that becomes especially absurd in the context of Penn’s skit.

These kinds of bits have the potential to help the young voting
demographic watching these clips engage with the election and vote.
They also help frame political positions in ways that make the stakes
of the next election easy to grasp.

So, as an exhausted electorate heads into the 2024 election, the
question won’t be whether there will be political comedy – it will
be whether it mocks the country’s democratic system or helps make it
stronger.

===

The Conversation’s political coverage aims to bring the volume down
and raise up knowledgeable voices, writing articles based on facts and
research. As the senior politics & society editor, I curate the best
of our coverage each week into a newsletter. Subscribe today to get
our most insightful articles in your inbox each Thursday.

Lorna Grisby, Senior Politics & Society Editor

* Comedy; Voting; Satire
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