One of the left’s strategies to try to defeat Donald Trump is to paint him as an autocrat. Leftists constantly remind us that he is a “threat to our democracy” and that he’s going to run roughshod over Americans’ freedoms if he moves back into the White House.
Of course, we know that “our democracy” really means “Democrat power,” and the freedoms the left is most worried about are the freedom to kill babies and to redefine every aspect of society. A second Trump term threatens to stand in the way of those things, so the left will do all it can to stop him.
That’s why the left-wing media tries to spin everything about Trump like Chicken Little — “OMG, we’ve gotta stop Trump or the world is going to come to an end!” And the left will blow anything it can out of proportion to achieve that goal, or as my friend and colleague Stephen Kruiser put it, “Context is really overrated when there's a false narrative to be created.”
Enter Politico, specifically, a piece the outlet published on Sunday. Senior staff writer Michael Kruse found yet another way to compare Trump to the notable autocrats of the past — his humor. It doesn’t take long to discover that Kruse makes no pretense of nuance:
The audio track of the traveling Trump carnival is by now reliable to the point of ritualistic. Lee Greenwood to start, the odd, QAnon-coopted sort of liturgical dirge to close, the apocalyptic assessments of the condition of the nation and the prompts to harass the press and the jeers and the swears from the throngs in between. I could shut my eyes and know precisely where I was. For me, though, there’s one sound that’s come to stick out more than any of the many others.
It's the laughter.
Kruse admits that humor has long been a part of Trump’s repertoire and that he isn’t the only politician to use comedy effectively. But what makes Trump’s jokiness so problematic is that it masks “dark” and “destabilizing rhetoric.”
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It’s no secret that the former president uses jokes to deprecate his rivals and critics, and humor also serves as red meat for his audiences. Trump’s fans appreciate the same jokes that needle his critics. Kruse found an “expert” to make his point that humor equals authoritarianism.
“He’s always been funny,” Jen Mercieca, the author of “Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump,” told me — “branding” and “framing” his foes in a way that “undermines their credibility” and “reaffirms the us-versus-them polarization” all “under the guise of just joking.” Practically every joke is “an in-group and out-group joke,” and “laughing at the joke is a sign of loyalty,” Mercieca explained.
“That,” she said, “is how autocrats work.”
Kruse cites more “experts” with titles like “co-organizer of the Working Group on the Global New Right” and “member of the executive committee of the Far Right Analysis Network” who compare Trump to Joseph Goebbels, Joseph Stalin, and Benito Mussolini simply because Trump is funny. Of course, Trump’s authoritarianism lies in the truth that he’s not going to let the Democrats do what they want to this country.
Do you want to see authoritarianism? Which president arrested pro-life activists? Who has weaponized the Department of Justice and the Internal Revenue Service against those who criticized the government? Which administration has made tackling “disinformation” a centerpiece of its rhetoric in the most one-sided way possible? Here’s a hint: it wasn’t Donald Trump.
The left is jealous because Trump is funny. Sure, he can stick his foot in his mouth and become his own worst enemy, but he’s hilarious. Barack Obama was never funny or engaging in eight years in the White House, and Joe Biden can only be the butt of jokes. The only way the left can react to Trump’s humor is to say, “OMG, Trump tells jokes. That means he’s totally an autocrat.”
Leftists will try to use anything to take Trump down, and they won’t stop with him. Tyranny is real, and it’s coming from the side that claims to be against it. That’s why you need a trustworthy source of news and analysis that won’t insult you or try to attack what you believe.
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