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Late Night with Trump: Political Humor and the American Presidency

2021; Penn State University Press; Volume: 7; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5325/studamerhumor.7.2.411

2333-9934

Peter Robinson,

Humor Studies and Applications

George Carlin once described Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show as “the town square of America. It was a familiar place [where] we could all gather … and have a community experience.”1 Today's late night landscape more closely resembles a raucous tribal circus where ringmasters Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Bill Maher, Trevor Noah, and Jimmy Kimmel, among others, vie for the attention and laughter of an increasingly fragmented body politic. This metamorphosis did not begin with Donald Trump. As Stephen J. Farnsworth and S. Robert Lichter point out in their enormously valuable study, the shift likely began in 1992 when Jay Leno replaced Carson (and tapped a rich new vein of comedic gold named Bill Clinton) and began politicizing his opening monologues more overtly. However, Farnsworth and Lichter's concise yet thoroughly researched and highly readable analysis does shine significant light on how Trump's singular journey from Trump Tower to the White House made late night the forum for an unprecedented tide of both presidential jokes in general and open ridicule aimed at the president personally. Trump's loss to Joe Biden does not at all affect the shelf life of this study, for the Trump years may well herald a permanent sea change in the ways that humor—both late night and 24/7—mediates the relationship between the American presidency and the American people. We must remember that Trumpism, unlike Elvis, has not left the building and could well return to the Oval Office in some form, even if not that of the gilded showman himself.The authors’ expertise serves them and their readers well. Drawing on studies by the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University, the Pew Research Center, and others as well as their own years of scholarship in communications and political science, and yeoman mining efforts by numerous undergraduate and graduate students, they show how late night comedy is now “qualitatively and quantitatively different from what came before it” (132). From 1992 to 2008, the number of political jokes on late-night's Tonight Show and the Late Show—the flagships of the genre—more than doubled, and this steady rise served only as prelude to the meteoric jump when Trump entered the scene. In the course of six succinct but comprehensive chapters, the authors map the rapidly changing terrain of political humor as the cast of late night hosts expanded and Trump came to monopolize their humor, first as a candidate, then as president. The “fab four,” as described by the authors, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, and Jimmy Kimmel Live! receive the most attention, of course, although the weekly programs Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, Real Time with Bill Maher, Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, and naturally, Saturday Night Live also make regular and important appearances.Some of the findings may appear to merely confirm what we already knew. It is hardly news that political humor aimed at the president is now ubiquitous and Trump was joked about … a lot. While there is great value alone in the statistical confirmation of Trump's quantitative domination of the late night joke machine, especially compared to other polarizing presidents (Trump was joked about nearly six times more during his first year in office than George W. Bush and nearly seven times more than Clinton), Farnsworth and Lichter have drilled beneath mere numbers, exploring how the motives and methods of political humor shifted during the Trump years.The late night comics recalibrated their humor, moving further away from taking jabs at policy issues and lightheartedly ridiculing the foibles and personal indiscretions of the president and toward launching frontal assaults on Trump's worth as a human being, calling him a bigot, a misogynist, an egomaniac, and a fool (104), with John Oliver “going so far as to suggest he was in league with the devil” (75). An astounding 94 percent of the jokes about Trump were directed at him personally (93). Far from court jesters or affable town square mediators, as Carson saw himself, Colbert and others necessarily became self-described watchdogs and fact checkers, mocking bulwarks against Trump's lies.On the other side of the punch line, Trump utterly rejected the careful strategic management of humor traditionally exercised by presidents since Franklin Roosevelt, a method that blends generous doses of dignified laughter and measured joking with plenty of self-deprecating humor designed to help inoculate the president from criticism. (Even Richard Nixon invited viewers of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In to “sock it to me”). Trump, by contrast, is thin skinned; he reacts to any and all humor directed toward him in high dudgeon and makes no effort to mask his contempt for the same late night hosts whose attention he once coveted to promote his brand. Accusing the comedians of “one-sided hatred” (133), Trump during his presidency assailed them and even spoke of using federal regulatory power to curb their attacks (111). Late Night with Trump methodically traces how, on Trump's watch, personal ridicule became normalized as a cudgel to be wielded by presidents and comics alike. Farnsworth and Lichter's analysis is both rich and deep.Laden with statistics—and plenty of humor but relatively few guffaws—Late Night with Trump may not appeal to a very large general audience, but the book is a boon to scholars and political humor junkies looking eagerly for data to help them locate the singular (to date) Trump presidency within the continuum of presidential humor. The extensive bibliography is a valuable bonus, especially for those seeking to plumb the deep well of periodical literature concerning Trump jokes and the diverse responses to them.There are some irksome blemishes. Two chapters are coauthored by additional contributors while others borrow from previously published book chapters, according to the acknowledgments. The seams connecting these various parts of the argument are conspicuous at times, assuming the form of occasional repetition and some awkward transitions. Typographical errors are just frequent enough to slightly tarnish the otherwise sterling analysis. The hastening to include “up-to-the-minute discussions” (x) generally serves the book well but one more round of proofreading would have been time well spent.Late Night with Trump's final chapter asks “what might the comedians do during the remainder of the Trump presidency?” (25). “In the short term,” the authors conclude, “we can expect little change in the behavior of this president” (133). This claim proved true, though the behavior sank to unthinkable depths. Even given four years of Trump's highly charged and destabilizing rhetoric, few could have predicted that this president—any president—would incite a seditious attack on the United States Capitol that would leave a half-dozen US citizens dead, and nearly prevent the peaceful transfer of power for the first time in the nation's history. This event was no joke, and only time will tell what long-term effects the events of January 6, 2021, will have on the humorous connection between the late night entertainment and the presidency. Late night could become even darker. Hopefully Farnsworth and Lichter, and especially the skilled students who assisted with this important study as well as future scholars, will continue to shine serious light on it.