Trump's jokes are used to 'normalize' his extremism, Politico reports: 'How autocrats work'

Former President Trump’s "jokes" and sense of humor could be used to normalize authoritarianism, a Politico report suggested Sunday.

The article, "In on the Joke: The Comedic Trick Trump Uses to Normalize His Behavior," sought to analyze Trump’s habit of using humor at his events, implying a darker side.

"This isn’t new, and Trump, obviously, is far from the first president or pol with some capacity for comedy. But over the past few months, at events of his that I’ve been to — in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina — it’s felt to me particularly conspicuous. His destabilizing rhetoric has gotten even more dark. It’s what’s made the laughter all the more stark," senior staff writer Michael Kruse wrote.

The article continued, "His critics along with experts in rhetoric and nationalist and populist movements and leaders say it helps him turn his opponents into not just enemies but jokes. They say it helps him recast his own liabilities as laughing matters and desensitizes his supporters to his most outrageous comments and proposals — the undermining of institutions, the abandonment of allies, mass deportations and all but outright invitations for Russian invasions and so on. They say the mirth masks the menace."

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Kruse noted another essay recently published in the New York Review of Books "exploring the almost magical way comedy, in the hands of an actor like Trump, can normalize the abnormal, lessen the monstrous and offer audiences a sinister kind of license."

The piece goes on to quote experts like Jen Mercieca, the author of "Demagogue for President: The Rhetorical Genius of Donald Trump," who explained that Trump "branding" and "framing" his opponents "undermines their credibility" and "reaffirms the us-versus-them polarization" all "under the guise of just joking."

"That," Mercieca said, "is how autocrats work."

Though the article acknowledged, "Trump is not Hitler or Stalin or Mussolini," it noted "they share a rhetorical style." 

"It’s a feature of demagoguery," Stalinism scholar Maya Vinokour told Politico. "Laughter is going to be a weapon, because you laugh at something to diminish it and as preparation for casting it down or destroying it."

She said, "So I don’t think that Trump could get away with just fearmongering. I think he has to punctuate it with moments of levity."

As an example, the article pointed to a joke Trump made during a South Carolina rally in February about having been indicted more often than Al Capone.

"The Capone crack is especially instructive. By analogizing himself to a notoriously murderous mobster, by calling actual attention to the volume of the criminality with which he is charged, but by doing it in the context of jokes, Trump diminishes the unprecedented enormity of the accusations against him — that he tried to overturn an election, fomented a deadly insurrection and concealed national security documents — while convincing his followers that what’s plainly so serious can’t be serious at all," the article read.

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The piece itself has been mocked online for linking Trump to autocrats based solely on humor.

"Sure, everyone knows Stalin & Hitler could really bring the house down," X CEO Elon Musk joked.

Grabien founder Tom Elliott scoffed, "America will not be safe for Democracy until all jokes are banned."

"Fellas, is it fascist to tell jokes?" Substack writer Jim Treacher asked.

Fox News contributor Joe Concha remarked, "Your dumbest perspective of the week. And it's only Monday."

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