Of Course You Can Laugh: This Moment is Serious and Ridiculous

Both things are true

The human race has only one really effective weapon and that is laughter. ~Mark Twain

Over the weekend, on Jimmy Kimmel Live, a video dropped that is both hilarious and deadly serious.

It features Dave Bautista – a professional wrestler-turned-actor who played Dax the Destroyer on Guardians of the Galaxy. He’s a man’s man if ever there was one.

And he absolutely skewered Trump.

While Bautista partakes in an especially masculine workout (hurling the tractor tire was maybe a bit over the top) he lays out why Trump is a “weak, tubby, toddler.” He highlights Trump’s physical weakness and flabbiness – slashing away at the Strong Man image that Trump so desperately craves. He points out that Trump needs help walking downhill (“Almost there, grandma!” Bautista yells), drinks water like “a pink chickadee,” and is afraid of windmills, and dogs, and rain.

And, Bautista reminds us, Trump hates and fears being laughed at.

Our family watched the video. And we laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

The video has now had millions of views, and will probably have millions more by Election Day. (In fact, it earned itself an article on FoxNews.com.) Just imagine that – millions upon millions of people pointing and laughing at this wanna-be dictator.

What an incredible display of power.

That’s the exact thought that occurred to me yesterday, as I was chatting with a friend about the Bautista video.

Because there’s serious power in laughter.

There’s a defiant resilience in chuckling at a captor or lampooning authority. Think of all the movie heroes that laugh in the face of villains, and cheekily respond to danger. Their attitude projects the kind of internal confidence and fortitude we admire; we’d like to imagine we’d behave the same way if we were in such dire straights, against impossible odds or evil opponents (or both).

Authoritarians like Trump demand obedience, fear, and submission. Laughter and joy are the antithesis.

Laughter is so powerful – so valuable as a weapon – that telling anti-Nazi jokes was considered treason and punishable by death in Nazi Germany.

In her October 21 edition of Letters From an American, Heather Cox Richardson recounted how in 1939 American journalist Dorothy Thompson attended an American Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden. Sitting in the front row of the press box, Thompson “laughed loudly during the speeches and yelled ‘Bunk!’ at the stage, illustrating that she would not be muzzled by Nazis.” She was thrown out, but returned to her seat, undeterred. That a woman dared laugh at the Nazis was no doubt shocking to them.

The late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny famously used humor and satire to cut down the Kremlin until his untimely death in a Russian jail. He joked about the condition of his jail cell, his food, his deteriorating body (complaining that even in the midst of a hunger strike he didn’t have six-pack abs). The day before he died, he attended court hearings with a wide smile on his face and good-naturedly bantered with court personnel about his bank account. His future was bleak; he knew it. But he would not give the Kremlin the satisfaction of thinking it had broken his spirit.

I’m certain that infuriated Putin.

Authoritarians want – they need – us to cower. They need us to be obedient and afraid and silent because it’s how they derive their power. Laughing in their face doesn’t fit their narrative. It ruptures their image.

For that reason alone, it would be good to laugh at Trump. But as dangerous as Trump is (and he really is), he is also very often honestly, hand-on-heart, funny.

Over just the last week, Donald Trump talked about a dead pro-golfer’s penis size, referred to Harvey Weinstein’s prosecution for sexual assault as getting “schlonged,” told his supporters to get their “fat pig” husbands to get out and vote, called himself the “father of IVF” (whatever that means), and – at a town hall where he was supposed to be taking questions – danced for 40 very long minutes to such right-wing favorites as Sinead O’Connor’s Nothing Compares 2U and gay anthem YMCA.

Trump is not alone in being ridiculous. We’ve all giggled at JD Vance’s inability to interact with people in a donut shop or answer such tough questions as “What makes you smile?”

Yes, they are completely bonkers; yes, they are completely dangerous.

Both things are true.

But that’s why calling them out as weird was (and is) so effective. Pointing out how ridiculous – how worthy of ridicule they are – strips away that tough guy image and exposes them as insecure weaklings.

Meanwhile, the Harris campaign is bringing the energy of a happy warrior – projecting strength and confidence. This weekend reporter Peter Alexander asked Harris to respond to critics that have claimed “the joy is gone.” She responded by saying she’s having the time of her life... and then laughing.

Friend, the clock is ticking, and with every day things get more serious. I can feel it in the air, and I know you can too. Anxiety is high; everyone’s on edge. The outcome of this election will determine the trajectory of our country, and our lives. There’s a lot at stake.

It’s a serious moment.

But by laughing at Trump, we’re not dismissing the danger he poses. We’re embracing our own ability to thwart it.

In two weeks, we’ll see who gets the last laugh.

Let’s get to work.

Actions for the Week of October 22, 2024

Here’s the part where – if you are so inclined – we roll up our sleeves and engage in what I like to call Action Therapy. Each Tuesday I share a few “small things” – usually a Small Thing to Read, a Small Event to Attend, and a Small Call to Make or Action to Take. You can tuck these actions into your week with ease – and know that you’re doing something today to make tomorrow better.

Small Event to Attend: Election Dialogues TONIGHT! Tuesday, October 22, 8pm ET

Join Robert Hubbell of Today's Edition Newsletter and Jay Kuo of The Status Kuo for a conversation titled Coping with Traditional Media this Election. They will dissect how legacy media is failing to meet the moment ahead of November’s crucial election. They’ll talk about the state of the campaign, not getting on the “pollercoaster,” and how to turn anxiety into grassroots organizing and action.

This livestream is part of Substack’s Election Dialogues series (the rest of which you can see here: https://substack.com/dialogues). To join, you just need to go to Robert or Jay’s publications (linked above) at 8pm eastern via the substack app.

I’ve never attended a Substack live, so I apologize in advance if my instructions are a bit thin (I’m still figuring it out myself). But I adore both Robert and Jay and wouldn’t miss this! Let’s make a plan to fumble through the tech together, shall we?

Small Action to Take: Walk Your Block: Neighbor2Neighbor!

Indivisible has created a truly excellent personalized canvassing tool called Neighbor2Neighbor. You enter your address and they give you list of 10 Democratic voters in your own neighborhood. Your goal? To remind them to vote!

Personal contact – canvassing – is the gold standard in organizing. Research cited by Indivisible shows that door-to-door canvassing generates one additional vote for every 16 contacts. And hearing from a trusted neighbor is up to twice as effective as hearing from a stranger.

If you’re uncomfortable with traditional canvassing because you don’t want to knock on a stranger’s door, this is an excellent way to turn out the vote.

And again – you’re hitting Democratic doors in your own neighborhood. Indivisible gives you a simple sample script, as well as a flyer you might want to print out and leave if your neighbor’s not home.

It’s not available in every city, but you can enter your address here to find out if they’re operating in your neck of the woods. (Here’s that link again: https://allinforharris.org/neighbor2neighbor-targets)

Small Thing to Read: A Dissident Is Built Different (An Ode to Navalny)

The story of Alexei Navalny is not funny. How could it be? We know how it ends. The Russian dissident died under mysterious circumstances in a prison camp above the Arctic Circle last February, alone, still fighting. He had already spent three years in brutal incarceration following a poisoning that had nearly killed him.

And yet, humor is key to understanding Navalny and his appeal. He stood up to Vladimir Putin, exposing corruption, but he also mocked and scoffed: a jester pointing and guffawing at the naked czar, excited by the chance to deflate men whose chests were puffed with power

So begins this relatively short piece in The Atlantic – a lovely tribute to Navalny, and a wonderful reminder of the power of his wit. Because that seemed especially appropriate today considering our topic, I wanted to share this beautifully written piece.

Check it out here: https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2024/10/alexei-navalny-dissident-memoir-patriot/680313/

If you do not have a subscription to The Atlantic, they typically provide 5 free articles if you sign up with your email address.

Thanks for reading, friend – I’m glad to see you here! If you love what I do and you want to support it, consider becoming a paid subscriber. It means a lot!