I'm sure by now you've heard your fair share of Donald Trump jokes. From late night shows, to day time TV to your annoying co-worker, they're everywhere. Maybe you've laughed at some of them. But goddamn they're everywhere now. We need to stop.
In case you don't know who Donald Trump is, welcome to 2016, Marty McFly. Donald Trump is a dude who's running for president, and doing quite well, too. He's known for acting anything but presidential. He'll attack minorities as well as public figures. Ever since he announced his entry to the race to the White House, everyone's been making fun of him. But here's the thing, these jokes are cheep humor. Notice how the vast majority of them are on late night TV. These are shows that have to fill over 40 minutes of jokes five days a week. No one ever tells jokes about Trump that make you change the way you look at the world, or are even funny if you them twice. I get it, if you're desperate for a joke, then it's justifiable, but otherwise, be a bit more clever.
We're not talking about some guy clowning around, we're talking about professional comedians who get paid millions of dollars and have a team of writers, and all they can come up with is a quick laugh and a bad impression (it's not that hard to do his impression, he talks in a really simple way). Humor can bring light to dark situations, or unite us- Trump jokes are just plain stupid. To be fair, I'm guilty of the occasional Trump/Pink Floyd wall joke, but for the sake of all of us, let's try to keep them to a minimum.
Furthermore, there's a bigger reason to stop with the Trump word vomit: it's giving us a overly simple view of him, and by extension, US politics. Take his comments on Islam as an example. Back in December, Donald Trump said that Muslims shouldn't be allowed to enter the US. Comedians jumped at the opportunity and made every possible joke from Muslims banning him from the Middle East to "it's you-ge, it's very, very you-ge". Very few people hade meaningful discussions about immigration, Islam, and terror. But the truth is that Trump flip-flopped on this, and a lot of other issues. So maybe he wants to ban all Muslims, maybe he wants to let all Muslims in. The point is, the public thinks that he's a crazy Muslim hater. And his opponents use it to their advantage. They present themselves as an alternative to Trump. It's kind of like saying "forget about my policies, I'm better than he is". Which let's them get away with a bad platform and what they're doing is essentially fear mongering. So by making cheap jokes on Trump's behalf, all you're doing is simplifying everything.
Let me be clear, this isn't meant to be a political post. I just thought this needed to be said. I'm neither endorsing nor attacking him here. All I'm saying is that Trump jokes are usually easy humor that simplifies our political views. Alternatively, we could use comedy about social issues to change the way we think,bring us together- not apart, and open discussion about some topics.
By the way, I made a great (click here to watch it) where I walk, in part, about why so many late night shows talk about Donald Trump.
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