{"id":317542,"date":"2026-06-22T12:00:51","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T11:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=317542"},"modified":"2026-06-20T09:43:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T08:43:12","slug":"the-joke-is-on-us-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2026\/06\/the-joke-is-on-us-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Joke Is on Us"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

We are the Joke – by Mr. Fish<\/p><\/div>\n

The retreat into satirical attacks on Trump and his supporters fuels the solidification of fascism.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

19 Jun 2026\u00a0<\/em>–\u00a0The buffoons who orchestrate fascism, with its quack science, idiocy, penchant for violence and grotesque hypermasculinity, are ripe for satire. It is easy, as late-night comics do \u2014 and as the cabarets did for the Nazis in Berlin \u2014 to pillory the goons, misfits and mediocrities who hold power and spew fascist bile. But this form of satire blinds opponents to its destructive power and murderous core. It ignores the real centers of power. It does not engender resistance. It engenders disdain and cynicism. It furthers the social and political divide between us, the \u201cenlightened\u201d and \u201ceducated\u201d elite, and them, the despised and <\/span>ridiculed<\/a> \u201cbasket of deplorables.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

There are two forms of satire. That of the educated elites, which dominates the commercial media, ridicules the foibles and pretensions of Trump and his hapless followers. This satire does not attack corporations or the war industry. It ignores the decay and rot within our political institutions, including the Democratic Party, which created Trump. It pretends we live in a democracy. It breeds cynicism, not resistance. It is characterized by a repugnant moral and intellectual superiority and heartless demeaning of the underclass. It fosters the social divisions and alienation that feeds fascism.<\/span><\/p>\n

Antonio Gramsci<\/a> warned that elitist satire is counterproductive. He called for a \u201cpassionate sarcasm,\u201d which targets the machinery of power. Satire, he wrote, must excoriate the dominant myths and ideologies which buttress capitalism and fascism. It must expose not only the moral and intellectual bankruptcy of fascism, but acknowledge the legitimate grievances of those under its spell. It must focus on the institutions that perpetuate injustice and social inequality.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTrump has also been necessary to expose the plastic progressives, the liberal anti-Trump imperialists who, in their opposition to Trump\u2019s deal with Iran, can only look like warmongering imperial psychopaths,\u201d writes <\/span>Nate Bear<\/a>. \u201cFrom all those sharing memes on social media about surrender, from the Democrats and CNN talking heads decrying the deal, to <\/span>Jimmy Fallon dragging Trump<\/a> for giving Iran back the money the US stole, there is no articulation of an alternative to endlessly bombing Iran. There\u2019s no anger from liberals over dead Iranians, or at the imperial state, at Zionism or the embedded death machinery that made this violence possible. No, they\u2019re just embarrassed for empire. And they don\u2019t want to recognise the limits of that empire.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Elitist satire \u2014 whether on \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d or other late-night shows \u2014 punches down. It seduces liberals into believing that the thugs and grifters who have taken power are too stupid and too inept to last. There are millions of political exiles who understand how this self-delusion, this failure to take fascists seriously, is the great facilitator of fascism. They too once dismissed the goons who now run their countries as a joke.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Turkish writer Ece Temelkuran, driven into exile by the regime of Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan, in her book \u201c<\/span>Nation of Strangers: Rebuilding Home in the 21st Century<\/a>,\u201d lays out the familiar pattern:<\/span><\/p>\n

It begins with a movement that divides society into two: the \u2018real people\u2019 versus the \u2018corrupt elite\u2019, and with a leader who insists they alone embody the \u2018real\u2019 people. The next step is the dissolution of truth and the prioritisation of loyalty above decency. Then shame is dismantled. The leader breaks the long-standing political and moral consensus with unprecedented relentlessness. The longer they remain in power, the boundaries of what is acceptable begin to stretch. What once felt unthinkable or despicable gradually becomes normal. As the institutions that hold democracy together are quietly hollowed out and the very definition of democracy is rewritten as being simply majority rule, universal values \u2014 human dignity and the rule of law \u2014 are replaced with a fierce nationalism, a proud victimhood, and a rewriting of history. Cruelty and ruthlessness are deemed just, not only in the highest echelons of politics but also trickling down to daily life. The circle of who counts as \u2018us\u2019 grows smaller, while millions of fellow citizens are recast as permanent suspects.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Temelkuran warns, Americans, like those in other nations that have been down this path, \u201c…soothe their fears by repeating the same illusionary line, \u2018The institutions will hold.\u2019 They do not yet dare to recognize their future country, and soon, they will not be recognized as citizens unless they follow the new rules in Trump\u2019s America.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Comedians such as Kimmel function like the cabaret star, Fritz Gr\u00fcnbaum,<\/span> who <\/span>during Nazism, once quipped when the power went out during a performance: \u201cI can\u2019t see a thing, not a single thing; I must have stumbled into National Socialist culture.\u201d Gr\u00fcnbaum would eventually find himself in the Dachau concentration camp \u2014 along with other actors, performers and satirists \u2014 where he died of tuberculosis.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Nazis moved swiftly to close the cabarets \u2014 along with all institutions that defied Nazi control \u2014 and replaced them with mindless variety shows. They hated mockery as much as Trump, who after Stephen Colbert\u2019s final show, gloated that Colbert was \u201cfinished\u201d and called him a \u201ctotal jerk.\u201d Trump also <\/span>shared<\/a> an AI-generated <\/span>video<\/a> of himself throwing Colbert into a dumpster, slamming down the lid and dancing. Trump <\/span>wrote<\/a> that Colbert\u2019s exit was the \u201cbeginning of the end\u201d for other late night hosts.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jokes about dictators in totalitarian regimes are a <\/span>criminal offense<\/a>. Satire is permissible in fascist states only when employed to mock political opponents and demonized minorities. It is not permissible when directed at centers of power. As Gramsci pointed out, the consolidation of power by fascists requires them to win the \u201ccultural battle,\u201d by dominating the public discourse, policing language \u2014 including satire \u2014 and redefining social, cultural and political norms.<\/span><\/p>\n

Elitist satire is a pressure-release valve. But because it refuses to confront the roots of our political, social and cultural degeneration \u2014 which preceded the Trump presidency \u2014 it solidifies the fascist project it seeks to destroy. It reduces the catastrophe to the clown show around Trump: the sycophantic cabinet secretaries, <\/span>ICE Barbie<\/a> or Robert F. Kennedy Jr\u2019s <\/span>bizarre war<\/a> on medical science. It does not address our failed democratic institutions \u2014 the academy, elections, courts, Congress, or the media. It deflects attention from the billionaires and corporations that have slashed regulation, imposed austerity and deindustrialization and distorted the economic and political system to facilitate the largest upward transfer of wealth in U.S. history. It does not address the murderous war industry or the domestic security apparatus that makes us the most watched, monitored, spied upon, tracked and photographed population in human history.<\/span><\/p>\n

This elitist satire simplifies the complex social, economic and political forces we must dismantle. It ignores or pays deference to the subterranean forces that created Trump. Gramsci\u2019s \u201cpassionate sarcasm\u201d is too revolutionary and too truthful to be broadcast on media conglomerates such as CBS.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cLaughter is our reaction to immediate incongruities and those which do not affect us essentially,\u201d the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr <\/span>noted<\/a> in \u201cHumor and Faith.\u201d \u201cFaith is the only possible response to the ultimate incongruities of existence which threaten the very meaning of our life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no laughter in the holy of holies,\u201d Niebuhr continued. \u201cThere laughter is swallowed up in prayer and humor is fulfilled by faith.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

When satire is the end point, it is deleterious. It masks what is coming. It must be, as Niebuhr pointed out, the entry point. It must push us, as Gramsci understood, into hard analysis and the organization of mass movements that alone can save us from tyranny. It must cease to play into the hands of a polarized nation, one where opposing factions write each other off as irredeemable. It must acknowledge that given the gravity before us, laughter is not enough.<\/span><\/p>\n

______________________________________________<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize\u2013winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for\u00a0<\/em>The New York Times,\u00a0where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief. He previously worked overseas for\u00a0<\/em>The Dallas Morning News,\u00a0The Christian Science Monitor, and<\/em> NPR. He used to be the host of the Emmy Award-nominated <\/em>RT America show\u00a0<\/em>On Contact.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original – chrishedges.substack.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

19 Jun 2026\u00a0–\u00a0The retreat into satirical attacks on Trump and his supporters fuels the solidification of fascism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":317543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[555,542,83,1147,1964,249,70],"class_list":["post-317542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anglo-america","tag-elites","tag-fascism","tag-joke","tag-nazism","tag-satire","tag-trump","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317542"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317542\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317544,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317542\/revisions\/317544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/317543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}