Too soon?

A dilemma for comedians in a second Trump term: How do you joke about a disaster that isn’t funny? But also kinda is?

By Megan Peck Shub

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Election night triggered visceral memories of my years in late night television — all those hours chasing down the most hair-raising details about Trump policies. Still, we were often laughing, and we made people laugh. It was a fraught, complicated era, one that most of us hoped to never repeat. So what about now? What about the fact that we must indeed do it all over again?

After the first few weeks of outrageous cabinet appointments and foreboding political news, it’s hard to imagine spending four more years making light of American politics. And yet, somehow, in the tradition of the USA, we will figure it out.

With this in mind, I surveyed five comics, writers, and editors, asking them to share what they’re thinking about the prospect of humor during Trump 2.0.

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What was your first coherent thought about the next 4 years of comedy — once it became clear Trump was going to win?

Jill Twiss (Writer, Last Week Tonight, Amber Ruffin, The Daily Beast): I can't separate my feelings about the election in general from my feelings of writing comedy about the election. My first thought was "Oh no, people are so much worse than I thought." So much of my career has been writing some version of, "You know that thing? Well, it's worse than you thought." But I'm not sure how much appetite people have for "It's Worse Than You Thought" now. We already know it is very bad. I'm not sure how much worse we can take!

Mohanad Elshieky (Standup comic, writer): Oh god, no! I can’t see more comics attempting to do a Trump impersonation on stage. There are maybe 2 or 3 people who can do a good impersonation. Those people should keep doing it, and everyone else must stop. We are already going through enough.

Christopher Monks (Editor-in-chief, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency): Setting aside what a disaster Trump winning was and how this country could be very, very screwed…on election night I did have an existential crisis of sorts about our site. We’ve published a ton of satire about Trump over the years, smart and funny writing that exposed him for all his grifts, contradictions, and elite-level buffoonery. Yet a whole bunch of Americans still thought it best to bring him back for a sequel. So I was like, “What are we even doing?” Jonathan Swift was somewhere slow clapping, saying, “Good effort, losers.”