I’ve told this story before, something I overheard between two Walmart employees, early in his first term–
Employee #1: Name one bad thing Trump has ever done.
Employee #2: He made fun of a disabled guy.
Employee #1: Who doesn’t?
To some people, mocking and laughing at the disabled is just something you do. Of course they will think it’s hilarious.
I have a few friends who are “funny” but I always got the impression that part of what they do in social situations is just say genuine thoughts that are in their heads, and people laugh, so they decide in hindsight that they were joking around. Or this happens once or twice and they continue to just say whats in their head but lean into what people are laughing at a little bit.
It’s generally self deprecating or just kind of out there and not mean-spirited but i get kind of a similar vibe from trump sometimes.
Jesus?
If Trump was just playing a character, he’d be hilarious. Thanks to professional wrestling and reality TV (both on Trump’s resume) many Americans are able to ascribe his behavior as both his assumed (funny) character and his real one at the same time.
You know WHO ELSE mocked the disabled?
John Lennon.
(Who else did you think I was going to say? 
)
Voldemort?
Well, he may not have a sense of humor, but he is funny. I enjoy his Mussolini skit where he sticks out his chin and walks away from the podium as though his silent audience is cheering wildly. And, his modification of superlatives is always good for a laugh. Routine events are incredibly wonderful always ending in ‘perhaps the only time in history’. Reminds me of my childrens’ delight the first time they successfully used the toilet. Endearing for a child, humorous for a President.
At some future time, when the Trump era has safely passed, I believe his antics will be enshrined as great moments of presidential humor. The greatest being Trumps’ address, early in his first term, when he described the size of his penis. He seemed anxious to whip it out and give us a look. His assumption that the American public was sitting on the edge of their seats awaiting this presidential disclosure is really funny, at least Bart Simpson funny.
Telling that 7yo that belief in Santa was ‘marginal’ was funny.
I am really serious in asking about Trump’s humor. It’s far too easy for us to get locked in our own Echo Chamber and simply keep repeating to ourselves how Trump isn’t funny, and how could anyone think he was unless they shared his insensitivity or political stance?
But Alberta evidently thinks he’s funny. As i say, he evidently leans rightward, but I don’t get the impression that he is a cultist – his book strives to be even-handed. And Trump must appeal to the unconverted somehow.
So what am I missing? What has he said or done that’s funny, but which I don’t need to be primed in advance to “get”?
Not many people know it, but Jesus was a great carpenter. He could built a complete hut in an afternoon. Two rooms!
(Bolding mine)
Why do you think that the bolded part of your statement is not true? I seems like you’re searching for some objective example of trump’s sense of humor that you feel must exist. But humor is by its nature subjective. What passes for humor in those who think trump is funny is his outrageous, mean-spirited comments and behavior.
What you are missing, I think, is the gene or learned thought pattern that parses that awfulness as ‘humor’. So, I don’t think you’re missing much at all.
I don’t think he’s, for want of a better word, funny in how he speaks - i.e., he’s not a joke teller. But he can be situationally funny. Whether or not its intentional is an exercise best left to the reader.
I have a long-standing belief regarding a person’s level of humanity vs their sense of humor and it’s never failed me. Any adult who can’t summon a genuine belly laugh about themselves, ever, and calls others juvenile names and thinks it’s hilarious and clever has neither a sense of humor or humanity and therefore cannot be trusted. And anyone who sucks up to a person like that is nothing more than a toadie, which pretty much describes the majority of the people in Congress.
I think of Trump as akin to the schoolyard bully who calls the chubby kid “fat fat the water rat” or the short kid with glasses “four eyes.” He thinks he’s funny because he’s surrounded by toadies who secretly fear they will be his next target unless he sees them laugh. Insults are only funny if you’re Don Rickles.
Jesus? I mean, he asked a dead guy to come out of his tomb. You can’t get more disabled than dead! And then there was the whole, “Hey leper, why can’t you walk, eh? Why not just walk?”
Blazing Saddle’s “Excuse me while I whip this out…” line was funny, because Blazing Saddles knew it was a joke. Trump? Not so much.
For many years leading up to 2008, we thought we were doing pretty well with regards to racism in North America. And then Obama got elected. And that made a lot of people, including public figures, very angry, and their behaviour seemed to give license to people to let out the racism they’d been holding in all that time. We hadn’t gotten better, a lot of people had just been hiding it for fear of social scorn.
Trump has turned that up to 11. He’s given license to all the deplorable people who had been holding in their racism, their sexism, their homophobia, their hatred of the disabled, their hatred of migrants, and all that, to just let it all out. They laugh at him mocking people because that’s what they wanted to do themselves all along, but were afraid to do until he opened the floodgates.
It’s not that I believe it’s not true. But it might not be. It’s extremely easy to simply buy into the narrative that Trump is simply a racist telling racist jokes, and that all his racist followers find it gratifying. As simeone who doesn’t feel that way, it would be very easy for me to believe this.
I’ve always been wary of things that stroke my ego and make me feel good about myself. So what I want to know is, is there actually anything to the idea that Trump is or can be objectively funny without such pandering? Is it true that his Midas touch of Humor can win people over without them having to be xenophobes?
I’m asking in the service of authenticity and in looking at the hard questions. But, as I say, Alberti doesn’t strike me as a racist, but he was impressed by Trump’s ability to joke.
I get what you’re saying, and what you’re trying to do. I try not to live in a constant echo chamber as well. I look for news sources that are as unbiased as possible, or even news sources that are biased toward the right sometimes, to see if anything they’re saying is believable at all, or makes any kind of a good point.
And more importantly, I try to listen to what he says (or read transcripts of his speeches if at all possible, since I can’t stand the sound of his voice). I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of anything that he’s said in his political era (other than maybe an occasional clearly scripted line) I could construe as remotely witty or ‘objectively’ funny. Or instead of ‘objectively’ funny, let’s say ‘could be widely construed’ as funny, since I don’t really think ‘objective’ humor exists.
Same with the wrestling cameos.
That’s also what right-wing comics do. I’ve watched bits of Gutfield on Fox. The jokes are usually followed by “yeah, I’m an asshole, so what?”. They know they are punching down but they don’t care. The audience loves it.