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Why Authoritarians Like Trump Are So Afraid of Humor
When leaders veer toward authoritarian rhetoric, the satirist goes to work to make sure our public language does not get swallowed by the party line.
Oct 12, 2025
When Puerto Rican superstar Bad Bunny hosted the season premiere of “Saturday Night Live,” he used the opportunity to tweak critics who are upset about his upcoming Super Bowl Halftime performance—delivering remarks in Spanish and then telling listeners they have four months to learn what he just said.
Martin Luther King Jr. once described violence as the language of the unheard. Bad Bunny took the opportunity to respond to his detractors in another powerful language of the unheard: satirical humor.
Although humor can seem trivial to some, we should not underestimate its power to shift cultural agendas. Contempt toward elites in the form of satirical mockery can be cathartic and a demonstration of solidarity for those of lower status. Humorists can have a deep impact on the public imagination.
Shifting public imagination is one reason repressive leaders fear comedic critique.
Satirical humor is one of the remaining glimmers of hope we have left in the fight against authoritarian rhetoric.
“Satire is the sharpest instrument of free speech," Russian comedian Viktor Shenderovich said in a recent interview with Politico magazine. “And the first thing all dictators do is crack down on freedom of speech.”
Shenderovich, now living in exile in Poland, was the force behind the satirical puppet show Kukly, which Russian President Vladimir Putin successfully pressured networks to cancel once he became president. The show poked fun at political leaders, like Putin, using unflattering puppets.
President Donald Trump is also known to oppose negative coverage, often trying to suppress it through lawsuits. We witnessed the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel and the cancellation of Stephen Colbert. Trump has also publicly pressured networks to fire Jimmy Fallon and Seth Myers.
The satirist plays an important role in political society. When leaders veer toward authoritarian rhetoric, the satirist must go to work to make sure our public language does not get swallowed by the party line. In short, satire helps preserve the language of critique itself.
The sharpness of satire that Shenderovich alludes to can be effective for cutting through the fog of fear and confusion that accompanies authoritarian rhetoric.
As a humor scholar, it does not surprise me that Trump’s thin-skinned reactions to critique would target comedians. Satirical humor, in particular, has historically functioned like a disinfecting light.
Executive orders and irresponsible speech, such as baseless claims about Haitians eating neighborhood pets, may remain relatively unaffected in the public imagination despite pushback on CNN, "Meet the Press," or "Face the Nation." But the sting of satirical laughter is difficult to ignore. This is probably why people like Kimmel, Fallon, and Colbert get under his skin.
Perhaps even more frustrating to authoritarian figures is the way humor can undermine attempts to break their political enemies’ spirit by providing hope. Consider an example from a particularly dark point in history. Viktor Frankl described humor as a weapon in the fight for self-preservation in his powerful memoir, Man’s Search for Meaning.
He writes, “It is well known that humor, more than anything else in the human make-up, can afford an aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds.”
The context for Frankl’s statement is the concentration camp. For him, humor was a lifeline that helped people hang onto their humanity in the midst of inhumane treatment by their Nazi captors.
Trump’s rhetoric is, without question, intended to strike fear into the hearts of his political enemies. The vagueness of his language is also a way of widening the scope to include anyone who disagrees with him. Think of his threat to have Attorney General Pam Bondi go after a journalist for hate speech.
Satirical humor at its best is a powerful force for disrupting authoritarian rhetoric. Satire shows no reverence for the kind of linguistic authoritarianism on display in attempts to expunge the nation’s parks and museums of racial memory or define anti-fascism as domestic terrorism. Rather, it disregards the social niceties we associate with social interaction and explores the logic behind our meaning choices.
Admittedly, satire’s irreverence can sometimes be uncomfortable, even offensive. Ignoring social niceties can mean pulling back the veil on hidden embarrassments. However, this may be the only route to a clarifying vision. I echo the words of writer and literary critic Ralph Ellison: “For by allowing us to laugh at that which is normally unlaughable, comedy provides an otherwise unavailable clarification of vision that calms the clammy trembling which ensues whenever we pierce the veil of conventions that guard us from the basic absurdity of the human condition.”
Satirical humor is one of the remaining glimmers of hope we have left in the fight against authoritarian rhetoric. Long live its sting.
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Trump Wants 'Denuclearization,' But Does Washington?
The only hope for peace, and particularly for a reduction of nuclear arsenals, is that American citizens will relentlessly pressure their elected representatives to stop marching toward Armageddon and act to ensure human survival.
Sep 17, 2025
In the grim competition between environmental destruction and nuclear war over which one will cause the demise of civilization, the nuclear option gets considerably less media coverage than global warming. This is unfortunate, for nuclear weapons are no less of a threat. In fact, given how many close calls there have been since the 1950s, it’s miraculous that we’re still around to discuss the matter at all. In a global geopolitical environment that continues to see rising tensions between the West and both China and Russia, as well as between India and Pakistan and between a genocidal nuclear-armed Israel and much of the Middle East, few political agendas are more imperative than, to quote US President Donald Trump in early 2025, denuclearization.
The signs are not auspicious, however. For one thing, the last remaining missile treaty between Russia and the US, New START, expires in February 2026. New START limits both countries to 1,550 deployed warheads on no more than 700 long-range missiles and bombers. If Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin don’t come to an agreement before then, the end of this treaty could lead to a dangerous increase of deployed nuclear arsenals, and possibly a new arms race. On the other hand, if the two countries embrace the opportunity presented by the impending expiration of New START to forge a new and ambitious arms control regime, that could at least set the Doomsday Clock back a few seconds.
Russia wants a new treaty to limit arms, as it proposed that topic for discussion at the Alaska summit in August between Trump and Putin. Sadly, it is doubtful that Washington wants the same thing. On multiple occasions Trump has said he wants “denuclearization” talks with Russia and China, but the Washington establishment is much more ambivalent. In October 2023, the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the US endorsed a very belligerent stance. Among other things, it recommended that the US fully modernize and expand its nuclear arsenal; mount on delivery vehicles “some or all” of the nuclear warheads it holds in reserve; increase the planned procurement of B-21 bombers, submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and nuclear-armed air-launched cruise missiles; “re-convert” SLBM launchers and B-52s that New START rendered incapable of launching a nuclear weapon; deploy nuclear delivery systems in Europe and the Asia-Pacific; and prepare for a two-theater war against China and Russia.
Similarly, in February 2024 the head of the US Strategic Command recommended a return to deploying intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) with multiple nuclear warheads. Incredibly, some officials even advocate resuming explosive nuclear testing, on which the US declared a moratorium in 1992. Such a resumption would doubtless encourage other nuclear states to do the same thing, which could trigger an arms race.
If there is a danger of a two-front war with Russia and China, as the Congressional Commission reported in 2023, the obvious way to avoid such a horror is through diplomacy. Not through a massive arms race that could precipitate this very war.
It is worth noting that Washington’s aggressive posture is nothing new. Since the start of the Cold War, the US has been by far the most globally imperialistic state and by far the most responsible for escalating arms races. Its military and Central Intelligence Agency interventions in countries around the world have been on a vastly larger scale than the Soviet Union’s or Russia’s, and it has typically rebuffed Russia’s frequently expressed desire for peace. In their magisterial book The Limits of Power (1972), the historians Joyce and Gabriel Kolko argued that as early as the 1940s, “Russia’s real threat [to Washington] was scarcely military, but [rather] its ability to communicate its desire for peace and thereby take the momentum out of Washington’s policies.” Because of the Soviet Union’s relative economic and military weakness, Joseph Stalin sponsored international peace conferences and made numerous peace overtures to the Truman administration, all of which were dismissed. Such overtures continued in the months and years after Stalin’s death, but in most cases they met with a chilly reception.
Decades later, Mikhail Gorbachev enraged American officials by pursuing “public diplomacy” around nuclear disarmament. In 1985 he unilaterally declared a moratorium on nuclear weapons tests, hoping the US would follow suit. It didn’t. The following year, he announced his hope of eliminating all nuclear weapons everywhere by the year 2000. The Reagan administration was flabbergasted and generally appalled by the idea, though Ronald Reagan himself was sympathetic. But at the summit later that year, Reagan followed his advisers’ recommendations and rejected Gorbachev’s pleas to eliminate nuclear weapons. At least something was salvaged the following year, when Reagan and Gorbachev signed the INF Treaty.
In our own century, as NATO expanded ever farther east—blatantly threatening Russia—the Kremlin responded, yet again, with what amounted to peace initiatives. Putin floated the idea of joining NATO (as Boris Yeltsin and even Gorbachev had), but the US had no interest in that. A few years later, in 2008, Moscow proposed a pan-European security treaty, arguing that this was necessary in order to overcome all vestiges of the Cold War. That idea went nowhere, much like Moscow’s 2010 proposal of an EU-Russia free-trade zone to facilitate a Greater Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok, “which would provide mutual economic benefits and contribute to mitigating the zero-sum format of the European security architecture,” to quote the analyst Glenn Diesen. In the end, the US rebuffed all Russian attempts to thaw relations.
Evidently, for many decades the US has rarely had much interest in respectful coexistence with Russia. As outlined in a very revealing RAND Corporation report from 2019, its priority has been to “stress” Russia, to “overextend” it, for instance by provoking it to invade Ukraine. Because “some level of competition with Russia is inevitable,” Washington has to wage a “campaign to unbalance the adversary” and “caus[e] the regime to lose domestic and/or international prestige and influence.” This campaign has been going on since the 1940s.
Indeed, in its report RAND even tentatively suggested that “US leaders could probably goad Russia into a costly arms race by breaking out of the nuclear arms control regime. Washington could abrogate New START and begin aggressively adding to its nuclear stockpile and to its air and missile delivery systems. Moscow would almost certainly follow suit, whatever the cost.” In 2023, as we have seen, the Commission on the US Strategic Posture endorsed these recommendations.
The only hope for peace, and particularly for a reduction of nuclear arsenals, is that American citizens will relentlessly pressure their elected representatives to stop marching toward Armageddon and act to ensure human survival. After all, if there is a danger of a two-front war with Russia and China, as the Congressional Commission reported in 2023, the obvious way to avoid such a horror is through diplomacy. Not through a massive arms race that could precipitate this very war.
From the anti-war left to the MAGA right, we all must demand that, for once, politicians choose the path of sanity.
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NATO Article 4 Declaration Puts Poland 'Closest to Open Conflict Since WWII'
The decision by Prime Minister Donald Tusk came after the Polish military shot down several Russian drones that entered its airspace, marking the first time a NATO member has fired shots in the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Sep 10, 2025
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk invoked Article 4 of the North Atlantic Treaty on Wednesday after 19 Russian drones flew into Polish territory late Tuesday night and into the early morning hours.
Speaking to Poland's parliament on Wednesday, Tusk said that it is "the closest we have been to open conflict since World War II," though he still said there was "no reason to believe we're on the brink of war."
The Polish military, along with NATO forces, shot down several of the drones, marking the first time a NATO-aligned country has fired a shot since Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2022.
According to Polish officials, the drones entered the nation's airspace amid a series of airstrikes directed at Western Ukraine. Though some damage to at least one home has been reported due to falling drone debris, there are no immediate reports of casualties, according to the New York Times.
Following what he called a "large-scale provocation" by Russia, Tusk took the significant step of invoking Article 4 of the NATO treaty for just the eighth time since the alliance's founding in 1949.
Short of the more drastic Article 5, which obligates NATO allies to defend one another militarily at a time of attack, Article 4 allows any member to call on the rest of the alliance to consult with them if they feel their territory, independence, or security is threatened.
Russia, for its part, said it had "no intentions to engage any targets on the territory of Poland." However, as German defense minister Boris Pistorius said in a quote to AFP, the drones were "clearly set on this course" and "did not have to fly this route to reach Ukraine."
In comments to The Guardian, Dr. Marion Messmer, senior research fellow at the foreign policy think tank Chatham House, agreed it was "unlikely that this was an accident" and said that Russia was likely "trying to test where NATO's red lines are."
European leaders issued statements of solidarity following the attack.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer called it an "egregious and unprecedented violation of Polish and NATO airspace" and pledged to "ramp up the pressure on [Russian President] Putin until there is a just and lasting peace." The UK's secretary of state for defense, John Healey, said he would ask British armed forces "to look at options to bolster NATO's air defense over Poland."
French President Emmanuel Macron called it a "reckless escalation," adding that France will "not compromise on the security of the Allies."
Tusk asserted that "words are not enough" and has requested more material support from Poland's allies, which could point to the risk of further escalation.
While the invocation of Article 4 does not always presage a hot war, Yasraj Sharma writes for Al Jazeera that it "would serve as a political precursor to Article 5 deliberations."
Following the attack, the US ambassador to NATO, Matthew Whitaker, said in a post on X that the United States "will defend every inch of NATO territory," suggesting a possible willingness for the US to become more directly involved in the hostilities after providing over $128 billion in military and other aid to Ukraine since Russia first attacked in 2022.
The US has roughly 10,000 troops stationed in Poland as part of a permanent military presence in the country.
US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, wrote in an uncharacteristically brief post on Truth Social: "What's with Russia violating Poland's airspace with drones? Here we go!"
Trump plans to speak with Poland's president, Karol Nawrocki, on Wednesday, according to Reuters.
The drone attack came shortly after Trump threatened to impose harsher sanctions on Russia following its ramp-up of attacks on Kyiv over the weekend, yet another policy shift by the US president after he appeared interested in cutting a deal favorable to Russian President Vladimir Putin at a summit last month.
In the New York Times, Moscow bureau chief Anton Troianovski writes that with Russia's entry into Polish airspace, along with its more aggressive attacks on Ukraine, "Putin is signaling that he will not compromise on his core demands even as he claims that Russia is still ready to make a deal."
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