Did comedians contribute to the re-election Donald Trump?

No joke, so extroverted President Joe Biden might say.

Trump was the target of countless late-night monologues and “Saturday Night Live” sketches for the better part of a decade, as much of Hollywood followed the ups and downs of his career politics with revulsion and ridicule.

But in the weeks leading up to Election Day, he sat for interviews with podcasting comedians who occupy an increasingly popular space where political discourse is mediated by roast insults, right-wing conspiracy theories and mockery of the left.

“They are all artists and influencers and experts and — I said, propagandists — who have massive, loyal fans,” said Seth Simons, a journalist who writes a newsletter about the dark side of the comedy industry.

The Trump era coincided with the rise of hour-long comedy and special podcasts on Netflix. And although the world of stand-up is as diverse as the country itself, some of its hottest performers have shifted to the left.

Dave Chappelle has sparked controversy on several occasions by mocks transgender activists. Bill Burr has roasted feminists with relish, most recently in his post-election “SNL” monologue (“Alright, ladies, you’re 0-2 against this guy”). Even Michelle Wolf, who Trump famously roasted at the 2018 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, has a lengthy riff in his 2022 special criticizing #MeToo, calling it “the worst movement I’ve ever seen.”

None of these comedians publicly supported Trump, but they nevertheless turned their fire on the so-called woke left, a bogeyman of the Trump campaign.

Trump received a warm welcome – but not everyone was amused

This is what appears to have brought Trump, himself a television veteran, to Joe Rogan’s studios, the most listened to podcaster in the countryand other actors.

He discussed addiction and the opioid crisis with Theo Von, who told the former and future president that “cocaine will turn you into a damn owl, buddy.” On another podcast, Andrew Schulz and Akaash Singh burst into laughter as Trump brought up his nicknames for his political rivals — like “Comrade Kamala” Harris — and recounted his near-assassination.

Politicians have long sought to reach voters on alternative platforms. Former President Barack Obama slowly blurred the news with Jimmy Fallon, who ruffled Trump’s hair in 2016. Obama and Hillary Clinton appeared in Zach Galifianakis’ web series “Between two ferns.” Harris appeared on “SNL” a few days before the election and sitting down with an array of more serious podcasterswith less obvious success.

For Trump, podcasts were part of a greater effort to reach young male voters – a tactic he says his son Barron, 18, suggested. More than half of male voters aged 18 to 44 supported Trump and 45% supported Harris, although Biden won this group in 2020, according to AP votinga survey of more than 120,000 voters.

While late-night appearances by politicians tend to be carefully planned affairs, Rogan interviewed Trump for three hours in a conversation that veered from false claims about the 2020 election to speculation about UFOs and the assassination of John F .Kennedy. Rogan, who supported Bernie Sanders in 2020, then supported Trump this cycle.

Trump’s interviewers are not political comedians; they’re just as likely to discuss Internet curiosities, mixed martial arts, or weightlifting. Their views seem primarily based on suspicion of the establishment, dedication to free speech and openness to alternative – and often unfounded – theories on things like vaccines and immigration.

This may have led them to view Trump as a kindred spirit.

“The rebels are now republicans. You want to be a rebel, you want to be punk rock, you want to go against the system, you’re a conservative now,” Rogan said during the interview, which has nearly 50 million views on YouTube.

Simons says Rogan and his acolytes, whether consciously or not, have shifted what’s acceptable in comedy to the right.

“The relationship that people have with these roast comics, these comics that tell racist or sexist jokes, is that they don’t mean what they say, it’s just funny,” Simons said.

Marc Maron, whose “WTF” podcast helped birth the genre, called out his fellow comics in a blog post after Rogan’s interview.

“The anti-woke side of the new fascism is driven almost exclusively by comic books, my peers,” Maron wrote. “When comedians with podcasts have unapologetic white supremacists and self-proclaimed fascists on their show joking as if they are just entertainers or even just politicians, all it does is humanize and normalize fascism. “

A fractured media landscape

It wasn’t always like this.

Johnny Carson, the king of the party for three decades until his retirement in 1992, avoided political controversy to cultivate a mass audience. It was also during this time that most Americans received their news from the “Big Three” television networks.

Fast forward to today: Left-wing comedy show hosts on many channels, nocturnal controversies are interspersed with news clips. Comedians like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and John Oliver are indistinguishable from MSNBC commentators for their criticism.

Comedian Wayne Federman, author of A History of Stand-Up, argues that these hosts can attract only a fraction of Carson’s viewers, removing the economic incentive to attract large audiences.

“As most late-night hosts seemed openly aligned with (the Democratic National Committee), a market niche opened up in the podcast space. Enter Joe Rogan,” he said.

Rogan’s show, for which he earned an estimated sum $250 million deal with Spotify, became a springboard for rising comics.

“For a lot of comedians right now, following in Joe Rogan’s footsteps and trying to be in his world and emulate him is a wise career move,” Simons said. “I think that’s part of why there are so many Andrew Schulzes and Theo Vons.”

Presidential candidate or insult comedian?

Beyond his podcast appearances, Trump may have benefited more subtly from the proliferation of stand-up comedy.

Much has been made of Trump’s extemporaneous speaking style – which he called “weaving” – in which his hour-long speeches meandered through stories, digressions, cinematic references and obscenities.

As a political speech, it was unconventional, but it bore many of the hallmarks of stand-up: deliberate provocations, punchlines, and callbacks that ultimately summed it all up.

“Because some of the things he says seem so off-center, people take it as a joke,” said Shilpa Davé, a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia. “The kind of comedy he does doesn’t seem threatening, it seems acceptable.”

This also caused problems for journalists covering his speeches: when he said he would be a dictator for a dayor attacked “enemies from within” or did he promise to round up and deport millions of immigrants to the United States without authorization, was he stating policies or joking?

“You can first denounce what journalists do by calling everything they say ‘fake news,’ then you can denounce what they expose by saying they just don’t understand – the stand defense -up comedy,” said Robert Thompson, a professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University.

There were times when the jokes didn’t land – but they weren’t his. Trump was outraged after Tony Hinchcliffe, another comedian with a roast-style podcastcalled Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” and made other racist jokes at a rally. The campaign distanced itself from Hinchcliffe because Puerto Rican celebrities supported Harris and commentators wondered whether it would turn off Latino voters.

“Imagine bombing so hard that you save America from fascism” actor Zack Bornstein posted on X.

But barely a week later, it was Trump who brought down the house.