Is a joke better than an election promise? How politicians employ humor

Politicians have a well-deserved reputation for being serious and sober, almost boring, people. But from time to time they try to seduce voters with humor, either with a well-intentioned, self-deprecating joke, or with a more or less comical insult. But is humor a useful political weapon, or does it lead voters to not take proposals seriously? Largely, it depends on the politician, and it depends on the mood.

Self-deprecating humor

Ronald Reagan became president of the United States at the age of 69 and left office at the age of 77. Although he was younger than Joe Biden and Donald Trump are today, he was the oldest president in history at the time. In a speech, he quoted Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826): “We should never judge a president by his age, only by his work.” And he continued: “And ever since he told me that, I’ve stopped worrying.”

Many politicians have poked fun at themselves, although almost always in a calculated way. Studies show that this type of humor, which we associate with intelligence, helps us see politicians as more approachable and relatable, as Jody C. Baumgartner, professor of political science at East Carolina University and co-author of Politics Is a Joke!, points out.

There are more examples: at the 1996 Democratic Convention, former vice president Al Gore announced that he was going to dance the Macarena. And he stood still for several seconds, without moving an eyebrow, in reference to his reputation for being a bore. Some politicians appropriate the insults of the opposition, as the conservative mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, did when he said: “We may be fascists, but we know how to govern.” It is a tradition rooted in history: as early as 1828, U.S. President Andrew Jackson was known as “jackass.” Jackson included the animal in his campaign posters, won the election, and since then the donkey has become the common symbol of the Democratic Party.

How to get attention

Britain’s Liberal Democrats often go unnoticed in the power struggle between the Conservatives and Labour. One solution they have sought is to run eye-catching and humorous election campaigns to attract the media. In last July’s election, the party’s candidate, Ed Davey, went paddleboarding, took part in an obstacle course, and tried bungee jumping to convince voters to “take a leap of faith” with his party. He did not do badly: the Lib Dems won 72 seats, the best result in its history.

It’s hard to know how many of the Liberals’ votes were due to their campaign and how many were triggered by the Conservative Party’s debacle, but the initiative was supported by what we know about humor theory: Baumgartner explains that humor helps to attract attention and make messages more memorable. According to an analysis published in Political Research Quarterly, it also helps to make complex issues simpler, although it makes it less likely that citizens will study that information to see if it is correct or not, so it can make it easier for false stories to be believed.

Humorous messages are also more widely shared on social media, which is why many politicians and parties are publishing short videos that aspire to follow the style of memes and Instagram posts. For example, in 2019, former British prime minister Boris Johnson shared an advert parodying the poster scene from Love Actually and promising to get Brexit done. He won the election, although it is harder to determine to what extent he achieved his goals.

Sophia McClennen, professor of international affairs at Penn State University, also recalls the phenomenon of “satirical election campaigns” by candidates and parties on the fringes and against the establishment, such as the case of Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The Ukrainian president was a television comedian who in 2019 launched a campaign almost exclusively on social media and with the aim of ending corruption in the country… without suspecting that events would force him to become a kind of Churchill of the East. He had a precedent: the Icelandic comedian Jón Gnarr, mayor of Reykjavik from 2010 to 2014, in his case due to the protest vote after the financial disaster of 2008.

For McClennen, author of the book Trump Was a Joke, these candidates “mix satirical commentary with practical politics,” with humor that attempts to convey the idea that “the world has become absurd.”

The bullying politicians

In recent years, many politicians have been carried away by a more aggressive sense of humor, in which the most important thing is to insult the opponent. The aim is to outrage their rivals and then defend themselves with the classic response that it was “just a joke.” As Carmelo Moreno, professor of political science at the University of the Basque Country, explains, it is a more crude sense of humor, in which the hope is to provoke scandal.

The greatest expert in the technique of disguising insults with humor is Donald Trump, who applies nicknames to his rivals, such as Sleepy Joe and Comrade Kamala, and who has even imitated a disabled journalist in the past. Trump is not the inventor of aggressive humor, which is not the sole property of the right either. What is new, explains McClennen, is that it is now done so openly.

Matt Sienkiewicz and Nick Marx analyze the humor of the new American right in their book That’s Not Funny, and also on social media, in podcasts, and on television shows such as Gutfeld, on Fox, hosted by comedian Greg Gutfeld. Many conservatives feel comfortable with transgression and some are trying to normalize homophobic, sexist, and racist messages with a supposed patina of humor. And politicians can take advantage of this trend: provocations set the agenda and divert attention from issues that may be more damaging to them. This was the case with Trump in the 2016 campaign.

This kind of humor creates a sense of community among those who share and enjoy the code. But it also makes dialogue difficult, contributes to entrenchment, and facilitates the dehumanization of the adversary, who is reduced to a derogatory nickname.

In the United States there is another recent change: Democrats have also entered the game. A few weeks ago, Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz called Trump and J. D. Vance “weird,” which prompted a good deal of humorous memes. Is this an adequate response? Moreno recalls that there is a debate on the left about how to respond to the provocations of far-right populism and he believes that this humor, less aggressive and less divisive, can be a good option. But McClennen disagrees: in her opinion, it also contributes to division.

Ultimately, there is no clear formula for using humor in politics and most of the positive effects are met with negative effects, which can sometimes be extremely toxic. In fact, McClennen suggests that humor may be best left to comedians. This is not a crazy idea: not everyone needs to be funny, and sometimes it can even be counterproductive, like a dentist telling a joke during a root canal.

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