{"id":17342,"date":"2025-10-02T17:04:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-02T17:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=17342"},"modified":"2025-10-02T17:04:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T17:04:09","slug":"when-presidents-cant-take-a-joke-democracy-suffers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/02\/when-presidents-cant-take-a-joke-democracy-suffers\/","title":{"rendered":"When Presidents Can’t Take a Joke, Democracy Suffers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"By Ben Jealous
\n<\/strong>Guest Column<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Midwestern schoolteacher once told her class that a sense of humor is a sign of intelligence. \u201cLook around the classroom,\u201d she said. \u201cThe smartest kids always get the joke right away. The others might struggle.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never confirmed that theory with a doctor. But I believe it. Humor takes quick thinking. It takes perspective. It takes freedom.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why it matters when our presidents can laugh at themselves. For generations, they have. Reagan turned questions about his age into a punchline. Obama roasted himself at the Correspondents\u2019 Dinner. Even George W. Bush, the butt of endless late-night jokes, learned to grin and roll with it.<\/p>\n

That humility has always set us apart from the monarchy we broke away from. Kings demand silence. Presidents in a free nation are supposed to be able to laugh along with the people.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump doesn\u2019t get that. He can\u2019t take a joke\u2014and worse, he tries to punish the people who make them. First Stephen Colbert. Now Jimmy Kimmel. Using the power of the presidency to go after comedians isn\u2019t just petty. It\u2019s dangerous.<\/p>\n

Authoritarians hate humor because humor exposes them. Stalin, Mussolini\u2014every strongman fears the comic more than the critic. A joke spreads fast. A sharp one can cut through a wall of propaganda. That\u2019s why free countries protect comedians. They keep leaders honest by refusing to let them take themselves too seriously.<\/p>\n

We forget: America was born on satire. Franklin drew cartoons mocking the British crown. Revolutionaries cracked jokes as easily as they fired muskets. Laughter was proof that no king could control the American spirit.<\/p>\n

But when presidents can\u2019t laugh at themselves, citizens stop laughing too. And when citizens stop laughing, they stop questioning. That silence is the first step toward submission.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t about whether you watch Jimmy Kimmel or Stephen Colbert. It\u2019s about whether you want to live in a country where the president decides which jokes are allowed. Today it\u2019s late-night hosts. Tomorrow it could be a cartoonist, a college kid, or you for what you post online.<\/p>\n

The strength of America isn\u2019t that our leaders are above mockery. It\u2019s that they can survive it. A president who can\u2019t take a joke can\u2019t take criticism. And a president who can\u2019t take criticism can\u2019t be trusted with freedom.<\/p>\n

That Midwestern schoolteacher was right: humor is a sign of intelligence. But more than that, it\u2019s a sign of liberty. And if we want to keep our democracy strong, we better insist on leaders who can laugh\u2014even, and especially, at themselves.<\/p>\n

Ben Jealous is a professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania and the former head of the NAACP. He is a direct descendant of the youngest combatant at the Battle of Lexington and Concord.<\/em><\/p>\n

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By Ben Jealous Guest Column A Midwestern schoolteacher once told her class that a sense of humor is a sign of intelligence. \u201cLook around the classroom,\u201d she said. \u201cThe smartest kids always get the joke right away. The others might struggle.\u201d I\u2019ve never confirmed that theory with a doctor. But I believe it. Humor takes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,252],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[313],"class_list":["post-17342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-editorial-opinion","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17342"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17343,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17342\/revisions\/17343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17342"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=17342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}