Axar.az presents the article “ The Hate Shtick ” by John Samuel Tieman.

Enter Lauren Boebert, stage right. She is a Republican and a QAnon admiring U. S. Representative from Colorado. A video from September shows Rep. Boebert at a dinner given by conservatives. She stands before them. She's performing. She is clearly doing, as comedians say, a shtick. Her shtick is hate. She tells a story she made up. It's a joke about Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, an immigrant from Somalia and an observant Muslim. "One of my staffers, on his first day with me, got into an elevator in the Capitol. And in that elevator, we were joined by Ilhan Omar. It was just us three in there and I looked over and I said, 'Well, lookey there, it's the Jihad Squad.' She [Omar] doesn't have a backpack,” Boebert tells the staffer. “She wasn't dropping it and running so we're good." Her audience laughs at the insinuation that Omar is a suicide bomber. Boubert thinks that what she is doing is political theatre. It's not. It's performance hate.

I have always enjoyed the political comedy. In the 1960s, I vividly remember “The Smothers Brothers”. I also remember, in 1968, the episode of “Laugh-In”, when then-Republican candidate Richard Nixon delivered that show's signature “Sock it to me.” I once saw Red Foxx do stand-up in San Francisco. Today, I love Samantha Bee, Bill Maher, and John Oliver. I am especially fond of “The Liberal Redneck”, Trae Crowder.

Such comedy does more than make folks laugh. For example, the last segment of John Oliver's “Last Week Tonight” always gives plenty of laughs. You also walk away with policy recommendations, and frequently plans of action. This is true of a lot of political comedy. Rep. Boebert's shtick is not about advocacy. Nor is it really about being funny. The only thing recommended is who to hate. And Islamophobia has a ready-made audience. The Pew Research Center found that 72% of Republicans believe that Islam is more likely than other religions to cause violence.

Not all political humor is about policy recommendations, of course. Some jokes are simply self-deprecating. When he appointed his younger brother to the cabinet, John Kennedy deflected criticism by saying, “I see nothing wrong with giving Robert some legal experience as attorney general before he goes out to practice law.” Ronald Reagan often made fun of his own age and his reputation for laziness. “I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency, even if I’m in a Cabinet meeting.” Such self-deprecation humanizes the teller of the joke. When he was a candidate, Donald Trump famously performed a mocking impression of “New York Times” reporter, Serge Kovaleski, who is disabled by a congenital joint condition. Trump was defending a lie. Trump claimed that he saw thousands of Muslims celebrating the fall of the World Trade Center. Kovaleski's reporting refuted that lie. Trump got laughs. The laughs, like the joke, humanized no one.

I was no fan of Pres. George W. Bush. He wasn't very funny. I opposed his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nonetheless, I gave him credit for one thing. At no time did he spout Islamophobic rhetoric, or encourage domestic violence against Muslims. Just days after the 9/11 attacks, Pres. Bush spoke at a mosque. “The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam,” he said. “Islam is peace.” He quoted some of the Koran’s prohibitions against evil and added that women, who wear veils, should not fear leaving their homes. “Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens to take out their anger [on Muslims] represent the worst of humankind, and they should be ashamed of that kind of behavior.”

I hasten to repeat that I was no fan of “W”. In this regard, however, he confronted hatred, and he showed moral leadership. But he wasn't particularly funny.