In the 1970s, as a precocious kid, I liked the joke where Nixon, Brezhnev, Kissinger, a priest and a hippie are on a doomed plane with four parachutes. Nixon grabs one, as leader of the most powerful nation in the world, and jumps out. Brezhnev does the same, as the most powerful leader in the world. Kissinger follows, saying he’s the smartest man in the world.
“Take the last parachute,” the priest tells the hippie. “I’m an old man, but you’ve your whole life ahead of you.”
“Don’t worry, father,” says the hippie. “The smartest man in the world just jumped out with my knapsack.”
Most jokes don’t have a lifespan over decades, though that one holds up well enough, assuming people know who Brezhnev was. In any case my memory was triggered by Russ Smith’s line: “After Trump’s melancholy speculation of getting to heaven (paraphrase: ‘It’s not looking good, I’m pretty low on the totem pole. But maybe if I bring peace to Ukraine, that’ll do the trick’), why would anyone deny America’s First Comedian another four years?”
This old one also came to mind: Guy falls from the stands into the arena at a bullfight. The bull chases and is about to gore him, when it slips. The guy keeps running, the bull catches up, slips again. Once more this happens, and the guy climbs back into the crowd. “That was incredible,” his friend says. “If I’d been in your situation, I would’ve shit in my pants!”
Is the punchline even needed? “Why do you think the bull kept slipping?” Disgusting, but memorable, which is how I’d characterize the bulk of Trump administration policies, particularly those involving violations of civil liberties, separation of powers, and the federalist system whereby states and municipalities aren’t arms of the federal government.
If you’re a Trump supporter celebrating those things, such as Kilmar Ábrego García’s prospective deportation to Uganda, the joke’s going to be on you sooner or later. “What do you mean ‘we,’ white man?” is the punchline to the one where the Lone Ranger says, “Tonto, we’re surrounded by Indians!” In politics, it’s only a matter of time before the guy you thought was working for you has other ideas, or the clown shoe’s on the other foot, as when some future authoritarian left-wing president pulls out the Trump comedy script.
In South Dakota, some years ago, I attended a Native-American festival where one speaker told a joke about the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). The gist is that an officer from that bureaucracy shows up to inspect a reservation and gets told to look anywhere but a particular field. The officer pulls out his badge and says, “I’m with the BIA. See this badge? It means I can go wherever I want.” The Indians nod and go about their business. Soon they hear screams, as the officer runs through the field—chased by a bull. The Indians call out to him: “Your badge, show him your badge!”
That joke has lately been repurposed as involving an ICE agent searching for unauthorized immigrants. It needs some updating, though, in that ICE’s current cohort of masked goons frequently don’t show badges. “Why do you think the bull kept slipping?” might be relevant, also, in that Trump’s verbal diarrhea puts his administration on an uncertain footing, such as in threatening an illegal transformation of voting procedures.
In Nazi Germany, there were Flüsterwitze, “whisper jokes,” in which people expressed discontent with the regime. A much-cited one involves a guy in a mental institution who won’t raise his arm to salute the Führer, because unlike the others he’s not crazy. Another’s about how time’s flying, as the Thousand Year Reich crumbles after 12 years.
“The big joke on democracy is that it gives its mortal enemies the tools to its own destruction,” Joseph Goebbels exulted as the Nazis rose to power. But that reminded me of the one referencing the stormtroopers’ shirt color: “Why is Hitler happiest on the toilet? Because he has the brown masses behind him!” Trump and his supporters should dread the jokes that may echo through time.
—Kenneth Silber is author of In DeWitt’s Footsteps: Seeing History on the Erie Canal. Follow him on Bluesky