Fin: Trump, Tony Hinchcliffe, and the natural endpoint of the "but I'm a comedian!" defense

Also: The curious case of 'Juror #2,' Billy on the Street: Election Edition,

I’ve been writing for nearly a decade now about the intersections among comedians, politics, political correctness, “wokeness,” and free speech. Ever since around the start of Obama’s second term, it’s been a frequent complaint of a certain breed of stand-up comedian that wokeness is out of control, that everyone is way too easily offended, and their free speech has become unbearably stifled.

As historian Kliph Nesteroff has pointed out in multiple books (and an interview I did with him earlier this year), “people are too offended these days” has been a prevailing attitude among comedians pretty much since the dawn of stand-up comedy, and comics probably have more freedom now than they did at most points in history.

The implication of all of this is that comedians are the last guardians of free speech, and because of that, no one should ever question anything they say, on stage or off, because, well, “but he’s a comedian!” Comedians get unlimited free speech, and people critical of comedians get none at all.

Furthermore, the sort of comedians who like to do edgy humor, especially of the “offensive” variety that’s unconcerned with niceties about racism, sexism, and homophobia, have seen their careers surge in the last few years. And these pockets of comedy, as chronicled by Seth Simons in his Humorism newsletter, have curdled into open support for fascism.

Every year, Dave Chappelle does a new Netflix special, people are offended by the transphobic jokes, and every year, Netflix pays Chappelle additional millions to do another special, and we do it all over again. And when Chappelle isn’t railing against “The Alphabet People,” he spends a major chunk of each special defending his celebrity friends, from whatever they were accused of most recently.

I thought of all this when the Tony Hinchcliffe incident happened at Donald Trump’s “Night at the Garden” rally in New York last week. Hinchcliffe, whose name frequently comes up in the Humorism newsletter, was the “warmup speaker” at Trump’s rally and proceeded to insult various demographically crucial ethnic groups, most notably Puerto Ricans.

If you’ve ever wondered what “too racist for a Trump rally” looks like, we finally have our answer.

There are quite a few lessons here: Not every venue in the world is a comedy club or a podcast studio. You bring out that stuff at a political rally, in the middle of a contested race, the consequences are going to be different.

I do have the comfort of knowing this: It would be hilarious if the outcome of a presidential election hinged on the offensiveness of a comedian’s jokes. Among other things, it would lead to at least ten years of Tony Hinchcliffe appearing on televised roasts, and having every other comedian shit on him for costing Trump the election.