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Funny Business Why comedy is good for politics
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Why comedy is good for politics FUNNY BUSINESS
ong before he became ensnared in Trump’s infamous quid pro quo, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was already considered a joke. The famous comedian and TV star’s ascent from onscreen president to actually holding Ukraine’s top job last April stunned the political establishment and rival Petro Poroshenko, who had previously dismissed Zelensky’s election was, in effect, analagous to a Julia Louis-Dreyfus presidency in the United States: Worthy of fantasy? Sure. Able to cope with Russian aggression? Not so much.
Zelensky is far from the only candy wrapper dotting the normally drab halls of government. In fact, satirical parties and candidates can be found all over the world. And behind all the self-deprecating memes and hyperbolic commentary, comedians have proven to be remarkably L
capable and innovative legislators, particularly in times of crisis and upheaval.
While it may seem, well, silly to advocate for the proliferation of comedy in government, satirical parties and politicians offer powerful new vantage points and can productively disrupt mainstream politics; satire forces people to identify bizarreries within the status quo and then work to amend them. Particularly in parliamentary systems, where coalitions inherently require compromise and moderation, satirical parties challenge existing discourse without threatening political expediency.
Take the case of Iceland. In 2010, Icelanders, hurting from the Great Recession and dealing with a massive inflation crisis, unexpectedly elected Jón Gnarr mayor of Reykjavik. A comedian, friend of singer Björk, and founder of the satirical “Best Party,” Gnarr had launched his candidacy for little more than laughs, claiming that his was a “surprise party, not a political party.” Yet, after winning the election, Gnarr
by Allison Meakem ’20
illustrator Nadia Kossman ’22
demonstrated surprisingly effective leadership, working to advance the Icelandic LGBTQ+ movement and opening Iceland’s first mosque. Perhaps most critically, he saved the Icelandic banking sector from total collapse.
No stranger to media skepticism, Gnarr is quick to clarify that humor does not equal ineptitude: “Just because I’m funny doesn’t mean I can’t be serious,” he chided in an interview with Britain’s Independent, adding that he fashions himself as far less of a clown—and far more of a diligent leader—than the likes of British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Stateside, it was not long ago that former Minnesota Senator Al Franken (since resigned due to allegations of sexual misconduct) legislated with a similar buoyant gravitas. Franken, who began his career as a writer on NBC’s Saturday Night Live before entering Congress in 2008, was a particularly astute questioner, famously walloping Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos during her 2017 confirmation hearing. 35 36 37 38 39 40 41
Celebrated for blessing Mitch McConnell with the occasional eye roll, Franken has somewhat ironically reflected that the most difficult skill to learn in his transition to politics was acting. Franken’s comedic instincts had primed him to be blunt and uncensored in responses to his constituents and Republican colleagues. Mainstream politics, on the other hand, demanded that he shroud government’s inner workings in crafty jargon and become adept at “pivoting”—avoiding questions and masking his true intentions. It’s no secret that this trend has become the source of much popular disaffection with the political establishment. Across the Atlantic in the European Parliament (EP), an entire party, rather than a single candidate, has capitalized on this dichotomy and voters’ accompanying frustration. Between factions of the established European People’s Party and Free Alliance sits Die PARTEI, a German satirical party. Die PARTEI, literally “the party,” is an acronym for an impossibly far-ranging and all-encompassing platform of “labor, rule of law, animal protection, promotion of elites, and grassroots democracy.” Its name also pokes fun at the Orwellian East German politburo, a system in which “the party” was a deified, all-knowing black box. Die PARTEI’s campaign website is headed by the curt slogan: “If politicians are going to keep doing satire, we satirists are just going to have to do politics.”
Although Die PARTEI has as many card-carrying members as the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), you’ve likely never heard of them. That’s because Die PARTEI doesn’t stand a chance in domestic German politics, where parties must earn at least five percent of the vote to enter parliament. The EP, however, is a different story: Without electoral thresholds, the body enables a wide and unlimited range of parties from across the European Union to be represented. Here, Die PARTEI, which earned 0.6 percent and 2.4 percent of the German vote in the 2014 and 2019 European Parliamentary Elections, respectively, is able to flourish.
Admittedly, Die PARTEI’s presence in Strasbourg is miniscule: As two out of 751
Members of the European Parliament, they will never be able to usher in the outlandish policy proposals espoused on their website, which range from outlawing online chatbots to instituting “MILF Money,” a financial incentive for women of childbearing age. Yet these schemes’ sheer infeasibility might just shine light upon the idiosyncrasies of our existing political system by, for example, turning conversation towards under-discussed issues, such as childcare policies. Indeed, Business Insider has named Die PARTEI’s MEPs “the most famous MEPs in Germany,” an accolade that captures the significance of their influence while simultaneously serving as a condemnation of more established parties’ failure to resonate with the European electorate.
Moreover, Die PARTEI has been able to master the supple duality of comedic ridicule and moral imperative: While advocating for a cap on the number of “xenophobic scaredy-cats” allowed in Germany (as opposed to refugees), the party utilized the bulk of its advertising budget to draw attention to the epidemic of migrant deaths in the Mediterranean—a tragedy in which most established European politicians are complicit, and one they consequently shy away from addressing.
Despite its undisputed success and constructive dialogue after only half a decade in Strasbourg, the future of Die PARTEI in European politics appears murky. Regrettably, satirical parties’ entrance into most parliamentary systems is nearly always stifled by electoral thresholds, which privilege established parties and curtail productive debate. While Germany and many other EU states do not currently apply thresholds to their European Parliamentary elections, the European Council has mandated that all of the bloc’s countries must impose a minimum threshold between two and five percent prior to the next elections in 2024.
Advocates of electoral thresholds claim they prevent the emergence of fringe groups in government. Yet fringe groups are a necessary countervailing force against meek, uninspiring governing coalitions. They don’t have the power to rupture the stability of governing parties, but they can problematize and provoke them. By proposing the preposterous, fringe groups shift the Overton window of palatable politics, acting as crucial push-pull forces on a malleable centrism.
Productive parliamentary debate is based on the representation of a democracy’s full range of opinion. Satire is no less a mode of political expression than rote stump speeches and false promises made in business casual attire. In fact, satirical political parties might actually be more genuine than many traditional ones—and they are just as deserving of a seat at the table. Preemptive exclusion may ultimately backfire: If governments are afraid of being laughed at, maybe they shouldn’t be governing at all.
infographic Minji Koo ’20 and Ashley Hong ’22
Interview with Garett Jones
by Nick Whitaker ’20 Illustrator Vienna Gambol ’20
Garett Jones is an economist at George Mason University and author of two books, 10% Less Democracy: Why You Should Trust the Elites a Little More and the Masses a Little Less, published in 2020, and Hive Mind: How Your Nation’s IQ Matters So Much More Than Your Own, published in 2015. the risks. But, at our current state of knowledge, we have to go based on the averages. This is a little bit like thinking, “Since I know someone who took an antibiotic and got better in two days, let’s find a way to make sure this antibiotic that normally works in seven could work in two.” That’s the kind of thing that’s beyond, I think, our typical scope of knowledge in the realm of the social sciences. So I tend to think we should focus on the average outcomes, the common outcomes, the modal outcomes. Maybe ten or 20 more years of artisanal, well-crafted research can yield better policy reforms. But my job is to state the rules, not the exceptions to the rules. nwHow does your work in this book connect with your work in your previous book, Hive Mind? gj Hive Mind got me thinking about the importance of cognitively skilled citizens in creating good governance. That influences one chapter of this book. But I think the core overlap is that both books emphasize that governments are created by people. People differ in their traits, and people differ in their incentives. Those differences matter for good governance. I spoke to someone recently, a philosopher, who pointed this out, that this is an overall theme in my work. A lot of modern political speak is built around this tacit assumption of absolute equality on every issue, that all people are equally skilled on the supply side. That might have been a useful working assumption, but I think the statistical evidence of the last few decades gives a strong reason to think that differences between people are big enough to matter for shaping government outcomes. That may be the difference between more educated voters and less educated voters. And that may be the difference between people who think a lot about the short run versus people who think a lot about the long run. But regardless, these differences matter for governance. Economists think about this routinely in political economy research. Part of my goal in this book is to bring these ideas from political economy research out into the broader public debate over the nature of good governance. nick whitaker Of the political reforms that you explore in your book, which do you think would be the most promising in the US? garett jones I think that longer terms for the House of Representatives is something that has been a hardy perennial in US politics. And it’s something you could always imagine getting through as a constitutional amendment. Two-year terms are just about the shortest in the world. Very few countries go that short. It seems like you can get a fairly broad consensus if it just became a thing people talked about for a year. You could imagine a lot of states passing constitutional amendments to lengthen those terms. That’s one. I think another one could be something like the council of US Treasury bondholders, as I suggest in chapter six. It would involve having some kind of formal mechanism to listen to people who have skin in the game, who have invested in the United States government, who have a long-run time horizon, and who want to get repaid. I think that some kind of formal representation for the bondholders, having the US Treasury listen to them in a formal way—say twice a year—through nonbinding resolutions, is something that really could happen. Maybe it won’t happen. It won’t happen in the US this year or next year. But I think as aging democracies face fiscal crises every five or ten years, eventually it’ll become an idea that will make it onto the menu. nw You make some convincing arguments for undemocratic reforms in your book. Why do you end up with only ten percent less democracy? gj A core reason comes from William Easterly’s research in the area, where he shows that countries in the top 25 percent of democracy essentially never kill their own citizens. Once one drops from the top quartile to the second quartile, the percentage of people who get killed by their own government shoots up. So I see this as sort of a metaphor more broadly where, when we’re looking for good outcomes, the good and excellent things we get from democracy (fewer famines, less killing of citizens, perhaps a lower likelihood of war), these are things where a little bit of democracy goes a long way. I want to make sure that whatever reforms I propose, they don’t make a country feel truly undemocratic. When I talk about my reforms with others, people often tell me, “Oh, these things you’re talking about: longer terms, more power for the Fed, even listening to bondholders, that wouldn’t make a country less democratic as long as we’re having elections every couple of years. That’s what democracy is all about.” So, whatever reforms I propose, I want them to be ones that will still make the nation feel and be a democracy. I want to remind people democracy is a continuum, not an either/or situation. nw Should we think of ending up on good outcomes and bad outcomes from institutional reform as a matter of luck, or is it a matter of pursuing the right set of institutional reforms with the right leadership? Can the outcome be controlled more than rolling the dice? gj It’s possible that further research could find a perfect way of threading the needle, of running the slalom course, to get just the good outcomes from democracy reducing reforms without running many of
