Donald Trump—as political candidate and President—has repeatedly expressed admiration for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin—and disdain for a wide array of democratic leaders.   

Yet Democrats have never called called him to account for this—even though a plentiful series of insults exist:    

• “TrumPutin”
• “Commissar-in-Chief”
• “Putin’s Poodle”
• “Commissar Bone Spurs”
• “Red Donald”
• “Putin’s Puppet”

The Kremlin

Trump has attached insulting nicknames to those he hates: “Little Marco” [Rubio], “Lyin’ Ted” [Cruz], “Crooked Hillary” [Clinton]. Yet Democrats have never inflicted the same on him, although a great many are available: 

• DJTraitor
• Fake President
• Carrot Caligula 
• El Dunce
• Trumpy Traitor

Ridicule is a highly effective weapon. That’s why dictators always try to stamp it out. They know that if you’re laughing at them, you’re not afraid of them. And men like Trump prize being feared above all else.

Yet Democrats and liberals (the two are not always the same) have failed to produce hard-hitting anti-Trump jokes.

For example, limitless opportunities exist to use humor to attack Trump’s notorious dictatorial nature:   

• Trump is sitting in the Oval Office, when suddenly the door bursts open and an aide rushes in, shouting:.“Mr. President, the House and Senate are on fire!” Trump looks at his watch and says, “Already? 

• A reporter asks him: “Mr. President, do you ever collect the jokes that some people tell about you?” Trump: “I sure do. Two camps full.”
• A man knocks at the door of his neighbor’s apartment, shouting: “Quick, get up, get dressed!” From inside he hears terrified screams. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I’m not with the Trump Police. I just want you to know your flat is on fire.”                   

Donald Trump’s egomania is universally known: 

• Trump says he’s smart because his uncle was smart. He could be related to Albert Einstein—but that wouldn’t make him an Einstein. It would, however, make Einstein turn over in his grave.
• What’s the difference between Donald Trump and God? God never thinks he’s Donald Trump.
• Donald Trump dies and ascends to Heaven. But God is so disgusted by him He returns him to Earth—as a mouse. Being Trump-Mouse, he immediately begins raping all the other mice he encounters. But then he decides: “I deserve something better. I’m going to bag me an elephant.” So he visits a nearby waterhole, where a female elephant is munching on grass. Trump-Mouse shimmies up her leg to her backside, and begins pounding away. Suddenly, the elephant grunts, and Trump-Mouse says: “Did I hurt you, sweetheart?”

Nor have Democrats attacked the ignorant semi-literates who comprise most of Trump’s voters:

• Why do Donald Trump’s supporters always travel in threes? One who can read, one who can write, and one to keep his eye on the two intellectuals. 
• “Hey,” says a comedian to a stranger at a bar, “you wanna hear a good Donald Trump joke?” “I think you should know I’m a Trump supporter,” shouts the stranger. “Don’t worry,” says the comedian. “I’ll tell it very slowly.” 
• What’s the difference between a smart Trump supporter and a unicorn? Nothing. They’re both fictional characters.     
  

Trump’s legendary cruelty could fill volumes of joke books: 

• What’s the difference between a Donald Trump optimist and a Donald Trump pessimist? A Donald Trump pessimist says Donald Trump can’t any more vindictive. A Donald Trump optimist says he can. 
• After Donald Trump won the Presidency in 2016, news analysts wondered:  Why did so many people vote for him instead of Hillary Clinton? Interviewed on the subject, a Trump spokesman said: “Voters really responded to his campaign slogan: ‘Trump in 2016—Or He’ll Shoot Your Family.” 
• What is the Donald Trump version of a microwave oven? It seats 300.  

There is overwhelming evidence that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin subverted the 2016 Presidential election to seat Trump in the White Houses:

• Over 70% of evangelicals say that God helped get Donald Trump elected President.  If so, then God must speak with a Russian accent.    
• Donald Trump says Democrats are like Communists. In Hell, Joseph Stalin is laughing—and waiting for Trump to show up.
• What’s the difference between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump? Putin didn’t get HIS position through Donald Trump.

Trump’s well-known misogyny provides ample fodder for comedians:  

• President Donald Trump is holding a press conference. REPORTER:  “Do you talk with your wife when you’re having sex?” TRUMP:  “Only if there’s a phone handy.”   
• IVANKA TRUMP:  “What’s the difference between kinky sex and perverted sex?” DONALD TRUMP: “In kinky sex, you use a feather. In perverted sex, you use the whole daughter.”

Then there is the very real threat that Trump represents to not only the United States but the world itself: 

• Worried about the future if Donald Trump is elected President in 2024, a woman rushes to a local astrologer to ask: “If Donald Trump is elected President, will there still be life on the Earth in 2025?” And the astrologer replies: “Do you mean ‘LIFE’ the cereal or ‘Life’ the Milton-Bradley parlor game?” 
• In President Donald Trump’s America, what is black and knocking at the door? The Future.  

Reader’s Digest carried a page entitled: “Laughter is the Best Medicine.” And from a purely medicinal viewpoint, it’s absolutely true.    

According to the Mayo Clinic website: “Whether you’re guffawing at a sitcom on TV or quietly giggling at a newspaper cartoon, laughing does you good. Laughter is a great form of stress relief, and that’s no joke.  

“A good laugh has great short-term effects. When you start to laugh, it doesn’t just lighten your load mentally, it actually induces physical changes in your body. Laughter can: Stimulate many organs, activate and relieve your stress response, soothe tension.” 

In the long term: “Laughter may improve your immune system, relieve pain, improve your mood, increase personal satisfaction.” 

But laughter may also prove the best weapon against tyrants and self-righteous hypocrites. 

According to the 2016 book, One Day We Will Live Without Fear: Everyday Lives Under the Soviet Police State, by Mark Harrison, tyrants operate on seven working principles: 

1. Your enemy is hiding.
2. Start from the usual suspects.
3. Study the young.
4. Stop the laughing.
5. Rebellion spreads like wildfire.
6. Stamp out every spark.
7. Order is created by appearance.

Republicans have long won electoral victories through vivid appeals to Hatred, Greed and/or Fear. And in Donald Trump, they have found a candidate who delights in sticking ugly labels on his opponents.   

Yet Trump carries a major Achilles heel: He’s unable to poke fun at himself—and he grows livid when anybody else does. Like all tyrants, he knows—and fears—that if people are laughing at you, they don’t fear you.

And, for Trump, being feared lies at the root of his drive for absolute power. As a result, “Stop the laughing” rises to the top of his list or priorities.

At Christmastime, 2018, “Saturday Night Live” aired a parody of the classic movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Its title: “It’s a Wonderful Trump.” 

In it, Trump (portrayed by actor Alec Baldwin) discovers what the United States would be like if he had never become President: A great deal better-off.

Donald Trump

As usual, Trump expressed his resentment through Twitter: The Justice Department should stop investigating his administration and go after the real enemy: “SNL.”

Despite Trump’s obvious vulnerability to ridicule, Democrats have proven utterly unable or unwilling to deploy this powerful weapon against him.

One reason for this: Their apparent indifference to or ignorance of the power of effective language.

Another reason: Democrats seem uneasy with using ridicule or insults as a weapon. Many of them fear it will make them look silly. Others—such as former President Barack Obama—take the view: “I’m not going to get into the gutter like my opponents.”

Thus, they take the “high ground”—while their sworn Republican enemies undermine them via ridicule and “smear and fear” tactics.

On May 27, 2016, syndicated columnist Mark Shields—a liberal, and New York Times columnist David Brooks, a conservative—exchanged opinions on Donald Trump’s use of insults against his political opponents.    

MARK SHIELDS: “Donald Trump gratuitously slandered Ted Cruz’s wife. He libeled Ted Cruz’s father for being potentially part of Lee Harvey Oswald’s assassination of the president of the United States, suggesting that he was somehow a fellow traveler in that.

“This is a libel. You don’t get over it….”

Mark Shields

DAVID BROOKS: “Trump, for all his moral flaws, is a marketing genius. And you look at what he does. He just picks a word and he attaches it to a person. Little Marco [Rubio], Lyin’ Ted [Cruz], Crooked Hillary [Clinton].

“And that’s a word.  And that’s how marketing works. It’s a simple, blunt message, but it gets under.

“It sticks, and it diminishes. And so it has been super effective for him, because he knows how to do that. And she [Hillary Clinton] just comes with, ‘Oh, he’s divisive.’”

David Brooks

DC_Rebecca from Washington, DC, USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Hillary Clinton wasn’t the only Presidential candidate who proved unable to cope with Trump’s gift for insult. His targets—and insults—included:

• Former Texas Governor Rick Perry: “Wears glasses to seem smart.”
• Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush: “Low Energy Jeb.”
• Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders: “Crazy Bernie.”
• Ohio Governor John Kasich: “Mathematically dead and totally desperate.”

Only one of Trump’s opponents tried to match him in insults—Florida’s United States Senator Marco Rubio.

At the 11th GOP presidential debate in Detroit, Rubio “countered” Trump’s insult of “Little Marco” by calling him “Big Donald.”

Since Americans believe that “bigger is better,” this was a poor choice of ridicule. A better choice: “Red Donald,” to highlight his notorious admiration for Vladimir Putin.

So why hasn’t anyone come up with a way to counter Trump’s repeated insults?

According to David Brooks: Democrats face two choices in combating Trump:

“Either you do what [Massachusetts United States Senator] Elizabeth Warren has done, like full-bore negativity, that kind of [get] under the skin, or try to ridicule him and use humor. Humor is not Hillary Clinton’s strongest point.”

Humor was not Hillary Clinton’s strong suit. But her limitations need not be those of other Democrats.

All that’s required: Creativity—and the courage to apply it.