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We now know how comedy factors into the Trump administration’s apparent attempt to turn the American armed forces into a safe space for bigoted stupidity.
MAGA-friendly influencer Theo Von is one of the many podcasters and social media influencers I’ve reported on in recent years for promoting Donald Trump to young audiences — men in particular. And on Thursday, Von solidified his status as a tool of the Trump administration with a bigotry-filled comedy routine in Qatar in front of American and Qatari troops.
According to The Associated Press, the president told attendees “we don’t care if you’re politically correct” shortly after Von apparently tried to spew as much bigotry as possible. (Trump wasn’t present for the routine, the AP reported.)
Wearing a black T-shirt and backward baseball cap, the podcast host regaled the uniformed troops with jokes about drugs, developmental disabilities, homosexuality and their Qatari hosts.
He talked about snorting cocaine off a baby’s back but said it was “a mixed baby” so the white powder was visible on the baby’s skin.
Von acted out various disabilities, including Down syndrome, and he insulted the U.S. Navy as “gay.” He also had a punchline about terrorism attacks, asking, “Where do you think the next 9/11 should happen?”
He joked about the lack of crime in Qatar, where he said it would be impossible to identify a perpetrator because everyone is named Mohammed and dresses in the same white robes. They were like a “Ku Klux Sandsman,” Von said.
In this case, I find Von’s allusion to the Ku Klux Klan useful in making a broader point about how humor is used to spread hate.
In this case, I find Von’s allusion to the Ku Klux Klan useful in making a broader point about how humor is used to spread hate — because the klan has historically known, just as the MAGA movement appears to know, that humor can be helpful in radicalizing others to accept one’s hateful views.
It’s a point I made after comedian Tony Hinchcliffe’s bigoted speech at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally last year. The veil of comedy is powerful and can be used to pass off bigotry as something more benign.
And in this case, so-called jokes appear to have been used as a kind of Trojan horse to bury bigotry deep within the psyche of those in attendance. And when you pair that with the administration’s overt attacks on diversity in the military — such as its attempted erasure of contributions from minority veterans and through its ban on diversity-related programming for current service members — it seems clear the type of person who fits Trump’s ideal for a soldier.
In fact, we don’t need to guess — we know precisely what Trump is looking for in his military. His apparent infatuation with the racist and vulgar Marine Gunnery Sgt. Hartman, from the film “Full Metal Jacket,” was on full display during last year’s campaign when he used the character as an ideal of sorts for what the American military should be. That suggested what seems more obvious now: that Trump longs for a military filled with people who lack basic human decency.
Theo Von’s performance was, in this regard, useful propaganda.