Punch Lines

Why Are We Humoring Them? | The Atlantic

The brand of politics that Musk and Carlson practice is swaggering and provocative and, as a result, entirely devoid of shame. And so the two men, wielding their mockery, make a show of each chortle and smirk. They may consider their delight to be defiant—a rebuke to the humorless masses who see the violence and not the lol—but it is not defiant. It is dull. This is the way of things now. The tragedy and the farce, the menace that winks, the joke that threatens, the emoji that cries with joy and the one that simply cries: They bleed together, all of them. Irony storms the Capitol.