Bill Maher Urges Politicians to Drop the Jokes

Article excerpt

Bill Maher, not usually the person handing out straight-faced advice, has a message for politicians: stop trying to be funny. The argument, laid out with characteristic bluntness, is that comedy in political settings almost always backfires, turning serious candidates into punchlines at the worst possible moment. Maher's case rests on a simple observation: politicians are not comedians, and the attempt to seem relatable through humor usually reveals the opposite. The laugh that lands in a green room dies in a debate hall. Meanwhile, Foreign Policy offers a parallel argument about a different kind of emotional overreaction, this time from India. Indian political commentary, the argument goes, has been gripped by anxious hand-wringing over Donald Trump's return to the White House, when the structural logic of U.S.-India relations actually gives New Delhi very little reason to panic. The two pieces, arriving from different corners of the commentary world, share an underlying theme: that emotionalism, whether a candidate reaching for a zinger or a foreign-policy establishment catastrophizing over a familiar adversary, tends to obscure clear thinking. Both arguments are essentially pleas for a cooler head.