Trump May Well Try to Clamp Down on Anti-Trump Humor; Can He?

[babylonsister]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/27/trump-may-well-try-to-clamp-down-on-anti-trump-humor-can-he.html

Trump May Well Try to Clamp Down on Anti-Trump Humor; Can He?
The thin-skinned president-elect can’t stand jokes at his expense. But what will he able to do about it? We might be about to find out.
Gene Healy
12.27.16 12:00 AM ET

snip//

It’s become abundantly clear that Trump can’t take a joke—which is an unsettling thing to learn about a man who’s about to get his very own killer drone fleet. He’s entitled to express his opinion. But the rest of us are allowed to worry—not just because the president-elect has repeatedly shown contempt for the First Amendment, but also because, in just over a month, this thin-skinned, easily provoked character will ascend to “the most powerful office in the world.”

snip//

Presidential ridicule is therapeutic for a democracy. When we mock our rulers, we remind them—and us—that they’re mere mortals. They weren’t put on earth to solve all our problems, and they shouldn’t be given the power to try.

Does our incoming chief executive represent a threat—legally or otherwise—to the great American pastime of taking the bark off the president? Trump has certainly made it clear that, given the chance, he’d turn his prejudices into policy: He’s bloviated about “open{ing} up our libel laws” so public figures enjoy greater protection from rough treatment in the media. And where Richard Nixon schemed privately about using antitrust prosecutions to cow the media, Trump has made such threats openly: “believe me, if I become president, oh do they have problems,” he’s said of Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and the paper he owns, The Washington Post.

Still, the fact that Trump has blustered about going after his critics will make it harder for him to get away with using federal power to harass them. And he’d have to search pretty hard to get conservative justices who disagree with Supreme Court precedent holding that the First Amendment protects “vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.” Criminal defense attorney and popular lawblogger Ken White concludes that Trump’s threats to revise libel law “should concern you as an attitude about speech, but not much as a policy agenda.”

Trump’s attitude toward criticism should also concern us because it suggests a resentful, hair-trigger temperament—quick to take offense, and ready to lash out. You’d like to think that anyone the country entrusts with the enormous, destructive powers of the presidency will be a coolheaded type who can resist provocation from tougher customers than Alec Baldwin. But, as Trump made clear on the campaign trail, he’s too sensitive even to laugh off a jibe about the size of his hands—and other extremities—from “Little Marco” Rubio. Last March, after the Florida senator cracked, “you know what they say about men with small hands?”, Trump rushed to reassure the nation in the next GOP primary debate: “I guarantee you there's no problem” in that department. Oddly enough, it wasn’t reassuring.

We have plenty to worry about as Trump’s inauguration looms, but our right to mock the president will remain secure. Instead of ushering in a new era of respect for the presidency, President Trump is a sure bet to provide comics with plenty of new material. That, at least, is some consolation: we’re going to need the laughs.

[C_U_L8R]

1. Comedians everywhere rejoice

If only I could buy joke futures

[heaven05]

18. I think comedians

rejoiced under the same circumstances when hitler came to power....and well.....?????

[C_U_L8R]

26. Ridicule is a powerful weapon

it pierces Trump's thin-skin so efficiently.

[pfitz59]

2. He can try and destroy net neutrality

make the internet too expensive or inaccessible to the plebes...

[Arkansas Granny]

3. Kellyanne Conway has already stated that people should be careful what they say.

Conway told Fox News Sunday that Reid’s comments deserved repudiation from Barack Obama, because “everybody is looking for a peaceful transition here in the name of democracy and you’ve got the Senate minority leader acting like some garden variety political pundit”.

“I find Harry Reid’s public comments and insults about Donald Trump and other Republicans to be beyond the pale,” she said. “They’re incredibly disappointing. Talk about not wanting my children to listen to somebody.

“And he should be very careful about characterizing somebody in a legal sense,” she continued. “He thinks he’s just being some kind of political pundit there, but I would say be very careful about the way you characterize it.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/13/kellyanne-conway-harry-reid-legal-threat

We already know that DT likes to file lawsuits against anyone who says something unfavorable about him. It wouldn't be a big leap for him to attempt to stifle criticism.

[HipChick]

6. Well..be better shut down the internet too..

[malaise]

8. Beyond the pale is questioning the President's nationality

demanding his college certification and birth certificate.
Go Cheney yourself Conway

[rickford66]

10. I doubt he'll file lawsuits.

He'd have to testify under oath during discovery. So, I pray he does.

[mwooldri]

14. Libel laws? Bring them on!

Two things kill libel. One: the truth. Two: Use of the word "allegedly" (or other similar words) that makes it clear to educated people that your statement isn't wholly based on fact. However don't mix the two together (e.g. it is alleged that Mr. Trump said on a tape recording it is okay to grab women by the crotch) because it makes it seem that a true statement might not be true.

It won't cause negative press to go away. In fact, I believe it would amplify what has been referred to as the "Streisand Effect" - the one thing that you don't want attention drawn to gets put in the spotlight instead.

[Jim Lane]

39. I disagree about "allegedly"

You can't just stick "allegedly" in front of a defamatory statement and thereby escape liability.

What kills libel suits? First, the truth, as you say. Second, even if the statement turns out to be false, absence of malice. A public figure like Trump can't prevail without proving that the statement was made with the knowledge that it was false or in reckless disregard of its truth or falsity. Third, opinion. There's no cause of action for defamation for a statement that, fairly read, expresses an opinion rather than conveying an assertion of fact. This doesn't mean that "It's my opinion" is a magic talisman, any more than "allegedly" is. For example, "It's my opinion that Trump perjured himself in that casino licensing hearing" is potentially actionable, because it obviously relates to a matter of fact despite the use of the word "opinion". On the other hand, "Trump is really thin-skinned" and "No one as thin-skinned as Trump is qualified to be President" are expressions of opinion (even though they don't use that word) and hence not actionable.

I do agree with you about the Streisand Effect. I wouldn't be at all surprised if, more than once over the next four years, Trump summons a lawyer into his office and angrily demands that a defamation suit be filed, but the lawyer manages to talk him out of it (over the course of several days) by pointing out how the suit would be publicized.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

32. Kellyanne is channeling Ari Fleischer

After Bill Mahar had disputed whether the 9-11 terrorists were "cowards" because they were willing to give their lives for their cause, and added that the real cowards were people who stood off 2,000 miles away lobbing cruise missiles (a comment that cost him his television show), Ari Fleischer said that war time was not the time to make such comments, and that people "need to watch what they say, watch what they do."

Given the thin-skinned nature of the Orange Man, I can expect lots of outraged tweets (which I can take -- it keeps his tiny fingers away from the nuclear button) and scheming to find some way to bring lawsuits against those who displease him.

[Xipe Totec]

4. Let the Hurl of Orange try. nt

[spanone]

5. let's hope that it only makes it worse (or better)

[jalan48]

7. This is going to be fun.

Guerrilla street theater is going to get a big boost in attendance under Precedent Trump.

[ailsagirl]

23. As is SNL

Though it may be the first to go for all we know

Instead of ignoring it, the idiot watches it every week then goes ballistic

[jalan48]

29. It will be interesting to see if SNL backs off.

If they do it's a really bad sign- Canary in the coal mine, so to speak.

[ailsagirl]

33. Let's hope they don't!!

[awoke_in_2003]

34. I haven't found SNL funny in a long time

but I don't think they'll back off.

[jalan48]

35. Me either. I last enjoyed then back when they had Dana Carvey.

[Crunchy Frog]

36. I haven't found it funny since 1980.

I'm the ultimate fuddy duddy.

[awoke_in_2003]

37. I started bailing

around the late 80s- lasting only that time due to inertia.

[Hekate]

44. I never liked them much, but now I watch their opening segment & find it quite good

The rest of it is too juvenile for me

[ksoze]

9. Killjoy: The more he hates it, the more he will see

His apparent inability to take any criticism, humor based or not, will plague him. If he laughed at it and took it in stride, it would abate. His obvious ability to be poked with aloud response will keep him the butt of jokes for his entire term.

[Crunchy Frog]

11. I'm not at all reassured that he's not going to try to act like a dictator,

and stifle free speech. I hope there's not a gulag leased from Putin waiting for people like Stephen Colbert and Bill Maher, or at least that their companies don't get hounded into taking them off the air.

Our freedoms are only as strong as the institutions protecting them, and those feel pretty shakey to me right now.

[Hekate]

45. Humor has always been the bane of dictators; they can try to suppress it,but they cannot wipe it out

[Alekzander]

12. It seems like it would certainly be in character for him to try but what Trump will do really is

still a mystery. You look at the characters he is appointing to all those Cabinet positions & that is not good. His family in positions of power & Trump himself is so thin-skinned & cannot let anything go. I wonder will this carry over to foreign leaders who might anger him.

I think your question is a good one because not only could this put shows like SNL who he has already got angry with in jeopardy but what about our news media itself which already sucks?

[randr]

13. His Achilles heel is his temperment

Pressure must be kept on it and sooner or later he will snap.
A constant ridiculing of him personally will bring the buffoon down.

[ailsagirl]

22. Not before he brings all of US down

That clod scares the hell out of me

[certainot]

15. what really causes authoritarianism

the disease has a name now - groganzola

[Historic NY]

16. We are not amused.

[lambchopp59]

17. What a hypocrite

For one of the spearheads of the Tea-party "movement" to attempt to stifle free speech after the gargantuan load of every distasteful poster, racist gaffes and totally over the top personal insults his following hurled at the Obamas... without one hint of a call for civility from the key birther conspiracy theorist...
I say the freak boy ginger cracker can take his egotistical, duplicitous and corrupt confabulations and masturbate over them in his preadolescent privacy rather than spewing his demon seed everywhere and underpaying his servants to clean it up.
Can a libel law lead to jail time for conspicuous and widely disseminated falsehoods about a public figure's character?
Then I'd say Donald Trump's birther nonsense qualifies as criminal. Hmmm...

[Diclotican]

19. babylonsister

babylonsister

Dictators all over the planet have tried to do this - the only thing it did, was making comedians more subtle, and clever in their humor when it came to dictators and tyrants who tried to stifle dissent - specially as humor was a dangerous way of making dictators helpless..

Even under WW2, in Berlin was some comedians, who had been in the "game" for a long time, able to insult the leaders of the 3th Reich on the scene, using rather subtle form of humor, and where it was levels of humor - who flew right over the head of most, but who was clearly dangerous and who could have ended the comedian in KZ camps.. The SS was not well known for their sense of humor...

Diclotican

[ailsagirl]

21. +1000

[ailsagirl]

20. It would be pretty hard to stanch, I would think

But who knows? We are not dealing with a sane person.

[Orsino]

24. He would find that a full-time job...

...but it's the only pastime tor which he's ever shown anything like a work ethic.

[Gothmog]

25. Trump lacks a sense of humor

The fact that he is so upset about these jokes is amusing

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

27. Hope he chokes on our laughter

[moondust]

28. Maybe GOP will Make America

More Like Turkey Again.

Article 301 is an article of the Turkish Penal Code making it illegal to insult Turkey, the Turkish nation, or Turkish government institutions.

Cafeteria manager jailed for insulting Turkish president, lawyer says

[Vinca]

30. Is he proposing a true dictatorship???

Thanks to the First Amendment we can mock him 24 hours a day every day forever and ever and ever. And I intend to do so.

[pressbox69]

31. Big Presidents don't cry.

So sorry for tiny hands.

[Danascot]

38. He may not have to

when he has his brownshirts doing his dirty work for him.

Example:

Teen Vogue writer receives threats after Fox News interview
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10028405632

[McCamy Taylor]

40. Noe. All he can do is incite his jackboot fans to commit acts of violence

and encourage his Russian masters to hack. If he tries to abuse the power of his office, he loses credibility with his "rebel" base and creates a whole bunch of Dixie Chicks.

[McCamy Taylor]

41. But if he does try to abuse his office, I am setting up as an official 24-7 Trump humorist

because you can't buy publicity like that.

[TeamPooka]

42. I'm going to mock him every day on twitter. No tweet will go unresponded

and call him every name in the book.

[Cha]

43. "Trumps attitude toward criticism should also concern us because it suggests a resentful

hair-trigger"

Exactly.

Oh and..