Why do so many comedic talk show hosts and news personalities lean left? Are they simply inspired by Barack Obama, a man who could have a second career in comedy? Or is it that Donald Trump’s presidency provided a gold mine of material, fueling the evening and late night hours? Or is it possible that liberals are just funnier than conservatives?

That can’t be true, can it? 

Turns out, it can.

First of all, liberals are vastly more likely to be attracted to careers in the creative arts, including, yes, journalism and comedy, than their conservative counterparts. 

In her 2021 book “A Conservative Walks into a Bar,” Alison Dagnes interviewed dozens of self-identified liberal comedians who were working at the time, and as many self-identified conservative comedians as she could find – and there weren’t many. 

So, she theorizes that satirical comedy has always aimed to subvert the power structure and take down those “in charge,” and that conservatism by its very nature upholds those powerful institutions. 

There’s also the theory that right-wing humor tends to err more on the side of exclusion rather than the more liberal trend towards inclusion – a “we’re in this together” mentality. 

A 2008 Duke University study interviewed 300 people, half liberals and half conservatives, and they told jokes to these people, and what they found that, quote, “Not too surprisingly, the conservatives were more apt to enjoy jokes that reinforced traditional racial and gender stereotypes – including a zinger about a guy choosing a game of golf over his wife’s funeral.”

And an Ohio State University study found that, when shown clips of Colbert speaking, a surprising number of conservatives just fully didn’t understand that he was joking. 

So what’s going on here?

Is it ideological differences, or is it a lack of representation of conservatives in careers that traditionally lend themselves more to humor? Probably some combination of those… but allow me to suggest one more idea. 

In college, I took a class called “Comedy and Comedic Theory,” and the question that the teacher posed on the first day was very simply, “What is funny?”

Funny, it turns out, is all about context. So, say a person falls down the stairs – that can be funny, but not if the person is hurt. 

And the opinions being put forward by conservative journalists these days, from pro-Putin rants to calls for the very fall of democracy… they’re not just hurtful, they’re terrifying. 

So you can’t really blame them for being fairly dismal to watch – what they’re saying, is just not funny at all.