Late Night with Trump Political Humor and the American Presidency

Political humor has been a staple of late-night television for decades. The Trump White House, however, has received significantly greater attention than that of past presidents, such as Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and even Bill Clinton. In response to Trump?s strident politics, late-night comics, including Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Kimmel, Trevor Noah and Jimmy Fallon, have sounded key policy notes, further blurring the boundary between news and satire. Weekly humorists, including John Oliver and Samantha Bee, extend the critique with in-depth probing of key issues, while Saturday Night Live continues to tap the progression from outrage to outrageousness.

Using unique content analysis techniques and qualitative discussions of political humor, Farnsworth and Lichter show how late-night political humor, and these seven programs in particular, have responded to the Trump presidency. Employing a dataset of more than 100,000 late night jokes going back decades, these noted media scholars discuss how the treatment of Trump differs from previous presidents, and how the Trump era is likely to shape the future of political humor. The authors also employ public opinion survey data to consider the growing role these late-night programs play in framing public opinion and priorities. This book will interest scholars, the curious public, and students of politics, communications and the media, and contemporary American culture.

1. The Importance of Political Humor 2. The Blustering Billionaire of Talk Shows and Twitter 3. Candidate Trump and Campaign Comedy 4. How POTUS Plays on Late Night 5. Political Consequences of Late Night Humor 6. The (Near) Future of Political Humor

Stephen J. Farnsworth is Professor of Political Science and International Affairs and Director of the Center for Leadership and Media Studies at the University of Mary Washington. He holds a PhD in Government from Georgetown and is the author or co-author of seven books on the presidency and the mass media, as well as dozens of articles on US and Virginia politics. He is a recipient of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia’s Outstanding Faculty Award and has served as a Canada–US Fulbright Research Chair at McGill University in Montreal and as a Fulbright Specialist at Methodist College in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

S. Robert Lichter is Professor of Communication at George Mason University, where he directs the Center for Media and Public Affairs. He has authored or co-authored over a dozen books and numerous scholarly and popular articles and monographs on the media and politics. He holds a PhD in Government from Harvard and has served on the faculties of Yale, Columbia, Princeton, Georgetown and George Washington University. His most recent book is Politics Is a Joke! How Comedians Are Remaking Political Life (with Jody Baumgartner and Jonathon Morris).