A Midwestern schoolteacher once told her class that a sense of humor is a sign of intelligence. “Look around the classroom,” she said. “The smartest kids always get the joke right away. The others might struggle.”
I’ve never confirmed that theory with a doctor. But I believe it. Humor takes quick thinking. It takes perspective. It takes freedom.
That’s why it matters when our presidents can laugh at themselves. For generations, they have. Reagan turned questions about his age into a punchline. Obama roasted himself at the Correspondents’ Dinner. Even George W. Bush, the butt of endless late-night jokes, learned to grin and roll with it.
That humility has always set us apart from the monarchy we broke away from. Kings demand silence. Presidents in a free nation are supposed to be able to laugh along with the people.
Donald Trump doesn’t get that. He can’t take a joke—and worse, he tries to punish the people who make them. First Stephen Colbert. Now Jimmy Kimmel. Using the power of the presidency to go after comedians isn’t just petty. It’s dangerous.
Authoritarians hate humor because humor exposes them. Stalin, Mussolini—every strongman fears the comic more than the critic. A joke spreads fast. A sharp one can cut through a wall of propaganda. That’s why free countries protect comedians. They keep leaders honest by refusing to let them take themselves too seriously.
We forget: America was born on satire. Franklin drew cartoons mocking the British crown. Revolutionaries cracked jokes as easily as they fired muskets. Laughter was proof that no king could control the American spirit.
But when presidents can’t laugh at themselves, citizens stop laughing too. And when citizens stop laughing, they stop questioning. That silence is the first step toward submission.
This isn’t about whether you watch Jimmy Kimmel or Stephen Colbert. It’s about whether you want to live in a country where the president decides which jokes are allowed. Today it’s late-night hosts. Tomorrow it could be a cartoonist, a college kid, or you for what you post online.
The strength of America isn’t that our leaders are above mockery. It’s that they can survive it. A president who can’t take a joke can’t take criticism. And a president who can’t take criticism can’t be trusted with freedom.
That Midwestern schoolteacher was right: humor is a sign of intelligence. But more than that, it’s a sign of liberty. And if we want to keep our democracy strong, we better insist on leaders who can laugh—even, and especially, at themselves.
Ben Jealous is a professor of practice at the University of Pennsylvania and the former head of the NAACP. He is a direct descendant of the youngest combatant at the Battle of Lexington and Concord.
