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Open mic host and Donald Trump rally speaker Tony Hinchcliffe isn’t the first conservative comic to use “edgy” humor to promote a racist and fascist ideology, and he won’t be the last. He’s also not the funniest.
On Sunday, Hinchcliffe took the stage at Madison Square Garden, a venue he’s now played four times in his comedy career, and he treated the horde of tens of thousands of Trump fans as if they were the usual audience of his popular podcast and live show Kill Tony. In his 12-minute set, Hinchcliffe targeted Latin Americans, Black Americans and the entire island of Puerto Rico with his signature, predictable and uninspired brand of insult comedy. When the performance not only fell flat in the room but sparked backlash across the American media and electorate, Hinchcliffe made the same excuse that every hack comic like himself uses whenever they face criticism for a racist routine — he accused his detractors of taking his jokes out-of-context and falsely claimed that “I made fun of everyone,” despite the fact that he made exactly zero jokes about white men such as himself and his candidate.
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As another longtime stand-up and podcaster Marc Maron pointed out, Hinchcliffe’s routine as well as his lame defense are emblematic of a troubling movement within a comedy industry that’s grown more politicized and more protective of the status quo in recent years. Maron made his thoughts clear in a viral tweet early yesterday:
Over the last eight years, the reaction to what many comedians perceive to be an increased sensitivity toward jokes about race, gender and sexuality has crystallized into a comedy counter-culture that’s quickly becoming the dominant movement in all of humor. The massive, unprecedented success of The Joe Rogan Experience inspired Rogan’s many contemporaries and copycats to create their own spaces for “anti-woke” “comedy” that treats marginalized communities pushing back against insulting material as an existential threat to free speech. And despite the millions of dollars these celebrities make in Patreon subscriptions, their sold-out stadium tours, their nine-figure Netflix deals and their collaborations with far-right politicians, there is now a huge network of nationally recognized and fabulously wealthy stand-up comics whose followers genuinely believe that there is no single class of people who is more oppressed in modern America than the straight, white, conservative, xenophobic comedian.
While Maron recognizes the growing threat that these rich white “comedians” who weaponize their comedy to advance autocratic political movements pose to democracy, I believe that he’s underselling the degree to which Hinchcliffe and his friends understand their role in marketing and humanizing the dangerous far-right ideologues who want to strip away the human rights of everyone who isn’t a straight, white, Christian man. Just last month, we learned that Russia has been funneling money to right-wing influencers, entertainers and media companies who push the same fascist talking points and pal around with the same extremist political figures as the comedians Maron targeted in his statement.
Hinchcliffe and his friends aren’t just promoting anti-American fascism for the fun of it — they’re doing it for profit.