{"id":2768,"date":"2018-12-18T11:00:10","date_gmt":"2018-12-18T11:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/?p=2768"},"modified":"2019-01-30T15:29:31","modified_gmt":"2019-01-30T15:29:31","slug":"poking-fun-at-the-donald","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/2018\/12\/18\/poking-fun-at-the-donald\/","title":{"rendered":"Why we can laugh at Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some people are afraid of freedom of speech.<\/strong> Some even\u00a0think that disrespecting a political\u00a0 leader shouldn’t be legal.\u00a0 But there is a long history of\u00a0 freedom that opens the door\u00a0 to criticism\u00a0 about any leader or public figure.\u00a0 Take the Dec. 16, 2018\u00a0\u00a0Saturday Night Live <\/a> sketch that used the theme of “It’s a Wonderful Life” (a 1946 movie) to imagine the world if Trump had not won the 2016 presidential election.<\/p>\n

In response, Trump tweeted:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2714@realDonaldTrump\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>A REAL scandal is the one sided coverage, hour by hour, of networks like NBC & Democrat spin machines like Saturday Night Live. It is all nothing less than unfair news coverage and Dem commercials. Should be tested in courts, can\u2019t be legal? Only defame & belittle! Collusion?\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The SNL satire was not flattering, and it’s not hard to see why it might upset someone who was its target, although it was not “news coverage” or a “Dem” commercial.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
But to the main point:\u00a0 Is it legal?\u00a0 Shouldn’t a system that allows this unfairness be “tested in the courts”?<\/div>\n
\n

Actually, as it turns out, it already has been tested<\/strong>, and rather frequently in fact.\u00a0 The “fair comment and criticism” defense against libel suits goes back for centuries. The freedom to criticize public officials has been a bedrock point of law since the founding of the country, reaffirmed many times in the courts, and it’s amazing and sad that\u00a0 Trump doesn’t seem to know one of the most basic and profound facts of American history.<\/p>\n

All other presidents have been well aware of the nature of an open system that allows people to criticize them.\u00a0 It’s never been an issue before.\u00a0 \u00a0The Washington Post<\/a> noted that presidents since the 1970s have all been satirized by SNL, and until Trump, all of them found ways to accept comic criticism with grace and dignity.<\/p>\n

But since Trump wanted to make it an issue, the response has been to affirm the idea that we can laugh, as much as we want, at any public figure, and as the\u00a0National Review said,<\/a>\u00a0making fun of Trump “is absolutely legal.”<\/p>\n

Huffington Post<\/a> said Trump “cant forgive SNL” for not loving him.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The Fox channel<\/a> quoted a DePauw professor saying:\u00a0 “This sort of political satire has long roots in American culture, of course.”\u00a0 Although complaining that the NBC show is “once sided,” Fox also quoted\u00a0\u00a0Congressman-elect Dan Crenshaw (R-TX)\u00a0wrote<\/a>, \u201cYes, the media deliberately misleads and spins. It\u2019s legal, and it needs to remain legal. The 1st Amendment is the backbone of American exceptionalism.\u201d<\/div>\n

Of course, reaction to the Dec. 16 Trump tweet can only be described as a hurricane of derisive hilarity and a supreme holiday gift to the world’s comedians.<\/p>\n

In Germany, Trump was awared the\u00a0Goldener Vollpfosten\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0 (Golden Idiot) prize.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
When people forget who and what they are, it’s usually considered a symptom of a mental condition.\u00a0 Trump, as\u00a0 the a leader of a constitutional democracy, apparently does not know or has forgotten\u00a0 what the US constitution means, especially this:<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Even uncomfortable criticism of the country’s leaders and its policies is absolutely protected by bedrock law, as the Supreme Court said in the New York Times v Sullivan decision in 1964<\/a>:<\/div>\n
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The United States has\u00a0 “a profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide\u2010open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some people are afraid of freedom of speech. Some even\u00a0think that disrespecting a political\u00a0 leader shouldn’t be legal.\u00a0 But there is a long history of\u00a0 freedom that opens the door\u00a0 to criticism\u00a0 about any leader or public figure.\u00a0 Take the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2768","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-media-law"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2768","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2768"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2768\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2804,"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2768\/revisions\/2804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2768"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2768"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revolutionsincommunication.com\/law\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2768"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}