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In the summer of 2015, The Huffington Post smugly announced that they would be covering Trump's "campaign" under their entertainment vertical and not politics. After watching Trump glide down his golden escalator, the Huffpo editors had seen enough — this was a sideshow and they weren't taking the bait. If you wanted to follow Trump, you could read about him alongside other reality TV programming like The Kardashians and The Bachelorette. 

Less than five months later, Arianna Huffington took to the site to reverse that decision. Explaining the updated policy as a response to Trump's call for a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States," the Huffpo founder said the campaign had morphed from a sideshow "into something else: an ugly and dangerous force in American politics." The headline of the post: "A Note on Trump: We Are No Longer Entertained."

Somewhere in between these two events, Jon Stewart retired from the Daily Show. Despite Stewart's retirement, this period was still viewed as a golden era for liberal political comedy. The question among comedy critics at the time wasn't who could replace Jon Stewart (Jon Oliver's show was already a hit and the political comedy bench was deep) but why wasn't there a conservative Daily Show? The upshot of that question: maybe comedy is just biased towards liberals.

As we approach the second Trump presidency, it's hard to see much evidence of that bias remaining. Judging by the glut of headlines in left-leaning publications over the last eight years declaring political satire and comedy dead, it seems the audience is no longer entertained. Meanwhile, conservative or right-leaning comedy is ascendent. The hunt for the conservative Jon Stewart has, for now, transformed into a search for the "liberal" "Joe Rogan." 

That there is tension between laughing at Trump and treating him as a serious threat to democracy and its institutions is obvious to nearly everyone at this point. What's confounding and even disappointing is that despite (or thanks to) currently fielding an all-time lineup of hypocrites and political crackpots, the right seems to find much more to laugh at these days — and not just because of its recent electoral victories. 

While some on the left seem to have lost faith in satire or sarcasm as a political tool against Trump, certain podcasters and pundits on the right seems to be reveling in an ironic and transgressive aesthetic that recasts institution-defending liberals as the uptight scolds of the typically conservative-coded establishment who can't take a joke. Reserving judgement for now on any liberal culpability in this outcome, the impression is, as Jay Caspian Kang put it recently in The New Yorker: "the Republicans currently have an electoral monopoly on anti-establishment rhetoric, and it's difficult to see anything in the near future, including a Trump Presidency, loosening that hold." 

Well, frankly, that sucks. The strength of our satire is a sign of the strength of our democracy. 

Trump didn't kill political comedy. Maybe he's learned to hide behind enough layers of nonsense and obfuscation that he's impervious to having a mirror held up to him, but after eight years we know enough to see through him. Some of us do, at least.

At TPM, we cover Trump and all politicians seriously while also making sure we don't forget that this is all an exercise in human folly. That's why every year we recognize those who use their status as public figures to enact harm on the public, line their personal pockets and engage in corruption so shameless and so dishonorable that it deserves to be commemorated by the most ignoble of trophies. That's right, it's time for the 16th Annual Golden Duke awards. Cast your ballots here.

Elsewhere on TPM: in TPM Cafe, Peter Drier challenges the idea that Trump has a mandate for his unpopular agenda; Kate Riga reports on the major emergency room abortion case that is now in appellate court after being sent down by the Supreme Court, which may indirectly end abortion care for women in red state emergency rooms; and Khaya Himmelman covers North Carolina House Republicans' vote to override Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper's veto of a bill that strips power from newly-elected state Democrats, making the GOP's power grab official.

And on the podcast, Kate and Josh discuss Republicans' perma-desire to cut social insurance, the limp response to Trump's birthright citizenship claims and Pete Hegseth's potential resurrection.

 -Derick D.

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By Peter Dreier

Newspaper headlines have called Donald Trump's victory "decisive," "massive," "resounding," "historic," and "sweeping." Trump himself has described his win as a "landslide." On election night, he claimed that "America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate." 

None of those things are true. 

"Your argument is: If the mother wants to kill the baby even though it's not necessary to prevent [her death] — then they have to be airlifted," Judge Lawrence VanDyke, a Trump appointee and former solicitor general of Nevada and Montana, asked the lawyer for an Idaho hospital system after she explained that patients had been airlifted out of the state because they might need what Idaho classifies as a criminal abortion. 

"This is a most unfortunate vote," Democratic State Rep. Pricey Harrison told TPM, after voting against the measure. "The Governor's veto was spot on; the bill did not provide hurricane relief to an area that needs support now. The bill does contain a number of problematic provisions grabbing power from newly elected Democrats that will likely be found to be unconstitutional once the bill is challenged in court."

It's a triggering year to ask you to cast ballots again, just about a month out from the bad day. But we promise no election result will be disappointing this time around — because every single bad actor on this list is deserving of whatever they win.

Kate and Josh discuss Republicans' perma-desire to cut social insurance, the limp response to Trump's birthright citizenship claims and Pete Hegseth's potential resurrection.

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