How Trump is training his supporters to laugh themselves into fascism

On June 22, Donald Trump told an audience of Christian conservatives in Philadelphia that he’d once urged Dana White, the head of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, to create a team of (presumably undocumented) immigrants who would be trained to fight the UFC’s regular league. Of course, Trump never elaborated on how such a league would be created or what methods would be used to enforce its compliance, leaving that to his listeners’ imaginations. 

As reported by Politico’s Natalie Allison and Jared Mitovich, Trump’s supporters in the crowd later minimized the remarks as jokes, noting that this was Trump’s way of “expressing how some of these illegal immigrants coming [into] this country are hardened criminals.” As Allison and Mitovich observe, the crowd reacted to Trump’s statements with laughter and approval.

Trump repeated the statement later at a speech at Temple University in Philadelphia. According to The Washington Post, White confirmed that Trump had in fact made those statements to him, but also contended that they were “a joke.” The media apparently agreed, and the statements were swiftly consigned to that gaping memory hole where Trump’s many thousands of outrageous utterances inevitably disappear.

As most of us realize by now, this was nothing unusual for Trump. He consistently exploits the use of crass humor to convey cruel, autocratic, and often violent aspirations that might otherwise be deemed offensive and unacceptable. Trump’s followers not only expect this use of humor, they actually crave it because it solidifies their allegiance to him. Through such statements Trump conjures up a common enemy for his crowds and supporters to focus their resentments and grievances on: liberals, Democrats, women, immigrants, in fact anyone who might object to being singled out for ridicule and debasement. These are his perennial targets, the ones who by definition are not in on the joke.

These statements are usually delivered at his rallies and often appear in the form of belittlement or demeaning slanders that serve as a secret handshake between Trump and his supporters. As they were in Philadelphia, these “jokes” are routinely met with boisterous laughter and applause. To an outside observer they may seem more mean-spirited than comedic: a politician going off the rails with provocative cheap shots and self-parody. But to his rapt, attentive followers there is something quite different going on.