Why Aren't Conservatives Funny?

Yuck. Image from source, The Big Slice

I've visited this topic several times, and I still don't have a perfect answer to the question, why isn't conservative "humor" funny? FOX "News" tried a humor-themed program years ago called the 1/2-hour News Hour, and it was famously dreadful. FOX's RedEye lasted longer, but even their best attempts at humor were usually equally offensive, and often times hateful. Dennis Miller jumped from moderate/liberal to conservative, and promptly became as subtle as an anvil, and deathly unfunny. And not coincidentally, his best gig these days is the same FOX "News." If you seek out conservative humor on far-right sites like FreeRepublic.com, you'd better have a tough constitution, and absolutely no ability to be offended. To say they have a mean-spirited streak would be to undersell it, and point out the very, very obvious.

The best answer from the article excerpted below is that conservative humor lacks empathy. Even scathing, balls-out humor needs to have self-deprecation, and empathy to be tolerable. Yes, there are "shock" comics throughout comedy history like Andrew Dice Clay, Don Rickles and Lisa Lampenelli. But everyone knew Rickles' act was schtick, and that Lisa really digs black guys and gay people. Clay was a different story, though clearly a character like Pee-Wee Herman or Elvira. But Clay burned out, didn't he? He had no empathy, no self deprecation. His humor was abrasive, and guilty funny, but it became old and tired quickly. Conservative humor doesn't even garner guilty funny, and it sounds old at the very beginning. But I'll boil it down beyond all of that: conservatives are mean. Mean without empathy is not funny.

[Excerpt]

Why Conservatives Aren’t Funny

Something conservatives lack when it comes to politics is humor.  Everyone takes their politics seriously, but conservatives, whether of the home-spun or Paul Ryan variety, pride themselves in being serious and straightforward.  It is this iron(y) deficiency that makes for a stolid political class and an almost completely humorless pack of pundits. . .

Read more at:  The Big Slice