Laughing is healthy. If you're angry and can make yourself laugh, that's a good way to dissolve the anger, which probably lowers blood pressure and extends life. Because so many in politics today seem to want their followers angry as a motivator to vote or write checks, they seem to avoid humor by design for its softening effect on the desired rage.
I don't know if this is true for rhetoric in general, but I find humor that involves a bit of self-deprecation makes any other jokes, however insulting to others, tolerable and hopefully funny. But if the jokes are limited to targeting people who differ from the speaker, then they come across as just ad hominem insults. When SNL makes fun of everyone on both sides politically, all the jokes become acceptable and funnier, but when they appear to just be thinly veiled political attacks, that's not funny.
Or, to put it another way, there's not a black and white line between jokes and insults, but if there appears to be hate behind the jokes, they're probably not going to feel funny. If it's ribbing at someone we believe the speaker loves or jokes cast equally in all directions (including at the speaker himself or herself), then that seems to allow the same jokes to feel funny. The actual jokes themselves seem to matter less than the perceived sentiment of the speaker.
Having said that, I assume Seth McFarlane didn't care for Usama Bin Laden when he did this in Family Guy, and I admit I still find it funny (the finale of which is partially spoofing a similar scene from the start of one of the Naked Gun movies): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AObnzSCpIUk
Laughing is healthy. If you're angry and can make yourself laugh, that's a good way to dissolve the anger, which probably lowers blood pressure and extends life. Because so many in politics today seem to want their followers angry as a motivator to vote or write checks, they seem to avoid humor by design for its softening effect on the desired rage.
I don't know if this is true for rhetoric in general, but I find humor that involves a bit of self-deprecation makes any other jokes, however insulting to others, tolerable and hopefully funny. But if the jokes are limited to targeting people who differ from the speaker, then they come across as just ad hominem insults. When SNL makes fun of everyone on both sides politically, all the jokes become acceptable and funnier, but when they appear to just be thinly veiled political attacks, that's not funny.
Or, to put it another way, there's not a black and white line between jokes and insults, but if there appears to be hate behind the jokes, they're probably not going to feel funny. If it's ribbing at someone we believe the speaker loves or jokes cast equally in all directions (including at the speaker himself or herself), then that seems to allow the same jokes to feel funny. The actual jokes themselves seem to matter less than the perceived sentiment of the speaker.
Having said that, I assume Seth McFarlane didn't care for Usama Bin Laden when he did this in Family Guy, and I admit I still find it funny (the finale of which is partially spoofing a similar scene from the start of one of the Naked Gun movies): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AObnzSCpIUk