Erin Schaff/The New York Times/AP; Anthony Behar/Sipa/AP

“You can tell a lot by a laugh,” Donald Trump told supporters the other day, reviving a weird and arguably very sexist right-wing criticism of his new White House rival, Kamala Harris. “I call her Laughing Kamala. You ever watch her laugh?… She’s crazy. She’s nuts.”

Trump then proceeded to call Nancy Pelosi crazy, saying that “she turned on [Biden] like a dog.”

Like a dog.

But this is not a story about Trump’s deployment of specific types of insults against women (he bullies men, too), such as when he called Hillary Clinton “shrill.”

This is a story about laughter.

Shortly after Trump made his comments, his stalwart pal, the Fox News host Sean Hannity, piled on, saying on his show that voters “seem to detest” Harris on account of her readiness to laugh—or maybe because of the way she laughs? It’s hard to tell. But Hannity clearly aims to convince his viewers to detest Harris, if they don’t already.

Hannity: Here’s just one reason voters seem to detest Kamala Harris

*clips of Harris laughing* pic.twitter.com/QwKufROZJ3

Hearing Trump and his cronies insult Harris’ hearty chuckle—which his campaign also impugns in this anti-Biden ad—got me thinking about how I had never, ever heard Trump laugh.

It turns out I wasn’t the first journalist to have that thought. Several media colleagues have made this observation in the past, but if Trump wants to weaponize his opponent’s noteworthy laugh, we should probably talk about that. And Trump’s lack of one.

Suppose we take Trump’s statement at face value: You can tell a lot........

© Mother Jones