When did Republican writers stop being funny? Look around at the landscape of contemporary American literature – and, for that matter, TV and film – and you’d be hard pressed to find a genuinely funny literary voice who doesn’t lean liberal, or at least purport to. This isn’t to say that individual right-wing writers aren’t amusing. Often found in these pages, Rod Liddle, for one, is very funny, though I suggest he’d balk at being called a conservative. And Donald Trump is hilarious on Truth Social – his posts may have the subtlety of a bullhorn, but they usually land with a satisfying thunk.

During his 2016 campaign and well into his first term, Trump succeeded in part because he understood that politics and entertainment run in parallel. In the primaries, he skipped around lumbering, straight-down-the-line rivals such as Jeb Bush; set against Hillary Clinton in debates, he played the winking, roguish uncle to her hectoring Home Economics teacher. His approach was crude, brutish and occasionally misogynistic, but he still recognized the value of comedy in getting voters onside, with a knack for damning nicknames – “Sleepy Joe,” “Pocahontas” – that had their recipients seething with impotent indignation. Likewise in his first administration, his zingers were hardly more than playground jabs – Kim Jong-un’s “Rocketman” moniker, for instance – but they did prove that on the world stage, as in elementary school, mudslinging gets you noticed.

The Land and Its People is far from self-serious. In fact, it is giddily good fun

The Land and Its People is far from self-serious. In fact, it is giddily good fun

But these days there appears to be a worrying self-seriousness in Republican letters. Where are the young tyros ready to follow the President’s example? Where are today’s Tom Wolfes and P.J. O’Rourkes? Both writers helped shape the idea of what we might term “Republican humor”: it was wry, poised, dry and often devastating. It looked the world straight in the eye and found it wanting, but tolerable, provided it kept you in bespoke linen suits and a decent table at the Monocle.

Take a typical gag by O’Rourke, the founding editor of the National Lampoon:

The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then get elected and prove it.

The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn’t work and then get elected and prove it.

There’s classical structure: a build up, a pay-off; the........

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