Politics & Power Quote by Ted Rall

Conservatism, Ted Rall suggests, doesn’t come with an automatic laugh track. The line is a jab at comedy’s informal social economy: in many cultural spaces where stand-up, alt-weeklies, and editorial cartooning circulate, “liberal” reads as the default moral credential. If the audience already shares your premises, the joke lands before you’ve even built it. That’s what “You get points for just being liberal” really means: applause can be mistaken for punchlines when the crowd treats politics as proof of taste.

Rall’s subtext is less “conservatives aren’t funny” than “conservatives can’t rely on the same shortcuts.” A conservative comic often has to do extra technical work - surprise, specificity, character, misdirection - because the room may not grant them baseline goodwill. Liberal humor, by contrast, can drift into what’s essentially a clapter economy: the pleasure of agreement dressed up as comedy.

The kicker, “You can get more points if you make fun of your own side sometimes,” is the tell of a cartoonist who understands how credibility is manufactured. Self-deprecation functions as an authenticity badge; it signals you’re not a partisan drone, even when you largely are. It’s also a safe kind of risk: you’re rewarded for “balance” without truly threatening the coalition. In a media environment where political identity is branding, Rall is calling out how jokes become social signaling - and how the easiest laughs often have less to do with comedic daring than with belonging.