The flags were out in London for Donald Trump’s second state visit last month. Most of them telling him to f*** off home.
Some placards at the protest on September 17 expressed the idea more creatively:
‘Feed him to the corgis’
‘In England, Trump means ‘fart’
‘We don’t want this old fossil polluting our air’
‘Old orange codger with a tiny todger’
‘Jog on, you jumped-up fascist’.
And (on a placard held by a small boy, marching with his mum)
‘Trump stinks of rotten eggs’.
Ouch.
Several marchers had dressed up as comedy caricatures of Trump – all with orange faces, some in orange prison overalls. Throughout the procession ‘Trump baby’ balloons were held aloft, and a giant inflatable ball printed with the face of JD Vance was bounced (and gleefully punched) above the crowd during the rally in Parliament Square.
Of course, the reasons for the demonstration were no joke. Leading and dominating the march were banners, flags and placards carried by large groups venting their outrage at Trump over the genocide in Gaza, the ‘drill baby drill’ climate destruction, the slashing of women’s rights, the brutal ICE raids -the list goes on. Coupled with the anger at Trump was incredulous disgust at the president being treated as an honoured guest by our prime minister and royal family.
One placard demanded:
‘Liar, conman, fraudster, criminal, sex offender, racist – why is he over here?’
Another stated:
‘Special relationship, my arse’.
The witty, irreverent, sweary signs and placards weren’t a by-product of the protest; they were intrinsic to it. A deliberate display of disrespect, insolence and defiance against someone who demands the opposite from his supporters. And the medium was part of the message: the DIY signs scrawled in marker pen, the home-made effigies and improvised costumes were a joyful parading of everything Trump strives not to be: flawed, human, amateurish, understated. And self-deprecatingly funny.
The serious business of humouring an egotist
Trump wouldn’t get this, of course, as he only understands mockery when it comes from a position of dominance. Triumphant taunting is part of his repertoire of performative cruelty, unleashed against the disadvantaged and vulnerable, or those who his authoritarian regime has already crushed. No-one’s allowed to poke fun at The Donald – as we saw from the suspension of comedian Jimmy Kimmel (whose joke about Trump’s reaction to Charlie Kirk’s assassination – ‘the fourth stage of grief: construction’ – was genuinely brilliant). No – this sort of power demands solemn deference, blind devotion, and absolute immunity from people taking the piss.
This was the ego and mindset Trump’s state visit was designed to flatter and appease. Over at Windsor Castle, safely cocooned from the anger and derision on the streets of London, the president was treated to a theme-park enactment of British royal tradition, with embarrassingly overblown pomp and pageantry. The stilted formality of military parades, the contrived ride-to-nowhere in the royal carriage, the lavish state banquet – all regimented, stage-managed, rehearsed – and very much behind the scenes, as far as the public was concerned. Far removed from real life. The only authentic touch was Led By Donkeys’ guerrilla screening of Trump and Epstein footage on the tower of Windsor Castle – which may turn out to be the most historically relevant aspect of the state visit.
It was on the streets of London that a more ‘real’ face of this country was in evidence. The sardonic, insolent mood of the protest manifested a certain ‘British’ character – which doesn’t mean race or nationality, but a psyche or mindset that many citizens from all backgrounds are proud to possess and personify. It’s a stoic, resilient, grin-and-bear-it attitude, shot through with a wry, quirky sense of humour. With this comes an innate loathing of boastfulness and hypocrisy; the impulse to cut through pretension, puncture inflated egos and bring some bumptious oaf back down to earth by with an exasperated ‘oh, come off it, mate’, or – better still – an ironic witticism that makes him a figure of fun.
Why humour derails the fascists
So we should take heart from the fact that humour is one of the most effective tactics for opposing and undermining the far right, while also helping to inspire and rally resistance. This may seem counter-intuitive; the natural reaction is to shout down racist rage-baiting and square up to threats of brutal, punitive oppression. But experts on non-violent activism say aggressive confrontation plays into the hands of the far right, particularly when they’re claiming to be championing people who feel unrepresented and unheard. As well as escalating division, it enables the extremists to cast themselves as victims, to manipulate media coverage in their favour and to attract more supporters to their movement.
But, as Michael C Zeller from the Center for Policy Studies writes in his article ‘How to Laugh Away the Far Right: Lessons from Germany’:
“Framing opponents’ claims or stances in a humorous way subverts them, denying their legitimacy,”
“Time and again far-right movement organisations carry out actions laden with pretensions of gravity and solemnity …. To undermine these activities, anti-fascist activists have repeatedly turned to ‘tactical frivolity’ or calculated silliness to disrupt the attempts of far-right groups to perform dignified actions.”
Rather than trying to reason against the most extreme and fact-deprived claims of the far right, this approach aims to poke fun at them, making their supporters look foolish and deluded. Attempts to clamp down on the pranksters will come across as harsh, humourless and heavy-handed – proving the protesters’ point, while putting their opposition on the back foot.
For example, in Germany, the ‘Front Deutscher Apfel’ (Front of German Apples) was founded in 2004 to undermine the ultra-nationalist right-wing party NPD. They used ‘performative mimicry’ to satirise the NPD’s xenophobic policies, drawing attention to the party’s similarities with the Nazis while ridiculing them at the same time.
In the US and the UK, activists dressed as fun-loving clowns have disrupted neo-Nazi white supremacist rallies with slapstick street theatre. By turning a would-be show of strength into a comedy spectacle, they highlighted the absurdity of fanatical far-right pronouncements, while changing the mood of the event from menace to mirth. In terms of the media coverage, and the reaction from the public, it was a win for the anti-fascist campaigners.
Another brilliant example of ‘flipping the script’ is described in ‘Don’t Fight Fascists – Laugh At Them’ by Sophie A McClennen and Srdja Popovic. In 2014, a neo-Nazi march was being organised in the German town of Wunsiedel in Bavaria. Instead of trying to prevent the procession, counter-activists persuaded local residents and businesses to ‘sponsor’ the marchers, donating 10 euros per metre to an anti-fascist organisation. On the day of the event the activists marked out the route in metres like an athletics track, hung up humorous posters and cheered the neo-Nazis along, celebrating their fundraising progress.
“This [wrote the authors] turned the marchers into involuntary resistors of their own cause and brought the community together in unity to counter the messages of white supremacy,”
It also made the neo-Nazis look extremely silly – particularly when the story was picked up by media outlets around the world.
A sitting target for satire
This spirit of subversive humour was very much in evidence at the anti-Trump demonstration. It raised morale and created a sense of solidarity, and it also demonstrated – or maybe celebrated – what a sitting target the far right is for satire, jeering and general piss-taking. Think about it. Their far-fetched claims and conspiracy theories, their swaggering authoritarianism, their po-faced pseudo-patriotism, their imperviousness to irony. Underlying all the furious anti-immigrant, anti-woke, anti-liberal ranting and raging, there’s an obnoxious self-righteousness that really needs to be exposed and ridiculed, and a shameless hypocrisy that cries out to be parodied and punctured.
Activating a collective reaction
The extremist far right have attracted and mobilised large numbers of ‘fringe’ supporters; previously moderate, non-political people are suddenly draping Union Jacks from lamp posts, bawling threats outside asylum seekers’ hotels and marching in support of Tommy Robinson. Undoubtedly, the leaders of Reform UK, Britain First and so on have activated some deep-seated racism and vengeful resentment in many of their fans. But they’ve also managed to strike a note that resonates with a wider audience, playing to their yearning for a common cause and a collective identity. These people seem happy to be swept up by the current that could carry Nigel Farage, smirking in his Number 10 football shirt, all the way to Downing Street.
What’s missing is the means to evoke an equal but opposite reaction among ordinary people who don’t buy into the far-right narrative. Millions of us are quietly horrified by the flags flying above our neighbourhoods and the politicians spouting despotic, Trump-inspired tirades. But at the moment – among the general public – there seems to be a low, fluctuating hum of discontent, rather than a resounding chorus of outrage.
We need something that will tune into that tone and amplify it. Something that ticks a lot of boxes: eliciting a positive, collective response, bringing people together, lifting their spirits, reviving and strengthening community ties, replacing their feelings of apathy or avoidance with a surge of energy and resistance.
Perhaps we could do worse than appeal to their sense of humour.
