Walz is right, Trump doesn’t laugh

There’s been lots of talk about laughter this election cycle. Ever since Vice president Kamala Harris ascended to the top of the ticket, the Trump campaign has tried to label her ‘crazy’ because of her supposedly erratic fits of laughter. At a rally in Michigan Trump referred to Harris as “laughing Kamala,” adding, “You ever watch her laugh?” …You can tell a lot by a laugh… She’s crazy.” Conservative groups even released a supercut of Kamala laughing awkwardly to make her seem unhinged, and yet this line of attack does not seem to be sticking.

In response, Harris’ running mate Tim Walz pointed out that Donald Trump almost never laughs. How can an adult go six years in the public eye and not laugh, he said on CNN, adding that when he does laugh it’s at someone not with someone.

Don’t be confused, Trump can tell jokes and even be funny. When he called Pete Buttigieg “Alfred E. Neuman,” I nearly fell out of my chair (for those under forty Neuman was the goofy face of Mad Magazine). It was funny, and Pete thought so too. But if you search the internet for clips of Trump laughing, you may come up short. You can find muffled chuckles when he’s mocking a political opponent, or perhaps a wry smile or a smirk but not much else. Former FBI director James Comey, who has had private interactions with Trump also noted that he never saw him laughing.

The closest example I found to natural laughter was a TikTok video in which Trump laughs with social media influencer Logan Paul in a mock boxing match face off. I also found an example where he laughed at someone calling Hillary Clinton a dog. Clearly he can laugh, he just doesn’t.

But why doesn’t he laugh and what does not laughing tell us about a person? Afterall, laughter is something we all do. No matter your language or culture, people laugh the same way. It’s the expression of joy, it’s a stress reliever, a coping mechanism, and it’s innately human.

Laugher means so much to people, and yet it’s subjective, mysterious and understudied. Great thinkers have long tried to explain why laughter occurs. Freud’s view of humor was known as the “relief theory” positing that laughter is beneficial to one’s health because it releases tension and “psychic energy.” Conversely, Nietzsche suggested that laughter is a reaction to the sense of existential loneliness and mortality that only humans feel. “Perhaps I know best why it is man alone who laughs, Nietzsche once wrote, “he alone suffers so deeply that he had to invent laughter.” Perhaps comedy was not Nietzsche’s forte. And in fairness to the rest of the animal kingdom, the great apes also seem to laugh.

The poet Pablo Neruda said that  “laughter is the language of the soul.” Make of that what you will, but I wondered if there is something more tangible or grounded in science that could explain why a person laughs more or less.

Mary Trump, who is a psychologist and Donald Trump’s niece, attempted to explain his behavior in an interview with Slate Magazine saying, “How can you be happy if you don’t laugh or appreciate humor? What that says to me, because my grandfather also didn’t laugh, is that laughing is to make yourself vulnerable, it’s to let down your guard in some way, it’s to lose a little bit of control.”

Mary’s hypothesis suggests that Donald’s behavior is conditioned or intentional. He doesn’t want to appear vulnerable and therefore he modifies his behavior. In my experience, laughter is not something you can easily control. It’s like blinking, smiling, coughing or any number of normal human functions. Even if he wanted to hide his laughter, it would still happen and we would see it. Famously Kayne West does not wish to be photographed smiling, however because he’s in the public eye so much it’s inevitable; we see him smile. Not the same with Trump laughing, we just don’t see it much. Moreover, Trump doesn’t strike me as a person with that type of control over his emotions.

One study from the University of Maryland suggests there are medical links between laughter and the healthy function of blood vessels. For the layperson, poor blood circulation may mean less laughing. The same study found that people with heart disease were 40 percent less likely to laugh and be able to recognize humor in a variety of situations, compared to people of the same age without heart disease.

Maybe a check of Trump’s blood pressure could solve this mystery. Of course if you believe the public statements of Trump’s doctors, he is the pinnacle of health – a statement which is in itself laughable.

But does this matter to anyone? If the political pundit class is to be believed, the idea of likeability is very important to the undecided voter. ‘Who would you like to share a beer with?’, the pollsters ask. Can you like someone who doesn’t laugh? Can you enjoy a beer without a laugh?

Perhaps you’ve read this and thought; I’m glad Trump doesn’t laugh, a president should be serious because the office demands gravitas. That would be a fine argument if Trump was not in the habit of petty name calling and all manner of juvenile behavior. You should also remember that serious people laugh. It’s not laughing that seems weird.