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Johnny Carson Would Have a Hard Time Today
The nation has become polarized to the point of being bipolar.
Johnny Carson is generally recognized as the greatest late-night talk show host of all time. One thing that help was he worked at a time when political or topical jokes could be made without a large segment of the American public having a hissy fit. You could actually joke about politicians and even members of his political party might laugh. Johnny would actually joke about the patron saint of the Republican party, Ronald Reagan. Things have deteriorated markedly since the days of Johnny.
For example, Johnny joked about Watergate. The latest political debate involves whether Donald Trump peed on himself and then put his pants on backward. If true, it would belie the old cliche, “He puts his pants on the same way we do.” Actually, a lot of today’s political debate revolves around who’s incontinent, Donald Trump or Joe Biden. Talk about your yellow journalism!
Common political jokes from the 80s and 90s revolved around Tip O'Neill and Ted Kennedy drinking, Ronald Reagan being old and not knowing what’s going on, Dan Quayle being dumb, Bill Clinton being a womanizer and eating a lot.
While most of those guys are dead, Bill Clinton being a womanizer is still an issue. Dan Quayle is still above ground but it seems his intelligence is no…
