Laughter, Not Obedience: The Power of Mockery Against Authoritarianism
Authoritarians thrive on anger but crumble under ridicule. Their power relies on compliance; mockery strips it away.
Authoritarianism does not survive on strength. It survives on submission. People obey early, quietly, and politely. Institutions fold, rationalizing they are being realistic, not cowards. This is how institutions and individuals clear the ground for tyrants.
But history offers another playbook. Refuse to comply. Build connection and community around their corruption. Look out for each other, and, as often as possible, laugh in their faces.
Laughter matters because tyrants require seriousness. They need to be feared, obeyed, treated as unstoppable, inevitable. Mockery breaks the spell. It pokes and jabs at the thin skin beneath the armor and sends the message they hate most: we are not afraid.
Authoritarians thrive on fear and overwhelm. They want us panicked, traumatized, frantic, and convinced that everything is slipping beyond our control. Fear narrows the field of vision. Anger burns people out. That emotional chaos is the point.
Mockery disrupts the entire system. It denies them the emotional payoff they are seeking, and it breeds courage in the masses to resist.
Authoritarians can handle rage. They cannot handle ridicule.
I try to follow two guidelines when it comes to mockery as a political tool:
Aim your sharpest jokes at the people with the power to do harm, not the people who’ve been propagandized to cheer them on.
Satire works best when it exposes leaders’ lies; when it turns ordinary people into the punchline, it just makes them feel hated and harder to reach.
Why Humor and Mockery Are Essential to Resistance
As Timothy Snyder explains in On Tyranny, authoritarian movements are not about governing well. They are about dismantling institutions, creating chaos, and then presenting themselves as the only ones who can fix the mess they created. Once disorder feels normal, people beg for control.
That strategy depends on credibility. Mockery destroys it.
When you laugh at a strongman, you strip him of the mystique he needs to rule. You remind everyone watching that this person is not unbeatable; he is absurd.
That is why the Nazis were rattled by Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. Not because it was a nuanced, point-by-point critique, but because the portrayal was humiliating.
It is why Turkish protesters flooded social media with jokes and memes mocking Erdoğan’s propaganda during the Gezi Park uprising.
It is why dissidents behind the Iron Curtain told jokes about Communist leaders that traveled faster than samizdat pamphlets.
It is why a meme can cut through the bluster of Trumpism faster than a thousand policy papers ever could.
When authoritarians claim failure as victory, laugh. When they demand loyalty, mock their incompetence. Make their movement embarrassing. Make it uncool to repeat their talking points without irony.
Snyder has compared authoritarian governance to taking your car in for repairs and discovering the mechanics sold the engine, kept the money, and still expects you to say thank you.
When authoritarians claim their failures as victories, laugh at them. When they demand obedience, mock their incompetence. Make their movement uncool.
Snyder likens authoritarian governance to bringing your car in for service, only to find that the "mechanics" have sold the working parts and kept the money. And they expect you to thank them for it.
This absurdity must be met with clarity, speed, coalition-building, and relentless ridicule.
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Anticipatory Obedience: The First Step Toward Authoritarianism
Snyder warns that one of the most effective enablers of authoritarianism is anticipatory obedience. Individuals and institutions comply with repression before it is required. That behavior normalizes abuse and teaches authoritarians exactly how far they can go.
We are already seeing it.
Media outlets self-censor to avoid backlash.
Corporations quietly roll back diversity commitments before the law forces them to.
Universities modify curricula out of fear rather than legal mandate.
Public officials surrender authority and call it pragmatism.
Every inch of voluntary submission strengthens authoritarian power.
Resistance That Works
Mockery on its own does not topple power. It becomes effective when it is tied to organized resistance and concrete alternatives.
Parallel Politics: Exposing Illegitimacy
Fannie Lou Hamer and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party refused to legitimize a system designed to exclude Black voters. Rather than plead for inclusion, they built a parallel political structure and forced the country to confront the fiction of “democracy” without universal participation.
By showing how the system actually functioned, they stripped it of moral authority and made denial impossible.
When a system claims legitimacy it has not earned, the task is to reveal the lie.
Parallel Institutions: Surviving State Failure
The Black Panther Party responded to abandonment by creating free breakfast programs, health clinics, and education initiatives. These efforts addressed immediate needs and established a different standard for what care and responsibility looked like.
They demonstrated that communities could meet basic needs without waiting for institutions that had already failed them.
Where the state withdraws, people build.
Why Laughter and Joy Matter
Authoritarian movements benefit from exhaustion. Fear constricts thinking. Anger depletes energy. Prolonged crisis leaves people isolated, brittle, and easier to control.
Laughter cuts across that terrain. Shared humor builds trust quickly and creates social bonds that outlast outrage. It keeps people engaged when adrenaline wears off and setbacks accumulate.
Joy also interferes with the emotional atmosphere authoritarians try to impose. When people can laugh, create culture, and take pleasure in solidarity, power loses its ability to present itself as permanent or impressive. Absurdity becomes visible.
Sustained resistance requires emotional range. Movements that rely exclusively on anger tend to burn out. Those that generate joy alongside discipline develop the resilience needed to endure.
Final Takeaways
Never comply in advance.
Build alternative institutions.
Use digital resistance to amplify local struggles.
Mobilize politically and through direct action.
Weaponize humor. Mockery, satire, and ridicule puncture strongman egos.
🛑 Read: Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny
I’ve written a book of anti-Trump limericks that mock the hell out of him and his ilk. Very NSFW. It’s totally free and I’ve put all of the limericks in the Public Domain. Digital and printable copies at tinyurl.com/Rimlicks
Excellent advice Nadine, really enjoyed your appearance on the 5-8! Hopefully everyone here is reading Dr. Snyder… The Great Dictator is one of the most powerful films of its epoch, today’s as well!!