Good afternoon readers. I'm Jacob Rosenberg, articles editor at Mother Jones.
Here's something I hate: "Orange man."
Another phrase I despise? "Cheeto." These words belong to what I can only describe as the lexicon of the cringe comedy of the initial Resistance to the first Trump administration (and, worryingly, a second). Florida man; small hands; various versions of funny/bad hair on Drumpf.
In 2025, I have a plea: Stop.
Others in this organization disagree. At Mother Jones, we have been having a healthy debate about the second administration and how to cover it. Most of that will be what we do best: big investigations, great reporting, and smart analysis. But—as you, our readers, know—writing well means having a sense of humor. I’ve made an appeal internally that we must firmly murder the past and stop using the cringe comedy of the first Trump administration.
And so as we debated I was curious: What do you think about it?
To put my biases on the table, I always hated this stuff. Mostly, this was on aesthetic grounds: It’s not funny! I hold this personal objection where I think humor should make me laugh and, frankly, this stuff is turgid, brutal, open mic night in the Rachel Maddow comment section stuff. Still, that’s a debate. (One I would win; it was never funny—moving on!)
But now, more importantly, I find these jokes lacking in an important way. These words, like much Democratic resistance, have been worn down by liberals' repeated appeals to “Isn’t Trump crazy!” and turned potential pushback into haunted, useless slogans. The jokes have become pantomime and pastiche.
They feel as if they come from a political movement (if you can even call the Democratic push to the suburbs that) that has failed electorally—and, in a deeper way, deluded the average New York Times reader.
The jokes ask for a certain incuriosity, I think, in thinking about what Trump would do; they focus on his language and not his actions. They conjure a political base that feels stuck in a Democratic Party that I personally dislike but also one that was left stunned—despite every indication they should not be!—that Trump was set to easily win.
Anyway, what do you think? Do you like the Cheeto jokes?
—Jacob Rosenberg
