Has a comedian ever bombed so hard that it has influenced the result of an election? Tony Hinchcliffe, of Kill Tony fame, bombed spectacularly enough at Donald Trump’s recent Madison Square Gardens rally that one might consider it a fourth assassination attempt.

Hinchcliffe’s jokes about Puerto Rico (a pile of trash), Jews (tight with money), black people (like watermelon) et cetera have caused enough annoyance that Trump’s campaign has distanced itself from the comedian.

To be clear, this scandal really shouldn’t matter. JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, is right that there are real issues at stake in the election, and “comedian being provocative” is not one of them. The BBC framing its two top stories of Monday afternoon around it is so absurd that in a just universe it would be defensible grounds on which to withhold your license free.

To go further, it is worth pointing out that the attempted humour in Hinchliffe’s jokes comes less from the stereotypes that he is referencing than from the surprise element in his verbal leap from the mundane — there’s a pile of trash in the ocean — to the outrageous — “it’s called Puerto Rico”. Hinchcliffe doesn’t want you to think “Hah! Black people like watermelon! It’s so true!” as much as to appreciate his supposed cleverness and audacity in getting there. 

So, if you’re tempted to try and “cancel” Mr Hinchcliffe — though I’m not sure why you would be reading The Critic in that case — don’t.

With that said, I’m still going to have a laugh at Hinchcliffe’s expense. The comedian, who has always taken ostentatious pleasure in his own outrageousness, spoke at an event being widely compared to a Nazi rally and was too racially insensitive for the crowd. (Hrm, perhaps it wasn’t full of Nazis after all.) 

His Puerto Rico joke went down like a dead cat at a child’s fifth birthday party. Other jokes were met with light chuckles and general bemusement. Hinchcliffe felt compelled to resort to sycophancy — “Republicans are the party with the good sense of humour” — and self-deprecation — “this is a groany little morning crowd, huh?”

The best comedy tells us something unexpected yet appreciable

For those of us who have been annoyed by modern comedy in recent years, this represents delicious vindication. The comedians who orbit The Joe Rogan Experience have been revelling in their supposed societal momentousness as daring truth tellers even as their jokes have become more tediously formulaic. Yes, Hinchcliffe wasn’t actually encouraging us to laugh at black people for enjoying watermelon (an eccentric cause for humour anyway — it’s delicious). But the predictable range of stereotypes that he referenced ensured that there was no element of surprise. The best comedy tells us something unexpected yet appreciable. You could see where Hinchcliffe was going with his jokes, on the other hand, the moment that he opened his smirking lips.

What was a comedian doing at a political rally anyway? Call me an idealist but I think comedians should have some measure of independence. In a tweet defending himself, Hinchcliffe says, “I made fun of everyone”. Actually, there were no jokes about Donald Trump, JD Vance and their supporters. Hinchcliffe, despite his taste for the outrageous, didn’t have the stones to try and make the audience laugh at itself.

Indeed, when you finish a comedy set by saying “you guys are for the right candidate” it becomes something other than a comedy set — it becomes propaganda. I’m not in the least bit offended by Hinchcliffe’s politics as a human being — I presume we share more opinions than we don’t — but as a comedy fan I dislike his means of expressing them.

That his jokes went down so badly with his own audience ended up being his just deserts. 

Comedians have a weird two step dance where they want to tell offensive jokes but they don’t want anyone to be offended. That’s not how it works. I completely support comedians in the face of cancel culture (in the face, that is, of attempts to inflict material consequences on them over jokes). But if a provocative joke has no potential to provoke people, how provocative can it be? If dark comedy is anything but marginal, how dark can it be? 

You can’t be an outrageous offensive comedian and universally liked. Of course, this is known by a funnier man than Mr Hinchcliffe — one Donald J. Trump.