Elon was obviously a lot better than Trump on SNL. But there’s still a power-distortion field at work that undermines the joy of comedy and makes it more painful (even more painful than usual!) to watch.

When jesters mock kings, that’s funny: it’s “punching up.” Comedy is used (for good or ill) to acknowledge and, a little, to reconcile us underlings to social inequality. When kings mock the less-privileged, that’s “punching down,” and an abuse of power.

Though even that violence can be darkly funny in the “cosmic irony” sense: man’s aspirations destined to be undone by the universe’s superior power. All Trump’s “jokes” were terrible, punching down at the weak: but complicated by his physical grossness & idiocy.

Somehow this thread broke, although the thought continues from an earlier tweet. Such is human folly & error