Josh Ocean Thomas (@joshoceanthomas) / Instagram
CV NEWS FEED // In one of the latest episodes of CatholicVote’s LOOPcast, CV Vice President Josh Mercer pointed out an interesting development in show business: comedians are criticizing President Joe Biden – and getting big laughs!
In a May 10 LOOPcast segment, Mercer spoke about a viral video of comedian Josh Ocean Thomas roasting a Biden administration employee.
Mercer pointed out that the video was not from a reliably conservative setting. “This is in Chicago, at The Laugh Factory,” a mainstream comedy shop in one of America’s most left-leaning cities.
“I work for the Biden administration,” the audience member told Thomas when the comedian asked him what he did for a living. The rest of the audience was laughing before Thomas could even respond.
“You work for the Biden administration? Is your job to wake him up?” Thomas joked, and shook the shoulders of an imagined Biden. “Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! There’s a war! Hey!”
The gag elicited long applause and laughter from the audience.
Mercer’s suggestion that comedy may be moving toward the political right has more basis than just that one viral clip, however, and Thomas is far from the only comic who’s been getting laughs at Biden’s expense.
In another popular clip, comedian T. Murph (also performing in Chicago) ripped inflated food prices under the Biden administration. The price of chicken nuggets “have turned me Republican” Murph wrote in a caption to the clip on Instagram. (NOTE: Language warning.)
Or take for example the recent Saturday Night Live guest host Shane Gillis.
In his Netflix special “Shane Gillis: Beautiful Dogs,” the stand-up comic equated Biden with a 16-year-old dog and a Roomba.
“My favorite thing about Biden is anytime Biden finishes his speech, he transforms into a Roomba,” Gillis said. He then imitated Biden shuffling around on a stage. The audience cheered and laughed.
“What does that tell you,” Mercer said during his LOOPcast segment about Thomas, “how things might be turning and shifting on the ground where you can have a stand-up comic in Chicago … ripping on Biden that powerfully in a deep-blue city in a deep-blue state?”
“And not just friendly claps or whatever, but strong hearty laughs, that was pretty amazing.”
