"I found myself seated at my computer last month, watching on YouTube the comedian Bill Maher talk about Donald Trump’s marriage.
His standard tone is mockery, his modus operandi to lacerate his targets with obscenities, flash a nervous smile, and then bask in applause from his audience.
...Yet to have taken what I think of as the Trumpian option in their comedy has rendered these comedians charmless while strikingly limiting their audiences to those who share their politics.
I recently wrote a book on the subject of charm, in preparation for which I asked a great many people to name five persons in public life they thought charming.
No one could do it.
In a political time as divisive as ours, a public figure loses roughly half his following—and hence his charm—just as soon as he announces his politics.
For an entertainer to do so is perhaps even more hazardous..."
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