How to talk about politics without losing the crowd
Comic Ben Gleib: Find common ground, focus on the logic flow, and come from a humanistic place.
In L.A. comics share the secret of political comedy — ‘everything is political.’ [L.A. Times] by Jake Kroeger, comic Ben Gleib talks about how he keeps crowds onboard while steering his comedy toward politics:
“The way I have found to be most effective while saying something political in my stand-up routine is to frame it in a way that comes from a humanistic place. To try to find common ground in the set-up of the joke, and then make your point as cleverly and irrefutably as you can, once you have people on board, so that it’s very hard to deny the logic…I would rather just pepper the politics in a little bit and focus on the logic flow of what I’m saying to hopefully open up some minds who typically don’t see things the same way.”
“This doesn’t make sense and here’s why” is always gonna be a better path for comedy than “My side’s right and the other side’s wrong.”