READY, FIRE, AIM: Laughing Along with Republicans

I noticed the photo, above, when our Daily Post editor used it to illustrate an op-ed article last week. The op-ed article mentioned the federal debt passing the $40 trillion mark, and implied — without directly saying so — that passing this milestone makes Republicans laugh.

Or maybe… that Republicans are laughing in spite of it.

Either way, they’re laughing. We are told.

I did a bit of research, however, and it appears that the photo above does not show Republicans laughing about the $40 trillion debt. It’s a bunch of laughing statues in Vancouver, Canada. They’re not even Americans, and certainly not American Republicans.

I live in a rural town in southern Colorado, and although my state as a whole seems to have become thoroughly ‘blue’, my community consistently votes ‘Republican’. In the 2024 election, about 56% percent of Pagosa Springs voters cast their ballots for Donald Trump, and only about 42% voted for Kamala Harris.

Colorado, as a whole, went for Kamala, 54% vs. 43% for Donald.

Here’s the official White House portrait of Kamala, when she was Vice President:

I watched a few of Kamala’s campaign speeches during that 2024 election — just a few — and I distinctly remember that, at some point in every speech, she broke out laughing.

This was, of course, before she learned that she would to lose the election.

Here’s the official White House portrait of Donald, looking forward to his inauguration in 2025:

Donald has been U.S. President for a total of 5 1/2 years now, and also spent a total of 5 or 6 years (depending on how you want to count it) campaigning for the Presidency. So I’ve seen a few of his speeches. I don’t recall ever seeing him laugh.

But my research brought me around to a photo of real Republicans laughing. The photo was illustrating a story about the signing of the One Big Beautiful Bill on July 4, 2025. Unfortunately, the photo is copyrighted by Getty Images, so I can’t share it here, but you can view it online.

I did, meanwhile, find a public domain photo of the same signing event on Wikipedia, taken just moments before the Republican really broke out laughing… and I can safely share it, I guess, even though it doesn’t really make me feel like laughing.

The Big Beautiful Bill has reportedly brought about the largest upward transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in American history.

How can we keep from laughing? There’s probably nothing as funny as a transfer of wealth, be it from the poor to the rich, or vice versa.

But not everyone has the same sense of humor. Republicans tend to laugh at transfers from the poor to the rich, and Democrats laugh about higher taxes as long as they themselves are not included.

The rest of us, who are ‘Unaffiliated’ — and that’s 51% of us here in Colorado — are generally not laughing. We’re pretty sure we’re getting screwed over by both parties.

Of course, Laughter is the Best Medicine. I remember that being my favorite section in the monthly Reader’s Digest that my mom had a subscription for. So I must have enjoyed laughing, back when I was a kid.

What happened? I mean, other than me registering as ‘Unaffiliated’.

There was a short period of time when I was registered Republican, but that was back when Republicans didn’t laugh much… except at Ronald Reagan’s jokes. Man, that guy could tell a joke. Usually about communists. Some Americans didn’t think Russian communists were anything to laugh about, but Ronnie taught us differently.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that the highest 10% of earners would see incomes rise by 3% due to the One Big Beautiful Bill, while the lowest 10% would see incomes fall by 3% mainly due to cuts to programs like Medicaid and SNAP.

I really hope I’m not in the lowest 10% of earners, because even a 3% drop in my income would hurt.

Bringing to mind the old punchline. “It only hurts when I laugh.”