It’s a bit long and slightly nauseating, in the way that American comedy can sometimes be, but I think this clip from the Daily Show is worth flagging up. It strikes me as odd: as a piece of public broadcasting, I assume it’s supposed to be a fairly unbiassed form of social and political commentary. Have I Got News For You, for example, is political satire, but it makes fun of both sides of the political aisle fairly evenly. In this clip, however, we see the comedians openly lamenting the election of Donald Trump. It isn’t that I disagree with them, but they do it overtly, in a semi-comedic semi-serious tone, so you get the impression that these guys really think that something truly dire has happened. They openly wonder how their fellow Americans can be so stupid. At one point, one of the comedians refers to Trump as a fascist. While that may be true, the words were said with such earnestness, and with such underlying anxiety and dread, that it was impossible not to get the sense that they thought something was gravely amiss. Their despair was open and genuine.

That overt bias strikes me as strange. Of course, you could just put it down to these comedians coming from a certain section of the population, and wanting to mock a candidate who they didn’t vote for. But I think it may also reflect a deep, deep anxiety now surfacing in America. Beneath the laughing, you get the impression that these guys think that something truly dangerous and unprecedented has happened; that their country has suddenly entered into uncharted, horrifying waters; and that they are genuinely scared.