If there was an effort to make stand-up comedy a bit more genteel a few years ago — with offensive words and phrases placed out of bounds — a second Trump administration has emboldened more transgressive voices who are willing to wind it back to the days when it was fine to have a laugh at the expense of women, trans people, people of color and the mentally disabled.
Tony Hinchcliffe generated a wave of controversy at a pre-election Trump rally when he called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage.” Shane Gillis was fired by “SNL” when audio surfaced of his homophobic comments and his use of derogatory term for Chinese people.