The satire I witness – not only in SNL, but everywhere in the world – is the sad child of anger and grief, Ezinne. Everybody laughing is laughing in disbelief about the absurdity and shame of a crook that should have been jailed long ago but has been elected. We are all chuckling helplessly.

The problem is not only that the king is mad. The problem is that he was chosen and is not only supported by cynical, desperate and angry fools. Not only Ryan and the filthy rich clique in and around the Witch House. Not only the Koch brothers and the orthodox evangelicals with their cynical and otherworldly anti-humanistic agenda. No, millions of powerless citizens too, left alone by the elite, including the democrat elite. The powerful get enough support from them to stay in power. And if they do not get support, they will organize it, buy it, steal it, manipulate it with their fake news machine.

What kind of revolution do you think of? A violent one? Or a non-violent one?

I visited an exposition in the Nieuwe Kerk (the New Church) in Amsterdam. It is about Gandhi, Mandela and Martin Luther King. They fought for a revolution without violence, but they had to overcome much violence. In the end King and Gandhi were murdered by fanatics. Mandela was almost killed by the Apartheid regime, but he overcame and chose for non-violence. The sad fact is, that the dreams of those inspiring heroes did not come true yet.

What kind of revolution can be organized? To me, the most unsettling and inspiring object in the exposition was this:

Passage from Shakespeare’s Ceasar marked by Mandela during his imprisonment

What do you need to incite revolution? Courage. Attention of the world. Patience. Perseverance. Support. But also connection with the people outside our own bubble.

Yesterday I thought: what we need is leaders like Gandhi, King and Mandela. Because we are divided and seem to stand opposite each other (colored-white, christian-muslim, poor-rich), we need leaders that bring us together. Mandela only succeeded as long as he cooperated with his counterparts and presented himself and acted as leader of all South-Africans. South Africa needs new leaders with his qualities to bring home his ideas. Leaders that strive for non-violent cooperation. Is this possible in the USA?

No, laughing is not enough. I understand your impatience with jesters. They will not incite revolution. But I think we need them too.