During the 2016 election season, Michelle Obama famously called unto the attendees of the Democratic National Convention: “When they go low, we go high.” Her decree struck the hearts of many Democrats and became a motto for many well-intentioned liberals.  

Eight years later and with a second Donald Trump term underway, Democrats, and even Obama herself, are breaking away from the mantra. 

One such Democrat is content creator Suzanne Lambert. She has touted herself as a “Regina George liberal,” sparking the “Republican makeup” trend taking over TikTok. The trend involves creators doing their makeup how they see conservative women doing theirs: often poking fun at poorly matched foundation shades, overdrawn eyebrows and unflattering lipstick applications. 

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Lambert has amassed over 700,000 followers on TikTok for what can only be described as being mean. In her videos, she insults the makeup of prominent Republican figures such as Nancy Mace and Karoline Leavitt. Her videos are a one-minute snippet of a Comedy Central roast of an unwilling participant.    

She said Mace’s nose contour looked like the marks on a grilled chicken. She said Leavitt’s alleged “lip flip” looks like it was inspired by the Grinch. Her humor is ruthless and intentionally designed to ridicule, something that right-wing figures have often done to underrepresented groups — such as when Trump mocked journalist Serge Kovaleski’s disability and still won two elections.

Meanness has always had a place in politics, and Lambert is far from the first to capitalize on it. Figures like Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson built entire careers using sardonic humor and brutal insults, rallying conservatives by mocking liberals as weak and overly sensitive. Shapiro and Carlson are not even in the comedy business. The “high road” was a safe spot for the left. But people like Lambert have seen that path fail time and time again. Maybe meanness is not just justified but necessary.

Lambert sees her comedy as a call to action. When people call her mean, Lambert responds: “Yeah, that’s the point.”

Lambert truly embodies Regina George’s show-stopping “World Burn” number in the “Mean Girls” musical, during which George wants to “ … watch the world burn and / Everyone turn mean.”

Lambert told CBS News in early February that she feels Rep. Jasmine Crockett is a leader who actually “gets it” because, while smart and charismatic, she “fights back.” 

Crockett went viral last year specifically for fighting back. After Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene told Crockett, “I think your fake eyelashes are messing up what you’re reading,” Crockett did not take the high road. Instead, she asked the chair of the committee, “If someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody’s bleach-blonde, bad-built, butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?”

“Bleach-blonde, bad-built, butch body,” now sometimes shortened to B6 for its alliteration, instantly went viral, with many describing Crockett’s response as iconic — even leading her to file for a patent on the phrase. 

Insulting someone’s appearance isn’t necessarily virtuous. But then again, neither is dismissing a Black woman’s intelligence with condescending remarks. 

“I absolutely believe she only did it to be racist toward me,” Crockett explained about the eyelash comment on CNN. “MAGA has historically been on social media doing the things where they’re saying, ‘Oh, she’s Black with lashes and nails and hair, and so she’s ghetto.’” 

Outside of Congress, right-wing “comedians” continue to mock underrepresented groups yet moan that “the extreme left” destroyed comedy with political correctness. These are the same complaints that led Elon Musk to buy Twitter, which he promptly renamed X. He wanted to expand free speech.  

“The left wanted to make comedy illegal, you know, you can’t make fun of anything,” Musk said at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday. “It’s, like, legalize comedy.”

“Legalizing comedy” has become synonymous with encouraging hate and bigotry. The right continues to push for “anti-wokeness” and against diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. 

However, there was never a time when conservative comedy was truly illegal, as Musk claims. 

Shane Gillis was fired from “Saturday Night Live” for using homophobic and anti-Asian slurs. He will host the sketch show for a second time March 1. 

Dave Chappelle’s transphobia sparked protests among Netflix’s staff in 2021. Chappelle won the Grammy for Best Comedy Album three years in a row.

Being mean — which, in the case of Gillis and Chapelle, involves racism, homophobia and transphobia — has long been rewarded in comedy. In comparison, mocking makeup seems almost benign. There is a clear difference between punching up and reinforcing existing power imbalances. Lambert mocks influential people in power, while Gillis and Chappelle demean underrepresented groups. 

It is not just about the target of the joke but asking whether the joke challenges power or reinforces it. 

Still, fighting fire with fire is a notoriously stupid tactic. When Lambert is criticized for this, she simply responds, “Well, I’m not a firefighter.” 

“You don’t fight fire with a little drippy water hose, you fight fire with equal exertion of force,” she told CBS. 

Lambert’s brash approach to political comedy will not resonate with everyone. In fact, it will make many uncomfortable. I don’t want to live in a world where everyone wants to be mean, and I think looks-based comedy can often be lazy. 

We already live in polarized times, and mean comedy will only deepen those divides, but as Lambert says, why should someone care about the feelings of “people who want to erase my trans friends from existing on this Earth?”

So, is meanness truly the best way forward? I don’t know. But sometimes, you have to respect great comic delivery on bad contour. 

​​Kimberly Aguirre is a senior writing about comedy. Her column, “Comic Relief,” runs every other Monday.