However, many comedians are fighting back, speaking out against efforts to threaten them into compliance. Comedian Howie Mandel, former host of “Deal or No Deal,” recently chimed in on the matter during a podcast appearance.

During the conversation, Mandel expressed concerns over the trend of canceling comedians for telling jokes that offend the tender sensibilities of folks on the hard left. He argued people should not be trying to force comedians to only tell certain types of jokes.

 “If you think of comedy as an art, they started telling us there are certain colors you can’t use. If you’re a painter you shouldn’t say, ‘you can paint anything you want, but don’t use black, don’t use any yellows and it’s really not right to use blue.’ Art suffers, and there isn’t anything we shouldn’t talk about.”

Mandel discussed his mental health struggles and highlighted how humor helped him cope. “There is a thin line between making myself laugh … and being just crushed by darkness,” he explained.

Then, he insisted that comedy is not harmful as the left claims.

“You don’t have to laugh at the joke. You don’t have to like the joke. You don’t even have to get the joke. You’re going to remove his livelihood … for this joke that you don’t like, that isn’t even pointed at one particular person,” he said.

“Who is damaged by this? Who has ever been damaged by comedy?” Mandel added. “Ever? Ever?”

This is where I disagree with Mandel. There are some who are very much “damaged” by comedy.

Consider a case in China in which a comedian was arrested for making a joke satirizing a military slogan. He is now facing prison time and his employer had to pay a gargantuan fine.

A Chinese comedian who told a joke comparing the behaviour of his dogs to a military slogan has been arrested.

The company that hired Li Haoshi was also fined 14.7m yuan (£1.7m), and Mr Li could face time in prison.

Police in Beijing said they had opened an official investigation into his performance, which they said "caused a severe social impact".

Mr Li has apologised for his comment, saying he felt "deeply shamed and regretful".

The offending remark was made during a stand-up performance in Beijing on Saturday, when Mr Li alluded to two dogs he had adopted which were chasing a squirrel.

"Other dogs you see would make you think they are adorable. These two dogs only reminded me of... 'Fight to win, forge exemplary conduct'," said Mr Li, whose stage name is House.

The punchline is part of the slogan that President Xi unveiled in 2013 as a goal for the Chinese military.

In Russia, comedian Idrak Mirzalizade was arrested and then banned for life for telling jokes about racism in Russia. He was physically attacked for the joke and has received numerous threats.

In an outrageous move, the Russian Interior Ministry announced today it has banned a stand-up comedian, Idrak Mirzalizade, from Russia for life, over a joke he told which Russian authorities consider insulting to ethnic Russians.

Mirzalizade, a Belarusian national of Azerbaijani origin, told the joke during a comedy program that aired online in March 2021. He spoke at length about the prevalence of open racism in Russia, in the context of discrimination in the real estate rentals market against non-Slavic people. He attempted a joke about his own experience renting an apartment where the previous tenants, ethnic Russians, left behind a mattress covered in feces.

After a right-wing TV channel and Russian state propaganda personality, who referred to Mirzalizade as “dirt under our feet” aired an abridged version of his joke, devoid of context, Mirzalizade received threats and on June 25 was physically attacked in central Moscow. So far no one has been held accountable.

Later that month, Mirzalizade released another video explaining how the joke was meant to show why it’s wrong to base negative ethnic stereotypes on isolated incidents. He also described the thousands of threatening messages he received and showed CCTV footage of the June assault. The authorities’ response was to open an investigation against Mirzalizade, accusing him of inciting hatred, for which he was sentenced to 10 days’ detention on August 9.

These two examples prove that comedy can be “damaging” to at least one group of people: Authoritarians who view comedy as a potential threat to their hold on power. The governments of Russia and China are well known for cracking down on speech – especially that which would attack their regimes through satire and parody.

The same holds true in America. Progressives are authoritarian by nature. They are also taking over America’s major institutions in the hopes of leveraging them to force their ideology on the rest of us. These are the people seeking to use the government to kidnap the children of parents who do not subscribe to far-leftist gender ideology. These are the people who sought to have people jailed for violating COVID-19 restrictions. These are also the same people constantly seeking to deplatform comedians like Dave Chappelle and Bill Burr.

To those who wish to force their views on the rest of us, comedy is a serious threat. Chappelle and Burr, along with several others, have used their platforms to lash out at the authoritarian left and attack their sacred cows. This is why the left sought to destroy them. So far, they have failed. But when it comes to lesser-known comedians, their efforts have had a level of success, making them too afraid to step outside of the approved box of comedy.

The power to undermine authoritarian narratives while also exposing the absurdity of the beliefs the left seeks to foist on the public is certainly a damaging factor to those who don’t believe in liberty or freedom. The authoritarian left may not have men with guns and badges at their disposal to arrest and threaten those who express unapproved perspectives. But this does not mean they don’t have other methods of forcing compliance, which is why America desperately needs authentic comedy now more than ever.