Michael Ian Black is a funny guy and standout performer. His roles as the host on Burning Love and the butler on Another Period outclass the rest of those casts. His immense talent, however, doesn’t make him immune from holding dunderheaded beliefs (yes, I said dunderheaded). On a recent episode of Comedy Central’s social media “gameshow” @Midnight, he delivered the following punchline:

What’s so absurd about this joke is I posted a similar one on my Facebook a few days, with a point 180 degrees away from his.

So how do two smart, funny guys (ok, one funny guy and one asshole who posts shit on the internet that amuses himself) have such diametrically opposed jokes with the same content? They fundamentally disagree on who’s trying to do what.

You see, Black is convinced that Donald Trump and the Right or Alt-Right or Whatever-Label-They’ve-Been-Assigned-These-Days are looking to become fascists dictators. In contrast, though I’m a libertarian and no fan of Trump, I think history demonstrates that its Communists, Socialists, and Leftists who are interested in ruling tyrannically. I mean, do we need better evidence of this fact than their praise of Fidel Castro following his death? He was such “a symbol of the struggle for justice in the shadow of empire” that Mark Hamill must’ve been jealous! (Or maybe he was just a big Criminal Minds fan and wanted people to change the channel from Fox on Wednesday at 9 PM.)

I could get mad at Black’s joke and tear it apart, but it’s better just to laugh at it. And when I say “laugh at,” I don’t mean “laugh with.” I mean the old “Don’t worry. They’re laughing with you, not at you.” Because he should worry that he’s being laughed at and not with. Maybe then he’ll take a step back and realize where he’s gone horribly, horribly wrong. If not he certainly will, he certainly will when we’re all living in Panem watching children slaughter each other.

And there’s nothing funny about that outcome.