WASHINGTON (AP) — For a shining moment this week, the country’s ongoing political crises were swept away by the comedic power of an angelic and wildly exuberant six-year-old.
Rep. John Rose, R-Tenn., passionately defended former President Donald Trump as his young son Guy took action. As C-Span captured the moment, Guy stormed towards the camera, stuck out his tongue, rolled his eyes and generally seemed to be having a good time. The nation responded with a burst of pure bipartisan giddiness. Even Senator Mitch McConnell’s press secretary joined in on the fun.
Guy’s moment in the spotlight is the latest example of political kids upstaging their parents and bringing a moment of levity to the official workings of government. It’s also a solid case study in the sheer unifying power of humor.
“It reminds us that we are all human, we all have children. And maybe these things we’re fighting about aren’t that important,” says Caleb Warren, co-director of the University of Colorado’s Humor Research Lab and a marketing professor at the University of Arizona. “And for him to do that during one of these hyper-political speeches, that makes it special… If he had just made those faces in class, it wouldn’t have been the same.”
That incongruity between behavior and environment is critical, according to Tamara Sharifov, a licensed clinical social worker based in San Diego who uses humor in therapy sessions, mediation and conflict resolution. Sharifov recently spoke on a panel in Washington about the healing power of humor.
“Comedy allows for a shift in perspective and softening. It creates more empathy and a calmer environment,” she said. “It has a very healing effect. It breaks through rigidity.”
A day after his House antics, Guy was at it again, rolling on the White House lawn during the annual congressional picnic.
He now joins a long and proud line of political children who get attention for behaving like children in public. Perhaps his purest spiritual predecessor is the young Andrew Giuliani who sashayed his way through his father Rudy’s 1994 mayoral inauguration — a performance so iconic it deserved a Saturday Night Live parody.
“This is my man!!!,” Andrew Giuliani tweeted on Tuesday, with a link to the C-Span clip.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’ son Jack, then four years old, turned heads for his enthusiastic dancing at the 2005 ceremony when former President Obama introduced Roberts as a Supreme Court nominee. And an infamous Oval Office photo shows the young son of a Secret Service agent face-planting on a couch while his parents chat in the background.
Sometimes children’s cuteness is somewhat constructed — like when the White House made Take Our Kids to Work Day an event, with children acting as Secret Service agents and reporters.
And sometimes the attention is not always positive. In 2014, Sasha and Malia Obama acted very much like a pair of bored, eye-rolling teenagers when their father spoke at an admittedly boring Thanksgiving press conference about turkey forgiveness. A Republican congressional staffer publicly denounced the pair for their lack of decorum and quickly resigned under pressure.
As for the newest member of this elite club, young Guy Rose has already achieved a remarkable form of bipartisanship in these fractured times. Father and son appeared together on CNN and Fox News, and the youngster’s comedic confidence seemed to gain momentum over time.
When asked to describe his father’s work, Guy told Fox News that his father “does boring things.”
And when Representative Rose started to give a very political answer about how interesting it is to meet and learn from his constituents, Guy said – with a stage whisper and epic comedic timing: “He’s not telling the truth!”
Rep. Rose took all the commotion in good spirits — especially considering he was in the middle of a pretty angry speech that no one was actually listening to.
“Guy has been a source of joy in our family since we brought him home from the hospital six years ago,” Rose told The Associated Press. “I certainly had no idea he was making those faces behind me while I was making comments, but in retrospect I’m glad he did. I think we all needed that laugh.”
