That's a pretty valid generalization, as generalizations go. I'd downgrade it a bit from "almost all" to "a lot"--puns and shaggy-dog stories, for example, don't rely on misfortune for their humor.
I think I should have put the word "humor" in quotes. Rightist "humor" often doesn't bother with a premise or story about the misfortune--it's pure, direct schadenfreude. Rightists love to laugh at somebody falling down a manhole, and don't seem to need the slapstick antics of Larry, Moe, and Curly to give it a veneer of respectability. The misfortune itself is what Rightists find funny.
Look at the "joke" that started this thread. 70 million Frenchmen die in a nuclear holocaust, and the "humor" layered on top is whether a Rightist would laugh in realtime, or tape it to laugh later. Ha ha ha. Ya know, that "joke" says a lot more about Rightists than it does about Frenchmen.
--Robert
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- A moral dilemma - your input requested