There are a million ways that prove Donald Trump sucks more than all of his predecessors, but there’s no bigger difference, personality-wise, than his complete lack of a sense of humor.
Think of President Joe Biden’s Irish humor, where he makes fun of himself before others can. Or President Barack Obama adopting his critics’ sarcastic “Thanks, Obama,” creating one of the first truly political viral hashtags, along with this evergreen moment that never fails to trigger MAGA.
Republicans aren’t naturally funny, but at least most of them are capable of taking a joke. Several of them managed to survive the annual gentle roasting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, but Trump couldn’t even handle it from the audience when he was targeted by host Seth Meyers in 2011.
Many people said that was the night he decided to embark on the revenge tour that became his political career, leading to the current garbage fire landscape of him picking off his enemies based on his snowflake feelings.
In full defiance of the First Amendment, Trump pressured his pals at CBS to cancel their top money-making and highest-rated show, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, all because Colbert dared to do his job of entertaining his massive audience by mixing political humor in with the rest of his content.
It’s only what all the late-night talk show hosts have done since the genre was invented. As someone who grew up in New Jersey in the ’70s and ’80s, I can tell you that none of the stories we saw on the news or in the papers about Trump were about his demands to have any comedians fired for making jokes about him. There was a time when he didn’t care what people said about him, as long as they were talking about him.
If you’re wondering what’s changed since then, it might have a little something to do with the advances in his criminality. He definitely doesn’t want anyone talking about any of that, particularly the whole Epstein Files thing. But Colbert centered that and all of the other glaringly felonious, fraudulent facts about Trump and his compromised co-conspirators.
It’s abhorrent to watch anyone bend a knee to a convicted felon in the pocket of Vladimir Putin, but the collapse of any mainstream media outlet, along with compromising an entire news network, is against every belief our Founders wrote about in our Constitution. We have a First Amendment for multiple reasons. It protects Trump’s dumbest remarks as much as Stephen Colbert’s smartest ones. What we’re witnessing is the eradication of our fundamental American rights.
In fact, let’s check in with current FCC Chair Brendan Carr, who’s undergone some profound changes since he tweeted this in 2019, unlike the First Amendment.
A tweet from FCC chair Brendan Carr (X).
It’s just another example of Trump actually being a terrible businessman. Instead of silencing Stephen Colbert on network television, Trump could’ve mined it for even more grifted MAGA gold. Now Colbert will be more powerful without any network restrictions on him, you big dumb snowflake.
Tributes to Stephen Colbert have been coming in from all over, from his fellow late-night hosts to his favorite Broadway stars and other musical acts. Foo Fighters performed a medley of the first and last songs they ever played on David Letterman’s show in the same Ed Sullivan Theater. Andra Day popped up to surprise Stephen on Tuesday night’s show thanks to his old friend, Jon Stewart, who delivered a First Amendment Masterclass, along with the world’s best barcaloungers.
My own love for Stephen Colbert dates back to his sketch comedy days, but it really took hold with The Colbert Report on Comedy Central. My older son, Jack, was also a huge fan, and even though he was only 15 at the time, I was able to get him into a taping of the show on a trip to New York City in 2014. A friend of mine via the Emerson College network, Eric Drysdale, was on the writing staff, and not only did he arrange for us to get tickets, but he also gave us a full VIP backstage tour. While we didn’t meet Stephen, we saw his office door, which had a sign on it that read “Mandy Patinkin.”
Before the show, Colbert did an audience Q&A as himself, and I got to ask him a question, which was, “Who’s a guest you’ve been trying to book, but you just can’t?”
Without missing a beat, Stephen Colbert said, “Jesus.”
Once the laughter died down, he said, “But seriously, anyone from the George W. Bush administration, especially Donald Rumsfeld, but we never hear back from him.”
After the show was over, Jack and I were the only ones who were allowed to take a photo at the famous desk, and I officially won parenting for that day.
(Tara Dublin/Raw Story)
I took another trip in 2017 and saw a different taping with my mom, related in this thread on Threads. That time I asked him for the best advice his mother had ever given him. He said she would tell him (and I’m paraphrasing) that when things get hard, picture yourself as a member of an audience in a theater, sitting in the balcony and watching the story of your life play out. Then imagine what you would do next, and then do it.
So, to honor Stephen’s mom’s advice, here’s what I want Colbert to do next.
I want him to take his team to Meidas Touch or another place online & bring back THE COLBERT REPORT 2.0(26): ELECTRIC BOOGALOO. Most importantly, we need the “BETTER KNOW A DISTRICT”segment he did back in the day more than ever now that the Voting Rights Act has been gutted.
Without the Trump administration micromanaging his monologues, Stephen can give Democrats the kind of airtime they’d never get on CBS. He could have a real impact on the midterms, and we’d still get to watch him every night.
Thanks for the memories, Stephen! Now let’s make some more.
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