Stephen Colbert’s late night show came to an end this week. In fact, The Late Show, launched by David Letterman in 1993 at CBS after he was passed over for Johnny Carson’s spot at The Tonight Show on NBC, is shutting down entirely. Colbert is not being replaced. The whole show is being replaced by some stand-up comic show hosted by Byron Allen. To say that the shutting of this show is not politically motivated is to say that you still believe in the Tooth Fairy. Colbert routinely lambasted Trump, whose name I will use here once and then not again in this post. And as many people know, the president has notoriously thin skin. And Colbert has been a constant comedic thorn in the administration’s side.

But it’s one thing to poke fun at someone who makes themselves such an obvious target. It’s quite another to do so when your parent network is looking for his administration’s approval for an extremely large media merger. Paramount, the parent company of CBS, needed FCC approval to merge with Skydance Media. Just after it was announced that CBS settled with the president over a lawsuit stemming from a supposedly biased 60 Minutes interview with then Vice President and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, Colbert called it a “big fat bribe”. Subsequent to this comment, CBS that The Late Show was being cancelled for “financial reasons”. The merger was approved just a week later. 

This all happened last year, and The Late Show has been steady ever wince, even as it prepares to wind down. As Colbert’s time on late night TV comes to a close, he’s had a bevy of guests that are some of his favorites. Among those was Jon Stewart. This should not be a surprise, given the two are such very good friends. They were both part of The Daily Show many moons ago. Colbert really came of age as a “correspondent” for Comedy Central news parody (“The Daily Show: When news breaks, we fix it!”), before spinning off to his own comedy show, The Colbert Report, in the time slot immediately following, where he adopted the persona of a conservative blowhard. From there, he went on to host The Late Show, and has been there for the last eleven years. But it was Stewart that Colbert really learned what it takes to host a show. And his thank you after Stewart’s (first) retirement said as much.

And rightly so, because Jon Stewart is one of the funniest, but also sharpest, comedians working today. He is back with The Daily Show, commenting as he used to on the absurdity and hypocrisy of the American political machine. But oh, so much has changed from when he was last in the “anchor chair.” Now we are dealing with an administration that has managed to be reelected a second time, despite losing its initial reelection bid, then inciting an insurrection in a toddler-esque temper tantrum. As part of the Paramount family of media products, Jon Stewart is essentially the only one left now that Colbert is off the air. 

In the final week of The Late Show, Stewart was on Colbert. And they were waxing philosophical about the day the current administration is defeated at the polls. Stewart made the interesting statement that the victory celebration of the defeat of the current administration will make the celebration when Hungary repudiated Viktor Orban look like an “Amish sabbath.”

And this is where I pause. Because here, I’m not sure I agree with Jon Stewart. Look, he is far smarter than myself, I admit that readily. But I also look back on history. And the history of American elections is that we’ve already defeated this administration once. And they acted like brats, and turned an angry mob on the Capitol. The attacked law enforcement, one of the core constituencies the administration claimed to “love”. They spread lies about the election being stolen. This was enough for the House or Representatives to impeach the former president for a second time, and this time, seven GOP senators sided with the Democrats to vote for conviction. They were ten votes shy of the two-thirds needed for a conviction, but the bipartisan action should have been enough. All of this should have been sufficient so that he should never have ended up as the GOP nomination again, let alone the candidate. He shouldn’t even have been on the ticket. Yet he was, and he won. So here we are, in the thick of another disastrous presidency.

Which brings me back to Jon Stewart’s statement about victory celebrations. Of those who did vote in the 2024 election, almost half of America voted for this administration. Less than a percentage point from half. But let’s call it half. And that also means that half of America is just fine with how the administration is running the country, and if pressed, would likely vote for him or someone like him again. 

That is not a celebration of his defeat. If we really are at a place where this behavior is okay with half of America, there will be no regime change sized celebrations. Perhaps I am wrong. You’ll certainly see celebrations from the Democratic side of the political fence. But is that enough to be considered on the size and scale of the celebrations in Hungary?

And maybe I’m wrong in thinking that half of America is okay with this presidency. He, who ran on lowering inflation and stopping endless ways, has gone to war with Iraq, causing oil prices to surge. Gas at the pump is over a dollar more than it was where I live, and probably higher in other places. Grocery bills are higher because of ill-advised tariffs. So maybe enough voters will see through the nonsense and will turn out to vote out this administration, they’re own political party notwithstanding. 

In the meantime, we need to call out the silencing of voices willing to call out the absurdity of the administration by corporations that are looking to gain political favor, either because they want something, or they are trying to avoid a costly fight with the administration. Either way, if we want to see those celebrations, we need to keep speaking truth to power, and comedy is one of the best, sharpest, most direct ways to do that. And let’s not forget, a comedian was elected the president of Ukraine, and has now managed to fend off a full-scale Russian invasion of his country for four-plus years. Quite something considering the Russians thought they’d have control of Ukraine with weeks of launching their offensive.

Nothing takes the power away from those who would use it as a corrupt weapon as effectively as laughter, especially when that laughter is directed at them.

And so, to sign off as Letterman did with Colbert earlier in the week when he visited the very show he helped to create, “Good night and good luck, motherfuckers.”