Colbert's Firing
Yesterday morning I woke up to the news that Stephen Colbert show has been canceled. Given that people are still being starved and slaughtered in Gaza, abducted and sequestered in horrific American gulags come fired from doing vital research and terrorized and myriad of ways, I should perhaps not be so viscerally upset at the cancellation of a popular late night show. But it felt like a punch in the gut. Colbert’s presence on TV every night calling out Trump’s hypocrisy and lies and making us laugh is one of the things that got me through the last trump administration. He and the other late night comics were the medicine I needed to withstand the onslaughts. And his presence was deeply reassuring. As long as he was up there on a major TV network lambasting the MAGAts, even calling out CBS’ parent corporation for capitulating to Trump by paying him $16,000,000 to settle a worthless nuisance lawsuit, as long as he was making his jokes and smiling his smile and doing his little dance across the screen with impunity, we couldn't be in full blown fascism. If he could stand up there and say those things, I could have the courage to speak up and speak out.
I’m sure Colbert will be all right. He may even do better going independent. As for the rest of us, we’ll just need to be more courageous, more determined, and more outspoken than ever, until we make a world where humor, guts and basic human decency are rewarded again.
Yes. And the gut punch is intended to break our spirits and make us feel like they can take down our heroes and eventually we will become resigned and submit. Just as the ICE kidnappings are meant to make us afraid and feel that none of us is safe. I hope these heinous moves will continue to have the opposite effect: to embolden us to band even more strongly together to resist and, for those of us not yet directly in their sights, to protect those members of our communities who are most vulnerable.
I'm so grateful to Colbert for all he offers (and will hopefully continue to offer somewhere accessible). Fascists know how powerful art and humor can be. We are in it. Thank you for this an all your posts.