You’ll never find me agreeing with Trump cronies. But even I can admit when someone isn’t wrong. In the case of Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr, his dubious response to the liberal reaction to Colbert’s cancellation was exactly that: not wrong.
In a post on X, Carr wrote: “The partisan left’s ritualist wailing and gnashing of teeth over Colbert is quite revealing. They’re acting like they’re losing a loyal DNC spokesperson that was entitled to an exemption from the laws of economics.”
And while the jury is still out on whether CBS canned Colbert because of an alleged $40 million annual deficit, a desire to earn Trump’s favor, or — most likely — a combination of both, the outcry over The Late Show ending has been apocalyptic. Jon Stewart cursed more than Tony Montana. Lin-Manuel Miranda and Weird Al Yankovic sang “Viva La Vida” to every nearly white man with a talk show on last night’s episode of The Late Show. Democratic lawmakers have demanded an investigation into CBS. Every single major network late-night host has come out with a statement condemning the decision and mourning Colbert’s departure.
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You’d think Colbert had been shot in the street, not told he had 10 months left on late-night television.
That’s why what Carr said is funny; it isn’t because he’s in the moral right or because what Trump is doing isn’t scary. Trump asserting his will over mass media is scary. Trump and his billionaire associates buying up newspapers and television networks is scary. But a lot of what Trump is doing is very scary, and I’ve yet to see Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper breach their network containment for cameos to stand up for Trump’s attacks on immigrant communities or food-assistance budgets. Millions of people are now liable to lose life-saving access to healthcare in the coming months, and Weird Al Yankovic didn’t give me a song about it.
There’s a lot of “ritualist wailing and gnashing of teeth” over Colbert, and it really “is quite revealing.” Carr might be a fascist whose taste in ties is very ‘90s legal thriller, but in his desire to undermine the understandable fury that Trump is gaining yet another advantage in his quest for total dominance, he pointed out something important: This is getting a little embarrassing.
There can be no more musical numbers, no more 11-person rallies of multi-millionaires begging for free speech at a network studio, no more Democrats failing to stop some of the most harmful legislation in modern American history while tweeting about their favorite talk-show host. We’re done with the circus. Stephen Colbert will live to see another day both literally and professionally.
Colbert isn’t Trump’s last target or his most vulnerable. Colbert isn’t even the only late-night show bullying Trump. Let’s keep perspective people. Otherwise an asshat like Carr gets too close to sounding credible. And there’s too much on the line for that to happen.
