
Last Wednesday night, Stephen Colbert performed a double monologue—a regular one before his first commercial, and a second one opening the next segment of his show. (It was the show’s second time doing this in as many weeks.)
“More monologue for you,” Colbert said, explaining the extra joke-load. “Just one of those days.”
And by one of those days he meant, “Every day under Donald Trump brings its own, bespoke, artisanal bakery-fresh Hell.”
Five days later, as in tonight, a case could be made for a show that is all monologue. At least for a late-night host whose commitment to speaking out on the impact of gobsmacking daily news developments is only getting more impassioned.
The developments starting Friday and extending through the weekend are so consequential, choosing one or two that contained the most ground-shaking and potentially life-altering implications would be highly challenging:
The imposition of serious tariffs on neighbors Canada and Mexico; the purge of all FBI agents and officers in any way connected to the January 6 prosecutions and convictions; the shutdown of the USAID website and related battle between the agency’s security chiefs and Elon Musk over his insistence on having access to classified information like the agency’s personnel files.
For a start.
The deluge of upheaval initiated by the Trump Administration just two weeks into its second coming has elevated Colbert’s already altitudinous umbrage. That was exemplified in the opening lines of the double monologue.
“I gotta be honest with you: I have not been honest with you,” Colbert told his studio and television audience. “I’m trying to preserve what’s left of my mind. Cause this is not my first Trump rodeo. And I say rodeo…because of all the bullshit.”
Colbert couldn’t be more aggressively clear, or more relentless.
Increasingly, late-night television comedy is about a choice between entertainment and activism. The nightly monologues still attempt to do both, mostly by delivering the head-spinning news of the day with satire—sometimes painful, always rueful satire.
As in, Jimmy Kimmel, commenting on Trump turning last week’s plane crash into something about him:
“I think maybe he gets jealous when a disaster gets more coverage than him. ‘I’m the biggest disaster. You point that camera at me right now!’ You almost have to hand it to him. The sheer number of ways he finds to be a dirt bag is kind of miraculous. You think you’ve seen them all. And he’s like: ‘Feast your eyes on this one!’”
Like Colbert, and the equally Trump-centric Seth Meyers, Kimmel is caught in the Trump undertow.
When a stream of stunning, historic acts undoing long-held norms of American government and life pour out every day, topped by a flood tide on a weekend, all accompanied by increasing public alarm bells, not much is left to fill anyone’s attention span, especially those belonging to most late-night joke writers and late-night hosts.
And, for the most part, their audiences.
The Trump stampede is trampling all over America. Even a reasonable effort to put some of Trump’s early onslaught into perspective is subject to volatile reaction. On The Daily Show last week, Jon Stewart, a late-night legend, argued for “discernment,” which tends to be in short supply when people’s hair is on fire.
He wanted to emphasize that a democratic election granted Trump the power to run roughshod, and so, crying about fascism is, if not out of place, then useless. Because, Stewart said, in a callback to Trump’s “they let you do anything” Access Hollywood tape:
“Unfortunately, as of now, he’s pretty much just democratically grabbing our pussy.”
Despite Stewart’s long-established status as late-night hero of the center-left, that message drew backlash from those who see discernment as disreputable. Another form of surrender.
The bottom line: A war is raging, and it’s probably only the beginning. Late night is on the front lines, and the two sides are up in rhetorical arms.
The sides don’t include everyone. Last week, when I cited a monologue from Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show that did not contain a single joke, or even mention, of Donald Trump, I heard reaction from late-night viewers who are totally down with the strategy (if it’s a strategy and not just one host taking an occasional deep breath) of finding something else to joke about in a monologue.
The reaction was all about fatigue, not necessarily disagreement with the message conveyed by most of late-night television that Trump is a malignant force in American life.
These viewers sounded like they just want to calm their nerves. A little light comedy, some silliness, a game with a celebrity here or there, has appeal. Presumably a few pies in the face would go well with these nice folks.
That is never going to be what the vocal Trump opposition wants. Not Colbert, nor Kimmel, nor Meyers, nor John Oliver. And probably not Stewart even if his hair is just semi-lit. For the Trump dissenters, the circumstances leave no choice. The stakes are too high, resistance is imperative. Delivered with a side of one-liners.