re: Will Colbert and Kimmel both survive moving further left

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As I've posted before, shows like Colbert, Maher, and Jon Stewart are not comedy shows.

They are the left's equivalent of the 700 Club: amen corner gatherings of the faithful who wish to receive the scriptural message in fellowship with other believers.

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A CNN piece even deemed him “America’s conscience.” The press is nice puffery, but what matters to his employer is the ratings, which are notably up.

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If this trend is inevitable, it’s not a good thing. It removes yet another neutral zone, free of social and political contention, from American life.

It means that the quality of the comedy on these shows probably goes down (agitprop isn’t funny), while the quality of the political commentary is inevitably poor; Jimmy Kimmel’s wholly ill-informed gun monologue subtracted from the nation’s understanding of the issue, as you’d expect of a comedian who is only paying enough attention to absorb the flimsiest cliches of the gun debate.

Finally, it’s conducive, appropriately enough, to political monologue rather than dialogue. As Kimmel’s dismissive comments show, it’s a short step from believing that you don’t need the patronage of the other side to feeling contempt for it. Stephen Colbert isn’t trying to convince anyone; he’s scorning and mocking Trump for the benefit of people who already hate him.

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Johnny Carson once said, “I would love to have taken on Billy Graham. But I’m on TV five nights a week; I have nothing to gain by it and everything to lose.” Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel, competing for the crown in a much-diminished late-night kingdom, beg to differ, and unfortunately, they’re right.

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