It’s no secret that the American entertainment industry is an entity almost entirely dedicated to generating profit off of the dissemination of regime-backed ideology. Unless you have the bliss of complete ignorance, you should be well acquainted with the overt virtue-signaling that saturates every album, show, and movie that finds its way into the canon of popular culture.
More often than not, in the pursuit of creating such content, nominal artists sacrifice the quality of their products to make space for social messaging. This trend is common in comedy and is especially apparent in late-night television, which is one of many reasons why the dinosaur of a format struggles to remain relevant.
This past week, “The Late Show” hosted by Stephen Colbert on CBS featured Democratic U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren and the former Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz. With such a star-studded panel, it’s hard to believe Colbert can’t retain the top spot in the ratings.
Because late-night television is little more than a retelling of current events in front of an audience consisting of left-wing focus groups, the conversation between Warren and Colbert emphasized the senator’s opposition to Elon Musk’s business interests in Twitter and her resentment of Musk as a billionaire who “doesn’t pay his taxes” while “dabbling in conspiracy theories on Twitter.”
“Somebody is going to make the decisions about what we see on Twitter,” Warren said. “It can be made out in the open, it can be made in public, it could be made by a commission, we could decide to do that. We could make the rules out there and for anybody to see.”
She went on to posit that she believes decisions about how to regulate Twitter “ought to be made in the open” but didn’t elaborate at all about what that might entail or why the man who purchased the company shouldn’t be able to do what he wants with it.
Colbert’s segment with Moniz opened with the former energy secretary explaining the difference between “tactical” and “strategic” nuclear weapons.
If this sounds stupid, it’s because it is, indeed, rather stupid. From start to finish, watching shows like Colbert’s is a waste of time. Programs like this are seldom written anymore with the intention of entertaining people; after all, when was the last time someone genuinely found joy, let alone relief or escapism, in watching them?
This past Monday on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” — prior to the commencement of the 2022 midterm elections — Kimmel’s wife, Molly McNearney, appeared on the show to “sound the alarm” over “abortions rights” being “gone or in danger in 26 states even though the overwhelming majority of this country supports a woman’s right to choose.” McNearney — who insisted that motherhood is the “best” job on the planet — recited some of the same half-truths and blatant lies that leftists use in their abortion advocacy.
While nagging the audience about why women need abortion to remain legal, she asked, “Are you expecting this to be funny? Because it’s not going to be funny.” But isn’t the entire point of late-night television to be funny? They have comedians host the shows for a reason, and it isn’t because of their political insights.
The point of comedy is to provide people a momentary escape from the tedium of life, but the driving forces behind these programs are aware of their potential reach and understand that they can more effectively ingratiate themselves among the societal elite by spreading the regime’s gospel than by making people laugh. For instance, despite Kimmel’s constant insulting of Republicans and conservative politicians costing him half his audience, he was prepared to end his own late-night show if he was prevented from insulting President Donald Trump.
They’re aware of the fact that their business model alienates half of the country, which alienates advertisers, making it harder for networks to make money, but they don’t care.
After shilling Democratic Party talking points on the air, clips from talk shows are cut down and circulate the web as they clog up social media algorithms with leftist sanctimony through manufactured virality in an attempt to colonize people’s attention with regime messaging. Sure, these washed-up comics might be doing silly dances and playing games with celebrities, but that’s just to make the narrative go down easier.
It’s unlikely that you are able to access any major social media platform without having content from a corporate network’s late-night stooge shoved in your face. It has near total permeance of our institutions while occupying a historically popular place in the cultural zeitgeist, all making it a truly powerful form of propaganda — that’s not at all funny.
