[Comedian Patton] Oswalt, commenting on what comedians face addressing the Trump era with their gags, joked:
“You could not feel more superfluous in terms of making fun of the president because the Trump administration is an 18-wheeler full of monkeys and PCP that has crashed into a train full of diarrhea, and so there’s diarrhea-covered monkeys on PCP running around and everyone is just watching it like, ‘Oh my god!’ And then you as a comedian walk up and go, ‘Hey, do you want to hear a joke I wrote about this?’ And they’re like, ‘No, I’m good. There’s nine jokes in my head. You can go take a break. This is playing itself out perfectly.’”
It sucked for them, but it was better for the world same with America, good riddance to both. But it’s happening, pretending it’s not is the white boomer answer and that’s what got us here.
Regards
The people of the former Soviet Union had no tradition of meaningful self-rule and vranyo, the culture of lies, is simply embedded in their society. It’s going to take a while for them to get out of that if they ever can.
While this is true, Stewart is on Comedy Central which is owned by Paramount just like CBS. Stewart and The Daily Show are likely next to get the ax.
As previously mentioned, John Oliver is a foreign born naturalized citizen of the USA. DJT will order his citizenship revoked and have him deported. It doesn’t matter if this is legal or not. If he decides he wants it to happen it will.
As for running for Congress, people in general need to run for the local elections. And even if politics had nothing to do with the end of Colbert’s show (which I don’t believe, but I do think it was largely financial) the fact that people believe it is a true sign of the times.
Jon Stewart absolutely torched Paramount on his Monday monologue. No idea what his or The Daily Show’s future holds, but if nothing else, the coming weeks / months are going to be interesting, when Colbert and Stewart have 0 Fs to give.
This is one of the few things that give me hope that we haven’t yet entered the lowest state of abject corporate censorship. 56 years ago, the Smothers Bros. barely made it three months into the Nixon Administration before CBS pulled the plug with only a few days notice. Giving Colbert another year is either really stupid or some kind of clever PR rope-a-dope I’m too dim to figure out.
I would think it likely Paramount has the option to pull the shows at any point they choose if they find what Stewart and Colbert are saying objectionable. They would of course have to continue paying out the duration of whatever contract but I doubt they are obligated to keep either show on the air.
That’s why I said “the coming weeks / months are going to be interesting”-- who knows how long either TLS or TDS will last in this political climate, at least in their current form… since Paramount / CBS have twice shown now that they are perfectly willing to ‘bend the knee’ to trump, as Stewart put it. As soon as you start handing over your lunch money, the bully owns you.
Plus, the new owners haven’t even taken over Paramount yet and they have already bent the knee to Trump just to get their merger approved. Any deal Paramount has with Colbert doesn’t mean shit to them. I wouldn’t bet on him lasting 10 months.
I’m quite amazed at what powerful institutions have been willing to bend the knee, as you put it. Major universities, giant law firms and so forth. Given that, not much of a surprise that corporations would. A much shorter list would be of those who refused.
That’s what happens in authoritarian regimes, the leader controls access to the laws and gets to decide who can and can’t thrive. In that environment, people self-censor.
I still hope that one day people realize and regret the extent to which they have allowed him to assert such authority. Perhaps if they imagine a Democratic president doing this?
You’ll never get everyone to realize. In 1948 after Hitler literally left their country in ruin there would still be enough people who would tell you he was right if they had a few beers in them. The hope is enough people in the right states realize it.