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Stephen Colbert Revives Right-Wing Alter Ego to Rip Donald Trump on Free Speech
(www.thedailybeast.com)
this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2025
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Steven Colbert has enormous power, because they can move culture, which is what they did when they were normalizing a rightwing framing of politics. People like Colbert, and even more so since his moving on from the character in question, has the ability to reach people and change their minds in a way almost no other people do. Yes it was satire, but in the times where it was relevant, it acted as an analgesic to the real threat which conservatism, and the fascism it inevitably leads to. By treating it as something only worth mocking and not worth taking as a serious threat, it softened the corner on conservatism as a movement, leading directly to where we are now.
Political power extends from culture: Trump is the outcome of a right wing project to move the culture, and to a limited degree, Colbert contributed to that with his character.
No. No your argument that we should self censure is part of the problem and mechanism that has resulted in the looming shadow of fascism taking over the planet. Colbert needs to have done better over the course of his career in understanding the impacts they had on culture and politics.
It's not Colbert's fault that 75% of the country is too stupid to understand satire.
Satire is a means of leveraging humour to deliver often caustic criticism that might otherwise seem a bit on the nose. It’s been an effective tool of protest since at least the second millennium BC.
It’s your opinion that criticising conservatives through satire empowers them, but it’s a very questionable conclusion IMO.
A lot of court jesters, would -be poets, playwrights, prophets etc lost their lives...