CBS’ Stephen Colbert is sad that the current state of our national discourse has been brought so low that public figures talk constantly about President Trump’s rumored affairs with various adult performers and models.
He believes it’s so bad, in fact, that he debuted a new segment Thursday titled, “What Have We Become?”
“[I]f you had told me five years ago that we would be champing at the bit to get stories about Donald Trump’s naked, sweaty body wreaking havoc on a hotel duvet, you would have said, ‘No way! Now let’s watch ‘Sharknado.’ They’re only going to make one of these!’” Colbert said in a segment that was one part joking, one part earnest.
He added, “Yes, back then, it was a time of primal innocence and we took it for granted. Now all of America lives behind the beaded curtain at a video store. And it don’t smell so good. All that being said, give me them spanky, stanky anecdotes! I’m a super-freak … and it feels good to be bad.”
Colbert’s not quite there, but it sounds like he is on the cusp of becoming self-aware. A few more weeks of observing what a mess our politics and news media have become, and he may finally understand his place in all of this. Don’t pity him, though. He’s not Dr. Frankenstein’s creature, slowly understanding the world through observing the behavior and appearance of others. Colbert is Igor. He helped create this monster.
The late-night host, who is every bit as crude and nasty as the worst political operative, has been all-too-eager to discuss the salacious details of Trump’s rumored trysts. Hell, it was just last month that he opened with monologue about adult film actress Stormy Daniels’ reported affair with the president, including her claim that she has “certain still images” and “text messages from Trump.”
“I think we can all guess what these still images are. CBS will not permit me to say the colloquial term, so let’s just call them ‘penis portraits,” he said. “And we may not have to wait for Stormy Daniels. I’m pretty sure Don Jr. is just gonna tweet them out. ‘Way to go, dad’s penis! I came out of that!'”
“We haven’t even gotten to my favorite part of the lawsuit, which is that the confidentiality agreement refers to Trump as David Dennison while referring to Daniels as Peggy Peterson,” Colbert added. “Odd names, but it makes sense once you read the rest of the document because those names are actually abbreviated in the suit as two of Trump’s favorite things: double Ds and pee pee. Allegedly. Allegedly!”
Har, har.
And let’s not forget Colbert is the same late-night comedian who said rather infamously that the “only thing [Trump’s] mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s c—k holster.”
It wasn’t so long ago that this “holster” joke would have resulted in an abrupt dismissal from the network. That didn’t happen here, because this is the new normal.
Colbert’s path to CBS was through Comedy Central, where he worked with a crop of political comedians who wider media have treated for years as legitimate news analysts and sources of incisive commentary (“Watch [insert name here] totally destroy this [insert political position]!”). Venerated by the national press, and given outsized influence by news sites starved for content, Jon Stewart, John Oliver, Larry Wilmore, Colbert and others have shaped how we talk today about politics. And all this from men whose careers were built on scoring easy laughs over the exact sort of thing Colbert bemoaned Thursday evening in a joking manner.
Our discourse didn’t degrade suddenly with the election of Trump. It was already in the toilet, and people like Colbert and his Comedy Central buddies are partly responsible for that. What have we become indeed.
(h/t Ben McDonald)
