Colbert the Martyr

Stephen Colbert, welcome to the communion of proggy saints!

Upon his long, drawn-out firing by CBS, the former late-night entertainer ascended skyward, but a few days prior to Pentecost, to receive his heavenly reward. And what a prize it was! ‘Twas gold in the progressive hall of heroes! Colbert was immortalized in script most fitting for the age: tweets, Instagram posts, and AI-composed captions.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris led the pity party, tweeting: “Stephen Colbert has a talent for making people laugh and encouraging them to stay curious, stay engaged, and stay hopeful about the world around them.” Had Harris only demonstrated one of those qualities, she might not have lost every swing state to the current braggart-in-chief.

The official Democratic X account, due to being run by a coven of female zoomers, joined with a four-in-one photo grid of Colbert cheesing with former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, along with a bored-looking Michelle Obama and Harris holding a light beer like it was a Fabergé egg.

The pallbearing train continued with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger, and senators Amy Klobuchar, Ed Markey, and Chuck Schumer, all keying out obligatory lamentations. Meaning: their respective comms directors cribbed each other’s posts, swapping synonyms, and attaching screenshots of the boss chinwagging with shitcanned Colbert.

State-aligned media cabanaboys shed put-on tears to the pool as well. Brian Stelter, CNN’s aspic media correspondent, dashposted a series of “Late Show” signoff summations like he was documenting the 9/11 attacks in real time. Leftie rags like The Guardian and The Washington Post published maudlin remembrances, each suggestive that poor Stephy is an innocent funny man ground under a MAGA jackboot for the crime of crack.

Edward Abbey famously pithed that “distrust of wit is the beginning of tyranny.” And Colbert has spent years slandering President Trump with every demeaning label the Left knows, which are, to use Ed West’s bracket, forever linked to a “quirky, little-known period of European history: 1930s Germany.”

To hear the libs tell it, Colbert added to the gaiety of the nation by mindlessly mouthing every Nazified insult invented of Donald Trump. Then, the poor, unsuspecting wisecracker had his lips forcibly sewn shut by corporate bigwigs fearful of government reprisal. Some variation of the sentiment “Cobert’s cancellation should send a chill down the spine of every free-speech-loving American” was reprinted, replete with dark forebodings on why totalitarianism’s first victim is laughter.

Of course, humor does hold the line against dictators. Every joke, per Orwell, is a tiny revolution. And as Douglas Murray observed, people laugh at things they know are true. The snotty, scar-pocked king declares he’s the smartest, savviest, suaveist man alive? Call him a corpulent gasbag with shriveled nethers who takes out his unhappy marriage on his subjects. Or craft a clever poem like Horace Walpole. Or shout, “You damned rascal, where’s your wife?” Let ridicule and irreverence melt away his authority.

Colbert was no courtman, jesting the mad monarch, poking the bejeweled crown with his tassled scepter. He was the comedy equivalent of industrially processed offal. He repackaged the negs and deprecations of his fellow blues, reciting them in the same sniffy manner as an Upper Eastsider bumping into a touristing family from Toledo. Unironically blathering canned lines isn’t comedy, nor entertainment, nor is it speaking truth to power. It’s, at bottom, boring. Colbert had plenty of opportunity to flame sitting pols. He hosted a conga line of Dems during his evening hour. Instead, Stephen, as he was warmly called, shined their shoes.

Even Jon Stewart, the man who offered Colbert a couple rungs to climb into show business, occasionally pressed Democratic lawmakers, including famously jabbing Nancy Pelosi on the ramshackle launch of ObamaCare.

The real reason Stephen Colbert can no longer be watched in the witching hour has to do with America’s center of gravity: coin. CBS claims the lib-led “Late Show” was a money-loser to the colossal tune of $40 million per annum. It turns out nobody wants to watch an alleged comedian unctuously discuss baking sourdough with Kirsten Gillibrand, or some other wooden senator.

The “radlib wokery is the new Christianity” is a trite talking point. But clichés are lazily quotable for a reason: they contain a crumb of wahrheit.

The bastardized canonization of Colbert is an exemplar of leftism charading as a spiritual practice. On a weekend traditionally reserved for toasting the fallen American soldier with pissbeer, Democratic officials and their press amanuenses toasted the furloughed host like he was a pitiable Republican soldier shot dead while bravely fighting General Franco’s forces.

Colbert’s fate is worse than that of those butchered in the Auts: public-access television. But at least nobody’s income statement runs red.