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Don't Fire That Loser Colbert - Fire His Knuckle-dragging Chicken-gut-eating Crowd

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With all due apologies for language and content, I’d like you to 
watch the two short excerpts of the “political comedy” — 
actually just crude mockery — of Stephen Colbert.

The first shows Colbert on Monday night, and the second is from 
last summer.

In both, he makes essentially the same joke about Donald Trump 
fellating Vladimir Putin. (Hilarious and creative, right?) The 
truly troubling thing isn’t the joke itself — there will always 
be comedians willing to go low for a laugh, after all — but the 
crowd’s reaction:

Watch again. Listen to the screaming and cheering.

If you want an explanation for why the Colberts of the world say 
the things they do, there it is in the adulation of the 
audience. He is their voice. He’s speaking out their rage. He’s 
not leading them; he’s riding their wave of progressive scorn, 
anger, and hate. If he fell, another would rise to take his 
place. Angry progressives demand cathartic mockery, and they 
shall have it one way or another.

Which is not to say that this phenomenon is unique to the Left. 
Spend time with core Trump supporters, the folks who boarded the 
train early, and you’ll find that many of them genuinely love 
the president’s angry, personal schoolyard taunts. They glory in 
his trolling and relish every single liberal tantrum it prompts.

It’s not just Trump, either. Countless thousands of 
conservatives laughed heartily when Milo Yiannopoulos called 
comedienne Leslie Jones a “black dude.” (So creative! So funny!) 
Some of these same conservatives ripped anyone who asked for 
better discourse as a “cuck” or a “beta” unwilling to do what 
was necessary to win. Angry conservatives demand vicious 
insults, and they shall have them.

There was an interesting phenomenon that took hold on AM radio 
last year. Conservative talk-show hosts who were used to leading 
found instead that they faced a stark choice: follow their 
audience onto the Trump train or face an unrelenting, angry 
backlash. Conservatives had been begging for warriors for years, 
and when Trump stepped up and truly fought the Clintons and the 
mainstream media, they had no patience for anyone who would try 
and restrain him.

Yes, Stephen Colbert is responsible for his actions. Of course 
he went too far. But it’s time to understand that when it comes 
to elections, to ratings, and to pop culture “moments,” the 
demagogue goes nowhere without the people. Without the demand, 
there is no supply.

“To wander around America is to discover the happy reality that 
most liberals and most conservatives are perfectly nice, not 
particularly smug, and seldom if ever vitriolic,” Conor 
Friedersdorf recently observed in The Atlantic. Yes indeed. And 
to wander around a college campus is to discover the “happy 
reality” that most students and faculty members dislike rioters 
and radicals, and just want to finish their degrees or immerse 
themselves in their research.

The problem is that this silent majority is largely irrelevant 
to the prevailing discourse. Our political and cultural agenda 
is typically dictated by those who care the most, and right now 
those who care the most also tend to hate their opponents on the 
other side with a fiery, reflexive passion. Colbert’s crowd may 
be smaller than, say, the less-political Jimmy Fallon’s, but it 
is much, much more likely to set the terms of the American 
discussion.

In short, the people who truly care move this country, and the 
people who truly care are truly angry. Their anger is so all-
consuming that it often forecloses the possibility of a debate 
about ideas. One of the more remarkable things about the 2016 
election was that it was simultaneously the most vitriolic of my 
adult lifetime and the least ideological. Trump and Clinton were 
and are extraordinarily malleable, driven by self-interest above 
all else. Trump shifts positions almost daily. Yet the partisan 
devotion remains. Hillary is celebrated as a martyr to the 
progressive cause, and Trump’s base holds firm behind him.

There is nothing new under the sun. In ancient times, the people 
were forced to choose between Jesus and Barrabas, and they chose 
Barrabas. They choose him still today. There is no shortage of 
opportunists willing to fill his shoes, just as there is no 
shortage of onlookers willing to chant his name. The sad irony 
here is that Colbert himself is a Christian, a man who has 
spoken frequently and with great feeling about his faith. 
Hopefully, he will soon remember its commands.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/447317/stephen-colbert-
donald-trump-jokes-crude-discourse-meets-audience-demand
    

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Don't Fire That Loser Colbert - Fire His Knuckle-dragging Chicken-gut-eating Crowd "Rebos" <rebos@cnn.com> - 2017-07-21 00:41 +0200

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