Last Writes: One Fan's Eulogy for The Last Show with Stephen Colbert

Today, on the afternoon before The Last Show with Stephen Colbert, I'm going through a variety of emotions. Like millions of fans, I'm hurt and quite peeved over losing a television show that I've become quite attached. Not because not enough others love it as much as I do, but only because powerful people hate it.

Suitable for framing or being framed? The above spread from Rolling Stone is a permanent fixture.

Last night, Bruce Springsteen appeared and said this was the first time a man has lost his show because the president couldn't take a joke. He was right about that. But it's worth remembering that ... although Colbert may be the first man to have his gig excised due to "financial reasons," the first comedian to hear that BS was Samantha Bee. Her 2017 Emmy-award winning show Full Frontal was cancelled on largely the same grounds in July of 2022 (a merger between Warner Bros. and Discovery).

Full Frontal with Samantha Bee aired on TBS from February 8, 2016 to June 23, 2022

No surprise to say that I was a fan of that show as well. Back then I wrote an obit of sorts and have just republished it today.

That article, "Last 'Men' Standing: Is this the End of Free Speech in Late Night?," foreshadowed my concerns that the men of late night would be next. I listed Trevor Noah, John Oliver, Bill Maher, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, and Colbert himself.

Go ahead and throw in Jon Stewart and Seth Meyers in the mix, too. As we all know in the span of just under four years, we've seen Noah's departure, lived through Kimmel's brief suspension, and watched Maher suck-up to Trump only to get sucker-punched in return. Meanwhile (pun intended) all of the late night hosts have spent their time in the barrel of accusations, threats of suspension, and loss of licenses. None of them who remain can feel confident about what might happen next.

In fact, I genuinely worry for their personal safety. All of them receive daily threats of violence and intimidation. Some even come from those outside the Trump administration.

The Power of Rational Absurdity

So many times I've turned to Colbert for an intelligent voice at the end of the day's news cycle, "The National Conversation," as he calls it.

The ability to laugh at the absurdities of the day has become a ritual for me in keeping reality intact. To hear others, especially Colbert, say "none of this is normal" in ways that offer a breath of laughter against the suffocating knowledge of unchecked greed, fraud, theft, death, and despair in geopolitics has been a godsend in maintaining my own sanity.

For the most part I've tried to take a step back from watching the slowest moving car accident or train derailment or what-have-you-in-progress on the mainstream news outlets. MSNOW seems to miss the point. Fox News and other right wing media outlets just seem to make their points up as they go. And CNN, the broadacast outlets? What's the point there? Are they just killing time to get to the commercials?

Your guess is as good as mine.

So mostly I've waited to check-in with Colbert and Kimmel for better and more insightful viewpoints on the events of the day than a thousand of those insipid roundtable discussions. I'll see clips of what the president said or did that fail to air entirely or in context otherwise. That's valuable stuff to me.

That's my choice.

Now I'm angry because I'm being told I no longer get to choose that. But I can see why: with such destabilization in every corner of our democracy and no meaningful opposition, the only thing that stands against it is to point out the absurdities in such powerful ways through comedy.

That can be persuasive ... and dangerous ... to those in power.

That's why so many want to prevent our right to listen to these voices, because through them, we learn, we adapt, and we try to cope. Should be fair game in my mind. Instead, what I hear from others who exercise their rights in not watching Colbert is that I'm no longer within my rights to watch him.

"Oh Me Oh My," A Few Words to My MAGA Friends and Family Members

I've got a couple people in mind. People close to me who I've debated with many times over the years, but many who now really just troll my page when I decide to post an opinion that doesn't square with what they've conditioned themselves to believe.

Look, in my college days and even before, I thought of myself as an Alex P. Keaton. I was a big beliver in Reagan's rhetoric, i.e., the shining city on the hill, personal responsibility, the

fall of communism. I've learned since that many of his policies haven't aged well, but memory serves the '80's positively in the fortunes of what my own family and neighbors experienced. There were vacations for the first time, and even seed money for my first semesters of college; more importantly, there was a sense of decency present and the thought that despite our differences, all parties could agree that we were on the same side--at least as it pertained to the United States place in the world and the unique responsibilities we held in common.

I didn't vote Democrat until Barack Obama's second term, which meant I lived in a divided household most of the time. You know what the cost of that was? Zip, nada, nothing.

No relationship I ever had with a friend or family member was ever harmed or damaged.

I can't say the same today. In fact, I believe no one can. Interpersonal relationships have changed for the worse on every meaningful level.

The Needling and The Damage Done

I've got a friend I'll call "Miles." He's actually all my Trump-loving or -sypathizing friends and family rolled together in one persona--both here in Tampa and many miles away back in Toledo.

Miles has told me that Black Lives Matter was behind the insurrection and that deep state pedophilia was his biggest concern. Miles really hates Colbert, and Letterman, too. Says he misses Johnny Carson like crazy (like Johnny wouldn't rib Trump over Iran, gas prices,

infidelity, and on and on).

Here's a little fun fact: During the 1990s, when discussing the Gennifer Flowers and Bill Clinton tabloid saga, Carson joked that Flowers "got a new job today as a Donald Trump backup mistress." And aaaaaa-waaaay we gooooooooooooooooooooo!

The many, many jokes aside, I believe every damn person in America for starters has been hurt by Trump in small ways and large. Let me test this theory thustly:

Supporters or not pay the same gas prices. That price today is averaging $4.51 cents a gallon. Yes, the highest gas price in history of $5.01 was recorded on June 14, 2022. This all-time high was primarily driven by global supply constraints following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but it didn't stop Trump fans from placing Biden Did That! stickers on the pumps. Hmmm, where are those nifty things from the other side?

Supporters or not pay the same prices for coffee. Miles and I both drink Bustelo Coffee. In January 2025, the average cost was under $5. Now it costs as much as $9.00. On top of that, I used to get Bustelo Brazil, which is no longer available due to tariffs, according to my grocer.

Supporters or not have lost or damaged relationships. I haven't spoken to Miles since the day after the insurrection when he was telling me it was all the evil doings of the deep state and BLM. This Miles has been one of my best friends for years. Now no idea how to relate to him, or even start. Texts mostly go unanswered or engender only single word responses. I suppose I've chosen to leave him be.

Another Miles of mine couldn't admit the right side won the Civil War. He cites "the war of northern aggression" and says he doesn't want his president to be a nice guy. One who used to say "if you can't see everything's connected" now says "Trump can't win with some people no matter what good he does."

I'll agree on one point: LED lightbulbs really do suck.

A She-Miles I know says as long as "everything's fine with her 401K" and that DOGE firings at the VA were good things for veterans. Another Miles says the words "well-regulated" in the second amendment don't mean what they mean, and that Trump has selflessly given of himself only for the benefit of this country.

These are folks who would dismiss the Trump phones, the Trump blockchain coins, EFTs, sneakers, steaks, fraudulent universities and charities, tax returns, Russia-gates, election hoaxes, cash settlements, ballrooms and bombast, and redacted Epstein files as fake news conspiracies.

In Colbert, I saw and learned of these stories with many facts otherwise completely absent or obliterated on most online and offline platforms.

Words are Now Fully Broken, Colbert was a Great Repairman

Words used to mean what they meant. Now those same words are up to interpretation by party affiliation. Perhaps the most egregious to me is "entitlements." In GOP parlance, that word means handouts. But an an entitlement is something you are "entitled to."

Meanwhile (again for the second time, pun intended), there's Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). I first heard that term around 2002. At that time, a crazy thing was happening: corporate business in America was making an attempt to give workers their due by diversifying the gender and racial composition of its executives; by also engaging in profit-sharing efforts with front-line employes, ala giving them some equity in the company itself in return for their labor; and giving representation to those who might otherwise not be included in the larger discussion.

The Billionnaire class didn't go for it. They undermined DEI at every step and turned it into a slur that meant compulsory advancement for the most unqualified. DEI as a term has now become its own form of a racial or social epithet.

Not funny in the least. Until Colbert would use it to turn the tables on the nepotism and illegalities that characterise the Trump administration is such florid detail.

Take Eric Trump for one: "Dad...... I waited in the rain for hours after the ballgame but you never showed up .... can I get a hug?"

That shit, really really funny!

And ... the Part I Really Will Miss the Most

I know Colbert will likely go on to better and bigger things. But still, this cancellation is just more evidence that we no longer live in the same country we did just one-year and five-or-so-months ago. As he likely is only hours away from recording The Last Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS, I share with millions of viewers a profound sadness for the end of an American tradition. The late night TV show.

At least as it has existed through my eyes from Johnny Carson to David Letterman to Stephen Colbert. Yes, Jimmy Kimmel, Jimmy Fallon, and Seth Myers are still on the air, but you wonder ... for how long?

As a kid, I climbed into the top bunk to watch Johnny Carson through the open crack of my door; mostly evading the eyes and ears of my parents who watched downstairs.

I loved the guests, the skits, the music, and the characters from Carnac the Magnificent and Art Fern to Floyd R. Turbo, Patriotic American! When Carson closed up shop in 1992, I watched tearfully as an older and slower icon; the GOAT of his time retired on his own terms.

Tonight I likely will watch tearfully as I believe an American hero is forcibly set aside while having all his comedic talents and full energy at his disposal. This is like Michael Jordan being forced to retire after his third championship or Tom Brady being traded after his fourth Super Bowl.

The waste of it all.

Maybe that's the most unsettling part. The human cost. Perhaps the cost of doing a Late Night talk show/comedy broadcast is too steep these days. Too many mouths to feed among the hundreds of people who make the thing run.

No doubt a big production costs a boatload of bucks.

Yet behind it are the livelihoods of hundreds of people and the viewership of millions. Seems worth the effort.

Short of that we've all been sold short.