TRUMP’ S election upended every American institution—including latenight comedy, where wacky just no longer cuts it. STEPHEN COLBERT is proving that a late-night host’s new responsibility is to do what a president used to do: steady a reeling nation. (And then do the wacky).
BEFORE HE STARTED beating Fallon in the ratings and replaced Jon Stewart as the ombudsman of late night, Stephen Colbert spent a decade playing the very white, very American “Stephen Colbert”: the kind of man you might now see defending Donald Trump on Fox News…or defending Donald Trump during White House press briefings…or defending Donald Trump during an interrogation by Robert Mueller. But like Superman jumping into a phone booth and removing his navy suit to reveal— huh!—another navy suit, Colbert stepped up to save us. Not by parodying far-right hypocrisy—by confronting it. GQ talked to the Man of the Year about pretending to be the person you really are, why Trump is a bad talk-show guest, and if this too shall pass.
GQ: It felt like this year was terrible for everyone. But in the context of world history, how bad is it, really?
STEPHEN COLBERT: America has made mistakes before this—I would say the Dred Scott decision’s still worse than what we have going on right now.
So, Trump: better than Dred Scott.
That’s a low bar to shu±e over. But yes, Trump is better than the Dred Scott decision. Trump’s election is a stone thrown into the pond that just will never stop rippling. I think it’s going to be generations before we recover from whatever it is he’s doing.
But you think we will recover?
I hope that we will. I don’t know how. I don’t know how we recover from choosing that man to be the leader of this country. I don’t know how we recover our ethical or moral standing in the world, because this is an abdication of an American moral philosophy. We’ve completely abandoned it.
This story is from the December 2017 - January 2018 edition of GQ.
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This story is from the December 2017 - January 2018 edition of GQ.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
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