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How did late-night American television get so political? It didn't start with Trump

- JASON ZINOMAN

Late-night talk shows weren't always the tip of the spear.

For most of its history, this distinctly American genre introduced audiences to polite Midwestern men in suits who lulled viewers to sleep with apolitical punchlines and celebrity chat.

The comedians generating controversy by addressing hot-button issues were stand-ups such as Lenny Bruce or George Carlin or Dave Chappelle. But the joke tellers who have emerged as the highest-profile critics of the second Trump administration — and the ones most under attack — are that supposedly endangered species: the network late-night hosts.

How did these establishment figures become so political?

Conservatives have argued that late-night network hosts became cocooned in their own liberal bubble, their shift to more overt critiques of President Donald Trump motivated by politics, not commercial interests. Others point to Trump, who has the Midas touch for politicising everything he touches. Neither explanation is entirely right.

To understand how network late-night hosts became such critics of Trump, you have to take the long view, because their increasingly political commentary preceded the current president and happened gradually.

You can trace the evolution quite neatly over the career of Jimmy Kimmel, who has moved from the frat-boy humour of The Man Show in the early 2000s to the unlikely face of the resistance, earnestly championing free speech and journalistic independence in his return to television on Tuesday night after Disney had suspended his ABC show Jimmy Kimmel Live! under pressure from the Trump administration.

The most important influence on Kimmel has always been his childhood hero, David Letterman (“My Jesus,” he once called the older star) and some of his actions now reflect the knee-jerk irreverence towards authority that Late Night With David Letterman regularly displayed in the 1980s.