Colbert Goes Live on Dark Night for Nation, Says What Many Are Thinking

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by Julian Spivey
“Late Show with Stephen Colbert” is my favorite late night show at the moment and has been for a few years now. I think Stephen Colbert and his staff have done the best job of making the audience laugh, while also being passionate and thought-provoking about the state of our country during the President Donald Trump administration, while also being he best interviewer currently on late night TV.
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Wednesday (January 6) was one of the darkest days in the history of our country and that’s a phrase that I think we’ve heard a lot in less than a calendar year. I knew there was a lot of political unrest in this country. I knew there was a lot of stupidity among a certain group of citizens of this country. I knew that white privilege was a problem in this country. But I don’t think I ever for one second thought all of these things were to the level of seeing a group of Trump loving terrorists storm the U.S. Capitol Building, while the government was inside certifying the Electoral College votes, getting past the D.C. police guarding the building incredibly easy like the police felt they were no threat at all and go so far as ransacking the building and holding it by siege for a short amount of time.

Luckily, I was at my day job for most of the day or I would’ve been in front of my television and scrolling my Twitter timeline every second of the day and pulling my hair out over seeing how easy it was for a group of crazy people to overrun the most important building in the country on this given day.

When I heard Colbert’s show was going to do a last-second live show, instead of the regularly taped hours before show they normally do and were scheduled to do it immediately became “must-see TV” for me. Colbert has done live shows before during important political moments like after political debates and the like, but he’s never done one last-second on the fly like this.

It was interesting. I don’t remember laughing much during his monologue, but the day wasn’t exactly a day to laugh and I think he realized that and wasn’t in a mood to even attempt to be all that humorous. I think Colbert is one of the funniest guys alive and is particularly good at impromptu jokes or moments, but the night of an attempted coup on our government with the blessing of the sitting President not wanting to leave in two weeks isn’t exactly the time for a yuck fest. But what sets Colbert apart from some of the other late night guys (even with Seth Meyers and Jimmy Kimmel being adept at political humor) is that he can make his show completely enthralling without trying to be that funny.

At the time I’m writing this I’m only about 90 minutes past Colbert’s monologue and can’t remember much of it, but it’s been a long day for everyone in this country. What stood out the most was his interviews with Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger from Illinois.

Two paragraphs up some readers might possibly have rolled their eyes at my use of the word “coup,” but it’s a word that came up multiple times during the interviews with both Klobuchar and Kinzinger (and it’s a particularly important word coming from the Republican in my opinion).

Kinzinger, the second guest on the night’s episode, said: “I characterize this as a coup attempt. That’s exactly what we’d call it in Belarus or any other country.”

Toward the end of her interview, after Colbert had used the word “coup” first, Klobuchar said: “It was a coup this President tried to incite, but I tell you what, he failed.”

Colbert asked both of his guests if the President of the United States should be impeached again or if the 25th Amendment should be used to remove him from office in his last two weeks. Both seemed to agree that at least impeachment should be on the table, even though the process would have to be started immediately.

The most impressive part of the episode for me was how passionate Colbert got when asking Klobuchar if some of the Republican politicians that essentially incited the mob on Wednesday to storm and take the Capitol Building through their rhetoric and claims of a stolen election should be punished. It was one of the most passionate moments I’d ever seen from Colbert, especially when interviewing a guest, and truly something many of us in this country have on our minds right now after seeing how easy it was for these politicians to work their supporters and followers into a tizzy over lies.

Once again on Wednesday night I was impressed with Colbert as a host and a human. He said what a lot of us in this country were thinking after such a disgraceful day in America, asked his politician guests tough and hard questions and just all-around showed the type of emotions so many of us are feeling. It was far from the funniest episode of his run on ‘Late Show,’ but certainly one of his most important.  

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