Let’s get one thing straight: in 2025 America, free speech isn’t dead—it’s just nervously checking its follower count while Homeland Security reviews its late-night monologue.
This week, CBS announced the “scheduling discontinuation” of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, a decision about as subtle as a Fox News chyron at a drag brunch. While the official reason cites “budget restructuring” and “strategic programming shifts,” the stinger in this particular cancellation honeycomb reeks of something much stickier: political retribution, ideological pruning, and the slow-cooked gag order being served to comedians who dare roast the Emperor’s spray tan.
The Joke That Broke the Billionaire
Colbert’s “crime,” if you listen to the rumblings from Truth Social, was saying things out loud with wit.
Remember when comedy used to punch up? Now it just gets punched. Whether mocking Trump’s trial-length rap sheet (“four indictments, one for each golf cart”) or reminding America that empathy isn’t Marxist, Colbert’s brand of smart sarcasm and theatrical exasperation made him one of the last mainstream satirists with a functioning moral compass. Naturally, this made him a threat.
The Colbert Conspiracy (Or: Who Killed the Laughs?)
Let’s be real. If Stephen Colbert had spent the last two years doing anti-vax “Who’s on First?” routines with Kid Rock and Mike Lindell in a MAGA romper, we’d be talking about his White House Medal of Honor ceremony, not his unceremonious pink slip. But no—he dared to point out that fascism with a flag emoji is still fascism. And so, down he goes.
Conservatives—many of whom haven’t watched The Late Show since Jon Stewart was still a zygote—are now celebrating this as a win for “unbiased media.” That’s right: the same folks who believe that drag queens are a greater threat to democracy than insurrectionists are suddenly constitutional purists when a satirical TV host loses his job.
What This Actually Means for Free Speech
Comedy is often the last line of cultural critique in a society rotting from the top down. When the nightly jesters start disappearing—not because they’re unfunny, but because they’re inconvenient—what you’re witnessing isn’t programming strategy. It’s ideological hygiene.
This isn’t just about The Late Show. It’s about how the Overton window gets relocated from the public square to a corporate panic room. When comedians get quieter and CEOs get louder, when satire is labeled “treason” and truth is “leftist propaganda,” we’re not protecting democracy—we’re curating it for polite dinner conversation at Mar-a-Lago.
But Let’s Not Pretend This Is New
Lenny Bruce was arrested. George Carlin’s “Seven Dirty Words” got the FCC frothing. And Colbert’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner roast of Bush still echoes like an accidental voicemail from God. America has always been allergic to comedians with good aim. What’s new is the sheer volume of people applauding the silencing—and the institutions bowing to them.
We now live in a country where:
- Tucker Carlson interviews Putin unironically.
- Elon Musk rebrands Twitter as “X” and thinks that’s free speech.
- And comedians get fired while politicians get booked on podcasts where they’re asked, “What’s your favorite Bible verse?” like they’re auditioning for Christian The Bachelor.
The Real Joke?
There’s still no late-night host who’s openly queer, trans, disabled, Muslim, or unapologetically leftist without a neoliberal sheen. We mourn Colbert because he was the closest thing we had to a voice of reason in a midnight time slot. But maybe that says more about the limits of television than the fragility of expression.
Final Punchline?
In this dystopian sitcom we’re all stuck in, the laugh track is real—but the laughs are not. They’re just the wheezing gasps of people trying to remember what it felt like to speak truth to power without worrying about being “strategically removed.”
So no, CBS didn’t just cancel The Late Show.
They canceled one of the few spaces left where satire wasn’t neutered, laughter wasn’t algorithm-optimized, and bees like me could still fly through the bullshit with a little sting and a lot of receipts.
Want to support real independent voices who can’t be canceled by corporate overlords?
Read my books on Amazon
Every Kindle Unlimited page pays indie authors like me.
🗣 And please—leave a review. It helps the algorithm overlords decide whether we exist.The revolution will be televised—until it isn’t.