US late-night comics fall into (anti-Russian) line
By
David Walsh
18 February 2017
Predictably, America’s late-night comics and television talk show hosts have joined the right-wing campaign to depict Donald Trump as an ally or even pawn of Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
The various well-heeled comedians have responded instinctively—and eagerly—to the McCarthyite, anti-Russian initiative launched by the Democratic Party, the New York Times and other media outlets, along with important portions of the US military and intelligence apparatus. These elements of the ruling elite have been terrified by the mass popular opposition to Trump’s right-wing policies and are making every effort to divert the outrage into reactionary channels.
Everything about the talk show hosts, their histories, outlooks and social positions, ensured they would take up this campaign. As we have noted before, the comic monologues on the late-night talk shows are an integral part of a painstaking process—the daily cycle by which “public opinion” and an official “national consensus” are formed in the US.
On his program Wednesday night, Stephen Colbert, the host of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS, staked out an especially persistent and repugnant position.
Colbert first took part in a “remake” of a scene from the 1995 film, The Usual Suspects. He played the part of an individual under police questioning. In response to his interrogator’s comment (Chazz Palminteri as a detective in the original film), “You’re not telling us everything, I know you know something,” Colbert replied, “Yes, I do know something, and I’m telling you everything. You’re just not listening! I’ve been telling you for like a year! There’s something weird going on between Trump and the…