Why Stephen Colbert’s ‘Trump’ Has a Bollywood Feel

What do the graphic novels “Watchmen,” “Bollywood,” and “Us” have in common? They all must solve the mystery of the missing “Comedian”. For the uninitiated, between his acts of imperialist propaganda with CGI abs and the trials and agonies of the Caped Crusader’s battle with film critics, Zack Snyder produced “Watchmen,” a graphic novel disguised as a movie whose plot revolves around the untimely death of a misogynistic psychopath named The Comedian.The same problem plagues Bollywood, not the misogynistic psychopaths, though they may be there, but the lack of comedians. Earlier, Bollywood plots had clear delineations: the hero boasted about his relationship with his mother, who looked stoic and sad, the heroine danced, the bad guys drank No. 69 and invaded the land of the poor, and the comedians made the audience laugh. That all changes with Dharmendra’s comedic turn in Chupke Chupke Amitabh Bachchan Replace the angry young man with a swaggering clown in Amar Akbar Antony.A process that began in the 1970s and eventually ended in the 1990s, when Chi-Chi appeared on screen, the line between hero and comedian collapsed like a wave function the moment he was observed. This is quite difficult for professional comedians who live and die by the laughter of their audiences: the Johny Walkers, the Mehmoods, the Keshto Mukherjees, the Asranis, the Jagdeep Sahabs of the world Sahabs) and Paintals, who once existed as stand-alone comedy planets but increasingly find themselves orbiting heroes who learn to make their own jokes. Before the advent of artificial intelligence, this would have been the equivalent of product managers extinguishing coders through Claude’s vibration coding.Now, America finds itself on the same precipice, facing the same problem: comedians are missing, which is strange because America is a country that worships at the altar of the first and has the backing of the second.But it’s saying something when the visiting king is funnier than most late night TV hosts, which brings us to CBS’ current predicament: Stephen Colbert‘s late night show. Colbert is a comedian who has aired 3,000 episodes over 20 years and on two television networks, so apparently his followers are a little uneasy. The reaction was predictable, with CNN’s Roy Wood Jr praising him for “standing up for the truth” and Hasan Minhaj praising him for “always seizing the moment.”So why is CBS pulling the plug? Is it just to appease the Orange Overlord?

That may be part of the reason, but not the only reason, so let’s open the box to explain and examine the true nature of the Schrödinger’s Cat-esque state of comedy in America, especially late-night comedy.First, while Colbert’s allies may praise him for “standing up for the truth,” people habitually point out that Colbert’s truths tend to be one-sided.Take the coverage leading up to the 2024 U.S. election, for example. Colbert is an unabashed super fan of Kamala Harris, raving about her “word skills,” even including in her introduction Morpheus calling her “The Chosen One.” Of course, this is his prerogative, but audiences, voters, and even reality beg to differ.Harris’ campaign collapsed on arrival. Once Biden’s declining mental acuity becomes impossible to hide, the candidate who failed to secure a single vote at the 2020 Democratic National Convention will assume leadership. Harris came late to the race, failed to explain how her campaign differed from Biden’s, and made repeated missteps in the interview to the point where it had to be edited, leading to her own legal troubles.It’s not just Colbert who has become the de facto media arm of the Democratic Party. All of his peers are less comedians and more preachers, constantly shouting at the world that they disagree with their worldview and, to borrow a phrase from Jay Leno, “alienating half the audience.”Comedians of all ages now tend to lean left, lashing out at the powerful.While the likes of Johnny Carson, Jay Leno and David Letterman tell political jokes, they are usually light-hearted and nonpartisan, without deep ideological commitments, to avoid alienating mass online audiences. A study titled “Making Sense of Trump: The Repoliticization of American Late Night Talk Shows in a Polarized Public Sphere,” published online on May 24, 2025, noted that this changed with the emergence of Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show,” which mocked George Bush’s imagined war on terror, focusing on attacking Bush, Fox News, neoconservatives, and the Iraq War, becoming the Fifth Estate, and then immediately entering its shell as soon as Obama arrived and being treated more softly.Then Trump came along and tipped the balance, going from being seen as ridiculous comedy gold to a threat to minorities, democratic norms and everything else. Over time, comedy became conspicuous by its absence, replaced by the moralizing one would expect from a pulpit rather than late-night television.But even sermons need sponsors, and this is where the economy gets cruel.

The second reason comedies fail is financial: Colbert may be the leading star of late-night programming, but this is like the No. 1 Blockbuster store in the age of Netflix. The entire ecosystem has collapsed, with revenue falling from $439 million in 2018 to $220 million in 2024, and CBS is reportedly losing $40 million a year from sponsoring the comic’s ideological campaign.The third reason is the arrival of other forms of entertainment. From roasts to podcasts to memes, anyone with a camera became a comedic content creator, and late-night hosts began acting like dinosaurs trying to survive the meteorites coming from all directions. Who would wait until 9pm to watch a joke on TV when almost no one is watching it? The best pieces can always be cut up and reformed into snackable little reels that can be shared across the myriad platforms out there. X is one of those companies that, despite all the mistakes made under Elon Musk, has escaped the clutches of big tech companies.Perhaps the fourth and biggest reason for the demise of comedians in America is the same as in Bollywood, where comedians have had to move into the proverbial David Dhawan sanctuary to survive: the protagonists have become too funny. From Dharmendra to Amitabh Bachchan, Govinda, Khan troika, Akshay Kumar, comedy is no longer just for comedians.

The same is true in America, where no late-night comedian can compete with Trump when it comes to laughter (often mixed with tears). If Reagan was the purveyor of Soviet jokes and Obama was the first alternative comedy president, then Trump is every type of comedy wrapped in a tight drum skin.He’s the kind of guy who went to China regardless of the Epstein dossier and then Lyrically praising children for how beautiful they are. he can’t stop talking Dead golfer’s trashdiscusses his lifelong desire to become a whale psychiatrist and listens carefully when someone explains the effects of cocaine. He sprayed the ex-terrorist with cologne, then sprayed his wife with perfume, then Ask him if he has more than one wife. He decked his halls with gold and kept talking about his A ballroom with anyone who will listen, Mocking their own allies for occupying the ozone layer, declaring victory after destroying the global economy, kidnapping foreign leaders and forcing news organizations to Run a fact check On whether he peeked into Xi Jinping’s notebook. Forget comedians, not even reality can compete with that.