I couldn’t bring myself to watch the series finale episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert last week after 11 years on air. I wouldn’t count myself as a superfan, but I’ve always respected Stephen Colbert for being able to speak truth to power, alongside the few talk show hosts that still have a backbone like Jon Stewart, Jimmy Kimmel, and Seth Meyers. Seeing the farewell victory lap that he’s been on, where it’s evident that he would keep making the show if he hadn’t been canceled, makes the ending all the more bitter than sweet.
On Thursday, Colbert had a swath of celebrity guests to help him close out his historic run at the Ed Sullivan Theater, including Paul McCartney, with whom he sang a duet, and McCartney closed out the show, turning off the lights in the theater in a heart-wrenching final scene and showing the theater immortalized in a snow globe. If that doesn’t make you want to cry, then I’m not sure what will.
It wasn’t just the overwhelming amount of love that Colbert was showered with that night that made me emotional; it was the pretense under which all of this began — President Donald Trump’s blatant attack on the media and freedom of speech. Since he took office in January 2025, we’ve seen consistent attacks on people who don’t bend to his whims. Shortly after CBS (the network that distributes The Late Show) agreed to a $16 million settlement with the president, Colbert slammed the network for rolling over and called the payout a "big fat bribe." Three days later, CBS announced that the show was being canceled.
It doesn't take a mathematician to figure out that one plus one equals two, because shortly after the announcement came, Trump celebrated the end of Colbert's show in a post uploaded to Truth Social that reads: "I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his rating. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert."
After the beloved late-night host wrapped his final episode, the president decided to shoot out a rage-filled message at 2 a.m., saying, "Colbert is finally finished at CBS," the post reads. "Amazing that he lasted so long! No talent, no ratings, no life. He was like a dead person. You could take any person off of the street and they would be better than this total jerk. Thank goodness he’s finally gone!”
I don't want to go on for the umpteenth time about the apathetic epidemic we're finding ourselves in as a society. But I do want to emphasize what we lose as a society when we devalue journalism and the act of speaking truth to power. The ruling class will be able to say and do whatever they want to continue lining their pockets with billions and billions more dollars every week while people struggle to put food on the table. We'll see more and more trusted news outlets like The Washington Post do corporate overlords' bidding by apparently pushing out lies like how AI data centers are not as bad for the environment as people are making them out to seem, when there is definitive proof that they are actively killing the planet.
What's happened to Colbert is infuriating — his firing is a symptom of a larger parasite that is sucking up all the nation's goodwill, draining us of money, energy, and power. That doesn't mean we have to succumb to it and lie there lifeless, feeling powerless in the face of it all. There are ways to fight back, and one of the most important elections in American history is the midterms taking place later this year. If there's one election to vote in, it's this one — especially in the swing states. I urge everyone who feels like day in and day out, there's nothing we can do about the corruption that's taking place in front of our eyes — go out and vote.
We may have casualties along the way, and unfortunately, The Late Show is one of them. But it's not the time to give up, it's just one more reason to mobilize. If there's one video that encapsulates this entire moment, it's this one: a message written in chalk outside of the Ed Sullivan Theater that reads, "Thank you, Stephen, and fuck you, CBS and Donald Trump," being washed away by custodial workers. A silent complacency as the working class ensures the oligarchy never sees anything that would make them uncomfortable or angry. The thing about the world we live in today is that they can try to sanitize the messaging to their liking, but we will always find a way to make sure that message makes it in front of them.
Moises Mendez II is a freelance culture writer based in Brooklyn, New York. Follow him on Instagram @moisesfenty.
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