The Death of Late-Night Comedy: How Talk Shows Became Partisan Propaganda

When Jokes Stopped Being Funny

Introduction

There was a time when late-night television was the last shared laugh of the American day. Families tuned in not to get lectured, not to get angry, but to chuckle. Johnny Carson’s monologues were light-hearted, David Letterman’s Top Ten lists were goofy, and Jay Leno poked fun at politicians of all stripes. Nobody went to bed feeling like they had just sat through a partisan rally.

But that time is gone. Today’s late-night comedy has become something else entirely — not a refuge from the day’s chaos, but an amplifier of it. Instead of laughter, viewers are fed sneers. Instead of equal-opportunity satire, they get one-sided sermons. Instead of comedy, they get propaganda dressed in punchlines.

This shift is more than cultural decline; it’s dangerous. Night after night, these shows reinforce the idea that Republicans — and particularly Donald Trump and his supporters — are not simply political opponents but existential threats. The humor is predictable, the laughter is forced, and the impact on our civic fabric is corrosive.

It’s time to be honest: late-night comedy, as it exists now, should go.

The Trump Obsession

Donald Trump didn’t just dominate the political news cycle — he dominated late-night comedy. From the moment he descended the golden escalator in 2015, he became the centerpiece of late-night monologues.

In the beginning, some of it was funny. Trump’s larger-than-life personality, his bombastic style, and his Twitter feed provided endless material. But the novelty wore off fast. What should have been satire turned into obsession.

• Stephen Colbert turned his “Late Show” into an anti-Trump pulpit. By 2017, almost every monologue started with some variation of “Trump did this, Trump said that.” Critics and even fans admitted it felt less like comedy and more like MSNBC with a laugh track.
• Jimmy Kimmel, once known for pranks and harmless celebrity bits, reinvented himself as a late-night moralist, crying on camera and lecturing audiences about policy.
• Seth Meyers devoted entire segments — “A Closer Look” — to dismantling Trump, Republicans, and conservative policies. It became less about jokes and more about political scolding.

The punchlines didn’t evolve. They became predictable. Trump equals Hitler. Republicans equal fascists. Conservatives equal idiots. That’s not comedy. That’s contempt. And contempt isn’t funny.

Demonization Disguised as Humor

There’s a critical difference between satire and propaganda. Satire mocks power, hypocrisy, and absurdity no matter where it’s found. Propaganda picks a side, demonizes opponents, and repeats the same message until it becomes normalized.

Late-night shows chose the second path. They stopped poking fun at everyone and began ridiculing only one half of America.

• If you supported Trump, you weren’t the butt of a harmless joke — you were cast as a dangerous bigot.
• If you voted Republican, you weren’t teased — you were treated as complicit in destroying democracy.
• If you questioned progressive orthodoxy, you weren’t challenged — you were vilified.

This isn’t comedy. It’s cultural conditioning. By wrapping ridicule in laughter, these shows made it socially acceptable to mock and dismiss tens of millions of Americans as subhuman, backward, or dangerous.

And here’s the danger: when people are dehumanized in culture, they are more easily dehumanized in politics. The leap from laughing at someone to hating them is smaller than we think.

The Ratings Collapse

The American people noticed.

Late-night ratings have cratered in recent years. According to Nielsen, Colbert still leads the pack but with far fewer viewers than his predecessors enjoyed. Kimmel and Fallon have bled audience share. Younger viewers — the lifeblood of future relevance — aren’t tuning in at all.

Why? Because predictable outrage disguised as comedy doesn’t sell. People don’t want to be lectured after a long day. They want to laugh. And they know they won’t get that from hosts who have become more activist than entertainer.

It’s not that Americans have lost their sense of humor. They’ve lost patience for partisan propaganda that masquerades as humor.

Why This Is Dangerous

It would be easy to dismiss all this as cultural decline — another example of entertainment gone stale. But the stakes are higher.

Comedy shapes culture. For decades, late-night comedians were cultural referees. They teased everyone equally, reminded us not to take ourselves too seriously, and kept politics in perspective. They offered release.

But when comedy turns partisan, it doesn’t release tension — it fuels it. Night after night, these shows tell millions of viewers that Republicans are not just wrong but evil. That Trump isn’t just flawed but fascist. That conservatives aren’t just different but dangerous.

This contributes directly to polarization. It feeds the rhetoric that Republicans are “enemies of democracy” or “Hitlerian.” And when that rhetoric saturates culture, it lowers the barriers against political violence.

We saw this danger play out in the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Was his killer radicalized by late-night comedy alone? Of course not. But the constant drumbeat of demonization from politicians, media, and comedians alike created an environment where such violence felt justified to someone unhinged.

Words matter. Laughter matters. And when both are weaponized, the result is combustible.

What Comedy Should Be

Comedy works best when it surprises. When it takes a truth and twists it in a way we didn’t expect. When it unites us in the recognition that we’re all a little ridiculous.

The greats understood this. Johnny Carson poked fun at Democrats and Republicans alike. Jay Leno could land a joke about Clinton one night and Bush the next. Even Jon Stewart, though leaning left, made his best material by exposing hypocrisy wherever it was found.

That’s gone now. Today’s late-night shows are predictable partisan routines. They don’t surprise. They don’t unite.

They don’t even try.

Why They Should Go

It’s not enough for these shows to reinvent themselves. The trust is broken. The brand is poisoned.

Colbert, Kimmel, Meyers — they chose to become partisan warriors. They chose to lecture rather than entertain. They chose to trade humor for hatred.

And the result is clear: Americans aren’t laughing. They’re tuning out.

It’s time for these shows to end. Not through censorship. Not through boycotts. Simply through cultural irrelevance. Let them fade away and make room for comedians willing to do what comedy is supposed to do: make us laugh, together.

Why This Matters

It’s tempting to say late-night talk shows don’t matter — that they’re just background noise. But they do matter. They shape perception. They reinforce narratives. They normalize ridicule and contempt for entire swaths of Americans.

And when that contempt becomes mainstream entertainment, the consequences are real. Polarization hardens. Dialogue dies. Violence becomes thinkable.

If America is to heal, we need cultural spaces where we can laugh again — not laugh at each other as enemies, but laugh with each other as fellow citizens.

That won’t happen with the current lineup of late-night shows. They had their chance. They made their choice. And now it’s time to go.

Conclusion

Late-night comedy is dead. Not because comedy is dead, but because the people entrusted with it abandoned their craft. They chose politics over humor, propaganda over satire, contempt over connection.

Their ratings tell the story. Their cultural irrelevance seals it. And their contribution to polarization makes it dangerous to pretend otherwise.

The solution isn’t to reform them. It’s to replace them. To let new voices rise — voices willing to poke fun at everyone, to surprise, to unite, to remind us that comedy is supposed to bring light, not heat.



Until then, the only punchline late-night can deliver is this: they stopped being funny, and America stopped caring.

References

• Nielsen ratings on late-night viewership decline (2022–2024).
• CNN, Variety, and Hollywood Reporter coverage on late-night programming shifts.
• Public commentary from comedians and critics on the politicization of late-night comedy.
• Studies on media polarization and cultural impact of late-night shows.

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this post are opinions of the author for educational and commentary purposes only. They are not statements of fact about any individual or organization, and should not be construed as legal, medical, or financial advice. References to public figures and institutions are based on publicly available sources cited in the article. Any resemblance beyond these references is coincidental.