If Donald Trump had lost the election, we would probably be praising America’s late-night comedians for successfully exposing him as an immoral and corrupt narcissist who nearly fooled the country into electing him president.
Instead, we’re left with our present reality in which the type of comedic takedowns so eagerly shared by liberal viewers may have actually reinforced the core message that cemented Trump’s success.
2016 was the year that The Daily Show descendents John Oliver, Samantha Bee, and Stephen Colbert, along with veteran Bill Maher, newcomer Trevor Noah, and a resurgent Seth Meyers came together for most of the year with more or less one singular goal: Stop Trump. But in the end, as sharp as much of their commentary was, their collective message rarely, if ever, reached beyond the bubble of those who believed it could never happen. To those on Trump’s side, it simply proved his point that the “crooked media” was against him.
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