I wrote here about the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show” by CBS. Good riddance, was my view. But the Democratic Party’s luminaries mourned Colbert’s demise as one. At InstaPundit, Ed Driscoll assembles Democrats’ reactions to Colbert’s cancellation on Twitter. There are a lot of them, all exactly the same. Elizabeth Warren’s take was typical:
CBS canceled Colbert’s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump – a deal that looks like bribery.
America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons.
Watch and share his message. pic.twitter.com/Rz7HcWFLYM
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) July 18, 2025
What is striking is that every one of these Democrats took it for granted that Colbert’s show was a political commentary program. Wasn’t that supposed to be a secret? Wasn’t it once assumed that late night television was intended to be entertainment?
It has also emerged that CBS was losing $40 million a year on the “Late Show,” and that Colbert’s average viewer was 68 years old–the coveted shuffleboard demographic. So the Colbert show was, in essence, a $40 million per year contribution to the Democratic Party. And the Democrats’ position is that CBS was obligated to continue making that contribution, forever. That, in a nutshell, is what it means to be the establishment.
