The world of late-night television, once a reliable escape for millions of Americans, has become an ideological battleground. Its hosts, once jesters in the national court, have morphed into political preachers, and nowhere was this transformation more complete, or ultimately more fatal, than with Stephen Colbert. For years, Colbert sat atop the late-night throne, the celebrated successor to David Letterman. But now, with the stunning cancellation of The Late Show, the kingdom has crumbled, leaving a trail of think pieces and a chorus of critics saying, “I told you so.” Leading that chorus is OutKick founder Clay Travis, a media provocateur who has delivered a blistering post-mortem on Colbert’s career, arguing that the comedian didn’t just lose his audience; he actively drove them away.

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In a scathing commentary that has since reverberated across the media landscape, Travis diagnosed the cause of death for The Late Show with two simple, brutal words: “He’s not funny.” This wasn’t just a flippant remark; it was the core of a powerful argument that Colbert’s relentless focus on left-wing politics, particularly his obsessive anti-Trump rhetoric, had poisoned his comedic well. Travis contends that Colbert sacrificed humor for ideology, transforming a beloved national institution into a nightly sermon for the progressive faithful. He forgot, Travis argues, the cardinal rule of comedy: its primary job is to make people laugh, not to validate their political biases.

This critique taps into a much larger cultural phenomenon often encapsulated by the phrase “Get woke, go broke.” The theory posits that when brands, entertainers, or franchises wade too deeply into partisan or progressive politics, they risk alienating a significant portion of their potential customer base. According to Travis, Stephen Colbert is the ultimate poster child for this movement. He argues that in his zeal to be a voice of the “resistance,” Colbert effectively cut his audience in half. He was no longer speaking to America; he was speaking to a very specific, and ultimately insufficient, slice of it. While his barbs against Donald Trump and the Republican party earned him applause from a sympathetic media and a loyal liberal following, it turned off millions of others who didn’t want to be lectured to by a comedian before they went to bed.

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To understand the tragedy of Colbert’s fall, one must remember his meteoric rise. On Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report, he was a comedic genius, crafting a brilliant satirical character—a blowhard, right-wing pundit who was both ridiculous and strangely lovable. The show was a masterclass in irony and satire, skewering the political landscape with a wit that appealed to viewers across the spectrum. You didn’t have to agree with his personal politics to appreciate the brilliance of the performance. When he was chosen to take over for the legendary David Letterman on CBS’s The Late Show in 2015, it was seen as a triumphant moment, the culmination of a brilliant career. The shackles of his satirical character were off; the real Stephen Colbert could finally shine.

But as Travis and other critics point out, the “real” Stephen Colbert proved to be far less universally appealing than his fictional counterpart. The subtle, clever satire of The Colbert Report was replaced by blunt, often angry political commentary. The show became a nightly fixture of the Trump era, but not in a way that offered cathartic release for all. Instead, it became a predictable echo chamber, where the jokes were almost exclusively aimed at one side of the political aisle. The humor became secondary to the message, and for a large swath of the country, the message was alienating. While his defenders argued he was providing a vital service during a tumultuous time, his detractors saw a comedian who had lost his way, blinded by what they perceived as partisan rage.

The numbers seem to support Travis’s thesis. While Colbert initially enjoyed a ratings bump, he was eventually and consistently surpassed by Greg Gutfeld’s late-night show on Fox News, Gutfeld!. The success of Gutfeld, who offers a decidedly conservative and anti-establishment brand of humor, demonstrated that there was a massive, underserved audience hungry for comedy that didn’t mock their values. Gutfeld’s rise, juxtaposed with Colbert’s decline and eventual cancellation, paints a stark picture of a fractured entertainment market. It suggests that the old model of a universally beloved, apolitical late-night host in the mold of Johnny Carson is not just gone—it has been replaced by a new paradigm where audiences seek out comedy that reinforces their worldview.

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Travis contrasts Colbert’s financial failure with the colossal success of figures like Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park. He points to their massive $1.5 billion deal as evidence that there is a huge market for comedy that is willing to mock everyone and everything, without fear or favor. South Park has built its empire on being an equal-opportunity offender, satirizing the left and the right with equal glee. This, Travis argues, is the key to true, lasting success in entertainment: you build a bigger tent by not excluding anyone from the joke. Colbert, in his view, did the opposite. He built a wall around his show, and eventually, found himself trapped inside with a shrinking congregation.

The cancellation of The Late Show is more than just the end of a television program; it’s a symbolic moment in American culture. It represents a potential turning point for late-night comedy, forcing networks and hosts to confront a difficult question: is there a future for partisan comedy, or is the audience signaling a desire for a return to a more inclusive, less politically charged form of entertainment? The silence from Colbert’s once-dominant show now speaks volumes. It’s a cautionary tale about the dangers of trading punchlines for political points, a story of a comedy king who became so focused on fighting a political dragon that he burned his own kingdom to the ground. Clay Travis may have delivered the eulogy, but the evidence suggests that Stephen Colbert wrote it himself.