Comedy Central has always tried to capitalize on mocking conservative audiences. Stephen Colbert’s old show, based on Bill O’Reilly, and Broad City, worshipping Hillary and bleeping out Trump’s name, are just prime examples.
But in an interview with The New York Times, it seems like the outlet is going a step further. Its new show, The Opposition, a spinoff of The Daily Show, is a satire based on Trump supporters. Jordan Klepper, who plays a “buffoonish and yet smart character” who defends Trump on the Daily Show, is basing a show on it, much like Stephen Colbert’s previous The Colbert Report.
However, where Colbert satirized mainstream conservatives and Republicans, Klepper will satirize “more incendiary and conspiratorial sources that have gained prominence in the Trump era.” Comedy Central’s president, Kent Alterman, said the decision was based on the supposition that the “relativity of reality has become so commonplace it’s disconcerting.”
He went on, “Facts don’t seem to matter. Reality doesn’t seem to matter. It’s what you will it to be or what you say it is.” So, conservative opinions aren’t based on reality, apparently, but the Daily Show and all its conservative hating ways are “factually accurate.” Something isn’t right here.
Why Comedy Central -- and every other outlet -- has decided that conservatives are a group of conspiracy-believing, “overconfident idiot[s]” is something that isn’t clear. Half the country voted Republican last year. To characterize that half as buffoons is alienating a large audience.
But NYT isn’t concerned about that: it’s worried because having Klepper as a show-host “added another white guy to the largely homogeneous ranks of late-night TV hosts.” Not another white guy! The horror!
