Medium

07/19/2025

This is why I would like to see Colbert come to the internet, not in some exclusive deal with YouTube or, please no, Substack. He can make his own home online, and from there post and stream on YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, everywhere — exploiting others’ audiences while maintaining his independence.

As I lamented Colbert’s cancellation on the socials, some folks wondered whether he could go to Comedy Central. Sorry, I informed them, but guess who’s going to own it, too: Ellison the Trumpist. I worry, then, about Jon Stewart and the crew at The Daily Show at Comedy Central. I fret, too, about Jimmy Kimmel at blackmailed ABC/Disney.

Therein lies the key lesson, especially in this day: Stay away from any entity that could be pressured by and become beholden to the fascists in power. Trump even wants to censor “woke AI” (thus I will argue that if companies are people then AI has First Amendment rights — but I digress).

Buchwald was not wrong 15 years ago to worry about the complexity of starting an online media empire. But in the meantime, all necessary roads have been paved.

We on the left have long wished for our version of Rogan — not our ignorant, testosteroned asshole, but our popular, intelligent, and informed maypole of enlightenment to gather ’round in defense of democracy and decency. I wish that to be Colbert — and Kimmel and Stewart and Stern, plus Joy Ann Reid, Katie Phang, and other refugees from corporate, thus Republican media. I wish that to be on an open and free internet, where they can’t be bought and sold and silenced, and public discourse has its rightful proprietor: us, the public.