Stephen Colbert's Use Of Political Satire In The Late Show

According to many psychologists, the more you laugh, the longer you live. That’s why many people tune in to The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to live a little longer. In the last few years, political satire outlets’ audiences have risen tremendously. Political satire is playing a bigger role in society every day. According to Merriam Webster, satire is a way of using humor that shows the weaknesses or bad qualities of a person, government, society. In this essay, I will analyze The Late Show with Stephen Colbert’s use of satire and the effectiveness of the show as a whole. Satire works in many different ways. For something to be satirical, it has to incorporate three important aspects which are critique, implicitness, and irony. Satire always critiques some form of human behavior, folly, or vice, while intending to persuade the audience to view it scornfully and encourage some type of …show more content…
During Trump’s campaign, Colbert rendered harsh criticism of Trump and how he’ll be unable to run the greatest country in the world. He made up words like Trumpiness to provide further details on how "Many Trump supporters don't believe his wildest promises — and they don't care" (Colbert) and the fact that America has lost its head by getting in bed with Donald Trump. But with all the shots that Colbert has taken at Trump, critics have begun to wonder about the effectiveness of the show. According to The Atlantic Magazine, critics have noticed that some people are now more pro-Trump than before he got elected. Because of all the harsh criticism that Trump receives by Stephen Colbert, some people have started to pity Trump. Others that liked Trump and agreed with what he stood for have not changed their perspective of him. As a whole, it doesn’t look like people hate or love Trump more or less than they used to before he was