Late-night television, usually a safe haven for jokes about cats and drunk uncles, turned into a surreal group therapy session this week. Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, and Seth Meyers all rallied around Jimmy Kimmel after Donald Trump, never one to resist a grudge match, suggested networks unfriendly to him should “maybe” lose their licenses.
Kimmel, whose career has largely been built on watching celebrities eat wings and weep, now finds himself cast as the symbolic canary in America’s collapsing coal mine. “I don’t know what’s going on, and no one does,” Kimmel admitted, finally voicing the nation’s unofficial motto.
Colbert tried to add clarity, but instead offered a 15-minute monologue about cheese. Fallon nervously laughed and played with his hair. Stewart muttered something about Rome burning, while Meyers Googled “How to broadcast from Canada.”
The punchline, of course, is that nobody’s laughing anymore, except Trump.
