A rightwing late-night show may have bombed – but the funding behind it is no laughing matter
A rightwing late-night show may have bombed – but the funding behind it is no laughing matter
A rightwing late-night show may have bombed – but the funding behind it is no laughing matter
A group of conservative donors spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop a rightwing version of late-night talkshows like the Tonight Show and the Late Show, leaked documents reveal, in a further indication of the right’s ongoing efforts to overhaul American culture.
News of the effort to pump conservative viewpoints into the mainstream comes as entertainment shows and the media at large are under severe threat in the US. In September, Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night show was taken off the air, under pressure from the Trump administration, after Kimmel’s comments after the killing of Charlie Kirk, while Donald Trump has launched multiple lawsuits against TV networks and news organizations.
Four pilot episodes, each of which has been watched by the Guardian, were made of the rightwing chatshow. It was promoted by the Ziklag group, a secretive Christian nationalist organization, which aims to reshape culture to match its version of Christianity. In an email in 2022, Ziklag – which ProPublica reported spent $12m to elect Trump last year – urged its members to stump up money for the project, called the Talk Show With Eric Metaxas.
Comedy, especially late night comedy, works the best when the hosts poke fun at the world around them, including themselves and those in power.
Right wing comedy shows never appeal to the main stream because the hosts can’t make fun of those in power. Those “tough guys” on the right are so thin skinned that they think even a passing joke will make them “appear weak”. So, right wing comedians toe the party line which usually leads to very poor comedy that typically involves punching down.