During the George W. Bush administration, viewers from across the liberal spectrum looked to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert for solace and satire in the darkest political moments. Stewart was a comic Dan Rather on The Daily Show and Colbert was his oddball satirical “evil twin” on The Colbert Report. Culminating in their 2010 “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” about halfway into Barack Obama’s first term, Stewart and Colbert were the preferred destination of college kids and NPR moms, aging hippies and hip Park Slope parents alike for half a decade. Liberals of all stripes listened to Stewart and Colbert.
Right now, there is no one to fill their shoes under Donald Trump. Though there are a few political comedy shows (all of them spawned from The Daily Show in one way or another), none of them are serving young left-wingers the same way that Stewart and Colbert once did. No one is rushing home after class to their DVR. People aren’t cathartically watching clips during breaks at their barista and barback jobs. There is a real opportunity for someone to seize on this audience in 2017.
