Stephen Colbert: "We gotta dump this loser"

The Daily Beast

The surprisingly calm Late Show host made a final pitch on Election Eve: “You see, I think everyone has made up their mind—back in 2017, in fact," he said, according to The Daily Beast. "Have you seen Trump’s approval numbers? That’s flatter than the Black Rock Desert. You could set a land-speed record on 44 percent. So, to quote Jim Lovell from Apollo 13, ‘Isaac Newton is in the driver’s seat now.’ We are in the grip of the gravitational forces of democracy, which are pulling us toward the results. It’s like our country is a deep-space object falling toward a black hole—either we’re going to get sucked over the event horizon into a well of corruption that not even moats can escape from, or we’ll use this gravity well to slingshot and pick up speed and go off in an entirely new direction. Maybe that planet where Baby Yoda lives, he’s cute.” Colbert added: “This is a test of the strength of American voters—but also the institutions we have built. This president has exposed a lot of weaknesses in our government, but it just has to hold together for one last run."

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• Attending Stephen Colbert's 2016 Showtime Election Night special was like watching comedy reinvent itself: "For all its failings, the Live Election Night Democracy’s Series Finale: Who’s Going to Clean Up This Sh*t? special illustrated the fundamental disconnect between live television and the art of comedy writing steeped in expectations," says Eric Kohn. "It was fascinating to watch Colbert fidget in between commercial breaks, tap his toes in a nervous patter as he waited for the camera to go live, and mutter to his producers about the best way to improvise around an abrupt shift to their plans. (He would later admit that he avoided writing jokes before the broadcast about a possible Trump win.) His profound closing monologue, about the poisonous nature of American discourse and prospects of moving ahead in dire times, ranks as one of the greatest moments in improv history. (Even if it was partly scripted, Colbert’s delivery was dictated by the grim atmosphere around him.) Colbert found his groove by the end of the show in part because he could he could work through the tension that surrounded him at every turn. He could roam the room and scan the crowd, tossing out shreds of reflective ephemera in the hopes that anything might stick. With bandleader John Batiste following Colbert’s cues, the space transformed into a surreal, free-flowing musical thriller, the invention of a new TV genre before our very eyes."
• Watch James Corden recap four years of the Trump presidency in three minutes, Broadway musical-style