Colbert impersonated a rabid right wing conservative - as a joke - for nearly a decade. That you didn't get that and now want to compare him to guys who aren't playing pretend is kind of dishonest.
Don't you think?
No, everyone got it. I enjoyed the show (and Stewart), tbh. If you can't laugh at yourself, you'll have a sadder life.
However, if you go back and read, you will note that I have explicitly and repeatedly pointed out that I am comparing "people who are deliberately deceptive" with "people who are deliberately deceptive". I'm also happy to compare "people who do not question that which confirms their biases" with "people who do not question that which confirms their biases" as well as "people who make a living by telling one side the other is stupid and/or immoral" with "people who make a living telling one side the other is stupid and/or immoral".
I enjoy the comedies. But they've played their role, as has dishonest mainstream media, in helping to build the market for what they are now decrying. When they are willing to take the log from their own eye, I will take more credibly their claims to be offended at logs-in-eyes in general. As I said earlier, Colbert has perhaps come closest to realizing this with his comments about perhaps drinking too much of the poison, and he deserves credit for that. Glen Beck has made similar comments, and deserves credit for that as well.
But spare me
Brian Williams complaining about "fake news". Colbert's audience
is informed by his show, even if he pro forma tells them to watch others. So was Stewart's. Ditto John Oliver, and whomever he is "
totally destroying!!!!!!!!!! this week. A mountain of psychology tells us that we tend to believe what feels right / confirms our preferences, and that we tend to overestimate the truth or likelihood of that which we can most easily recall. People who are misinformed tend not to change their minds upon receiving new data - instead,
they become more insistent upon their original opinion. These shows, while entertaining, make the bubbles of the liberals who watch them thicker, and leave them with a less accurate understanding others.
Fake News didn't start this cycle. It's old news. It's just now on the Right in a big way, and so suddenly now it's a problem.
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