The Future President, Donald Trump

It is true that Trump’s platform is populist in all its particulars (the angry opposition to immigration, the anti-vaccine hysteria, the well-chosen opposition to hedge-funders), but it’s a strange kind of populism, entirely detached from cultural identity. Really, it’s detached from any specificity at all. It isn’t a Christian populism derived from fear of secular society, nor a regional populism animated by hatred of Washington or New York.


It isn’t even really an anti-elite populism.


Trump’s pledge, remarkably modest, is simply to replace one terrible set of elites with another, amazing one.

Trump is a candidate of fury in a time when, relatively speaking, no one in his base really has it too bad.

Trump’s pledge, remarkably modest, is simply to replace one terrible set of elites with another, amazing one.

"The two of them have a lot in common, actually," Fiorina said, comparing Trump and Russian President Valdimir Putin after criticizing Trump's openness to meet with the foreign leader.

But as soon as Trump appeared, the sharp, satirical Colbert seemed to vanish, leaving in his place a respectful and contrite interviewer. What followed was a volley of mainly softball questions, more suitable coming from a fanboy rather than a supposedly edgy interviewer.

As Tim Teeman noted in The Daily Beast, "It felt like a first date, rather than a gladiatorial encounter."

One of the strangest moments came when Colbert publicly apologized to Trump (yes, you read that correctly) "because I've said a few things about you over the years that are in polite company unforgivable," Colbert said. "... I hope you'll accept my apology. ... Is there anybody you would like to apologize to yourself?"

Trump declined.

The way that this setup collapsed was reminiscent of how Trump refused to apologize to Jeb Bush during the last debate for insulting Bush's wife. In both instances, it was Trump who managed to appear in control.

We know that Colbert is capable of putting politicians on the hot seat from his years of skewering lawmakers (as his alter ego) on "The Colbert Report." More recently he has done insightful, newsworthy interviews with Joe Biden and Ted Cruz. So it makes no sense that Colbert would apologize to the man who has insulted Mexicans, immigrants, women, TV anchors and his fellow candidates.

Rather than pushing Trump to explain his bigotry and misogyny, Colbert treated him deferentially, further legitimizing a candidate who has imported nativist, hateful views into the political mainstream

Or perhaps Colbert's finely tuned carving up of Trump went over the head of that reviewer.

A little side step? When he moves from one pile of **** to another, you might think it is a sidestep but most of us can see the **** on his shoes getting deeper.

It was a great night for Trump. It was a considerably less-great night for Colbert. Coming off of his tough interview with Cruz the night before, the host was repeatedly bested by his guest. The grammar was all off, with Trump as the subject, and Colbert as, repeatedly, the object. Was he intimidated by Trump? Was he reprimanded for the harshness of the conversation with Cruz? Did he simply not take Trump seriously as a contender for the highest office in the land?

The Big Question about Colbert’s place in late night has been, pretty much as soon as it was announced that Colbert would take over for Letterman, how he would negotiate precisely this kind of interview. An interview with a high-profile politician. An interview with a high-profile politician who is extremely different from Colbert when it comes to questions of ideology. An interview with high stakes, not just for Colbert as an entertainer, but for Colbert as a kind of pseudo-journalist.

Had the Trump interview occurred on The Colbert Report, it would have been—or, well, it could have been—quite a match-up. Two blowhards, blowing hard against each other! But, of course, it wasn’t the character “Stephen Colbert” who conducted last night’s interview. It was Stephen Colbert, the affable late-night host. And that Stephen Colbert—the funny one, the charming one, the complicated one, the one who needs to keep booking politicians for his show—seemed unable to stand up to a man whose response, when asked whether there’s anything at all he would like to apologize for, is a simple “no.”

Donald Trump’s inaugural sit-down with late night host Stephen Colbert was far from the bout expected from two of the nation’s leading comedians, one of whom happens to be the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination.