Even before he rode that escalator, Donald Trump had long been a topic of late-night discussion. The jokes and critiques went into overdrive when his campaign was legitimized by the GOP, but now that he’s the president-elect (not to mention someone who’s threatened the First Amendment), it’s not clear if a change in tone is in order. Seth Meyers has offered a dissenting voice, but on last night’s Late Night, he was mostly just trying to be optimistic.
Meyers spent several minutes discussing the fear felt by the marginalized communities that are in Trump’s crosshairs, getting choked up over the disappointment his mother and other women must feel at Hillary Clinton not shattering that highest of glass ceilings. But, like so many others, all the host can really do is hope that Trump—after all that vacillating—was just paying lip service to bigots. Meyers does make one last-ditch effort to bring Trump back to NBC as the Chicago President, doubling the episode order for the purported series. But isn’t being humored and emboldened by NBC part of what got us into this mess?