Stephen Colbert and Thomas Massie refused to knuckle under to a tyrant
News and commentary for Floridians and other Americans
By J.C. Bruce
Thomas Massie and Stephen Colbert found their turbulent lives briefly intertwined this week as they both suffered the consequences of defying Donald Trump, but earned our respect for their courage.
Colbert first…
Tonight will be his last time to host The Late Show with Stephen Colbert after his network sacked him for daring to call parent company Paramount Global’s $16 million payment to Trump a “big fat bribe.”
Which is exactly what it was.
Trump had sued the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes because he didn’t like the way an interview with Kamala Harris had been edited, a specious legal action that no credible lawyer thought Trump had a snowflake’s chance in Miami of winning.
But Paramount had a big merger on the table with Skydance Media that it was desperate to finalize. And the Federal Communications Commission, run by Trump, could scuttle the deal.
So, they settled with Trump, Colbert shot his mouth off about the “bribe,” and three days later CBS canceled his show.
This is the television network that courageously supported the reporting of Edward R. Murrow, who stood up to the rabid, blacklisting Sen. Joseph McCarthy; the same network where the “most trusted man in America,” Walter Cronkite, read the news.
CBS used to stand for integrity, toughness, and the truth. It actually is an abbreviation for the Columbia Broadcasting System. We need to understand what it has become:
The Confederate Broadcast System, now owned and controlled by Trump allies.
As for Massie, the Republican Kentucky congressman faced a Trump-backed challenger for his party’s nomination this week and lost.
Trump allies poured in more than $32 million to defeat Massie, making it the most expensive U.S. House primary in American history.
Why was Trump so set on running Massie out of Washington?
Two factors were at play. The most obvious were Massie’s defiance of Trump on the president’s Big Bloated Budget Bill, Massie’s skepticism about the undeclared war in Iran, and the Kentuckian’s support for the release of the Epstein Files.
But Trump was also making a statement about the political cost to Republicans who dare cross swords with him. The message was clear: Toe the line or you will be annihilated politically.
But there may be a silver lining in Massie’s defeat.
After dropping millions, Trump did get the victory he sought, but a full 45 percent of Republicans voting in the primary stood by Massie.
We’re talking about a primary election where turnout is usually more tepid than a general election and where often only the most hard-core partisans vote. And among that very red crowd, and despite Trump’s unyielding criticism, Massie still garnered the support of nearly half of the Republicans showing up at the polls.
What does this tell us?
Call me a hopeless optimist, but Trump’s win feels like a Pyrrhic victory to me.
For those who haven’t kept up with their Greek history, King Pyrrhus in 279 BC won a major battle, but at such cost that he declared: “If we are victorious in one more battle, we shall be utterly ruined.”
I‘m thinking (hoping) this may foreshadow a weakness in the G.O.P. base that Trump’s opponents can exploit in the fall.
And finally…
While both Massie’s and Colbert’s futures are, at the moment, uncertain, and also for the moment, Trump may have gotten his way, this isn’t the last time we’ll hear from these guys.
Certainly not Colbert.
And while Massie generally comes from the other end of the political spectrum than I do, I admire his guts and his willingness to stand up to a tyrant. He joins the ranks of the Liz Cheneys and Adam Kinzingers of the world. You can be in worse company. And he’ll still be around to cause good trouble until the end of the year.
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J.C. Bruce
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Colbert, Massie ....AND J.C.Bruce, don't back down, thank you!
Great column this morning! And thanks so much for explaining your reference Phyrric, I was just going to ask Google to explain.