While it's been a hot minute since we checked in on the corporate media wing of the Vichy American establishment, I'm guessing you will not be surprised to learn that bootlicking media and entertainment corporate "leaders" are kissing Downmarket Mussolini's ass by silencing dissent on behalf of a fascist would-be dictator once again.

As you may have heard, Paramount is trying to pull off an eight and a half billion dollar merger with Skydance Media; a merger that Trump and his corrupt ass FCC can block without too much effort. Although they'd deny it, this caused Paramount to settle an entirely baseless sixteen million dollar lawsuit against CBS news (which Paramount owns) brought by Trump himself for "deceptively editing" an interview with Kamala Harris during last year's presidential election. This craven bullshit stunk to high heaven, enough that even one of CBS's own employees, Late Night host Stephen Colbert was comfortable calling the settlement “a big fat bribe” on his show.

Whelp, three days later in what CBS assures us is completely unrelated news, they announced that the network is cancelling the Late Show entirely at the end of the year, despite the fact that the show still gets great ratings and is "often the highest-rated show in late-night."

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/jul/18/the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert-to-end-in-2026-as-cbs-cancels-show

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to end in 2026 as CBS cancels show

"CBS’s parent company, Paramount Global, is attempting to close the merger with Skydance after the deal fell apart last year. Paramount’s owners have been pushing the Trump administration to approve the sale of CBS to Skydance.

Colbert, speaking about the lawsuit settlement with Trump, said on Tuesday’s episode “Paramount knows they could have fought it”, because the company itself had called the lawsuit “completely without merit.”

Starting with the lawsuit itself, I think its important to understand that Colbert is entirely right. In the grand history of baseless lawsuits against the media, Trump's litigation against CBS for editing an interview for run time and clarity might be one of the all timers. News programs edit filmed interviews all the fucking time, including interviews with Downmarket Mussolini, and Trump's argument basically comes down to "this media organization dislikes me so they made my opponent look smarter and more articulate than she is." Which is not only absurd, but actively describes how the mainstream media has reported on the stream of consciousness, word salad vomit that comes out of Trump's mouth daily.

So Paramount rolled over, and more or less just gave Trump sixteen million dollars and a key political win (after all, he can now say "if I'm lying that the media is out to get me, why do they all keep settling with me?") to just bribe him and get the FCC to approve their merger. Colbert is right, it's an obvious bribe, and whether or not Trump directly had a hand in the result, criticism of the President and his corrupt enablers in the US establishment is resulting in a reprisal by a media company already collaborating with a fascist would-be dictator. Furthermore, that's not really a radical opinion because even milquetoast Democrat Politicians are cautiously articulating those same concerns:

"Senator Adam Schiff, a Democrat who appeared as a guest on Thursday night’s show, later wrote on social media: “If Paramount and CBS ended the Late Show for political reasons, the public deserves to know. And deserves better.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren, who has called for an investigation into Paramount Global’s relationship with Trump over the Skydance merger, wrote: “CBS canceled Colbert’s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount … America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons.”

I can't deny that part of me is tempted to look at all of this and laugh my ass off at centrist liberals because now their faves are getting the "pro-Palestine, anti-genocide" treatment so many progressive journalists and commentators suffered even under the previous Democrat administration. Trying to be the bigger person here however, I'll instead point out that the goddamn Late Show and Stephen Colbert are by no means radical leftists, pushing "dangerous" ideas in the public discourse. What Colbert offers is bog standard liberal political criticism repackaged in a mildly humorous way. If corporate media companies are prepared to dump a successful, revenue generating critic like Stephen Colbert at the drop of a hat over some mild criticism of their collaboration and the fascist regime in general, then it means that nobody is safe from these kind of reprisals in our mainstream discourse. This too then would be an example of the erosion of any democratic or non-fascist cultural aspects of our society, and a sign that despite Trump's recent gaffes, the fascist creep in America continues unabated.