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Penn State professor: Stephen Colbert ‘one of the most important satirists in American history’

Posted on May 21, 2026
By Dave Huber - Associate Editor
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Stephen Colbert laughs (probably at one of his own jokes) / YouTube

ANALYSIS: The comedian whose show is about to be canceled allegedly ‘didn’t just satirize the news – he informed the public’

A professor of international affairs and comparative literature at Penn State believes soon-to-be canceled late-night talk host Stephen Colbert will go down as one of the “most important satirists” in the history of the country.

Writing in The Conversation, “scholar of political satire” Sophia McClennen (who over a decade ago opined that conservatives are just too dense to grasp Colbert’s “smart comedy”) puts Colbert in the same class as Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, and … Benjamin Franklin.

This is because the “best satirists do more than entertain […] they influence public discourse and leave lasting marks on political life,” she says.

According to a Google AI overview, “satirist” is defined as a “writer, artist, or performer who uses biting humor, irony, parody, and exaggeration to expose flaws, corruption, or absurdities in individuals, institutions, and societal norms.”

Here’s why McClennen (pictured) believes the CBS late-night host is so special:

Penn State U.

* “He didn’t just satirize the news – he informed the public.” Because he clarified the U.S. Supreme Court Citizens United decision and “brought experts” on the show to explain “the absurdity of the physics and finances” of Trump’s proposed border wall.

* “He gave Americans a new political vocabulary.” He coined the term “truthiness” which was applied to the G.W. Bush administration’s efforts in Iraq, and how Trump’s invocation of calling the press “enemy of the American people” has an “authoritarian history.”

* Colbert “blurred the line between satire and direct action.” He ran a “satirical” presidential campaign in the 2008 election season, held a 2010 rally with Jon Stewart “to motivate” people to get out and vote, and “educated” voters during the 2020 election.

* “He measurably influenced political behavior.” (The almost exclusively liberal) politicians who visited his show got a “Colbert bump” — an increase in fundraising and exposure. Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico, for instance, took in $27 million in this year’s first quarter after an appearance.

* Colbert “redefined American patriotism.” Supposedly via his conservative “Colbert Report” persona which mocked so-called “blind” patriotism.

MORE: Notre Dame professor praises ‘comedians’ for ‘refusing to back down’ from Trump

“[T]he joke was never America itself,” McClennen writes. “The target was a performance of patriotism that treated dissent as disloyalty, emotional certainty as evidence and partisan identity as civic virtue […]

“Colbert’s satire consistently distinguished between nationalism and democratic patriotism. The former demands unquestioning loyalty. The latter demands accountability.” 

Four years ago however, Jon Rineman, a former writer for Colbert late-night competitor Jimmy Fallon, wrote that if guys like his past boss, et. al. wanted to become more popular (again, Colbert’s show is getting canceled; it reportedly was losing $40 million annually), they needed to tone down the politics and the patronizing tone.

Rineman, who now teaches at Emerson University, noted his students had said the constant anti-Trump “schtick” by late-night hosts was tiresome, and that Colbert and company merely regurgitate stuff they’d already seen on the news.

“The last time the pundits were so arrogantly dismissive, a network television host laughed all the way to the White House,” Rineman said. (Twice now, actually.) A couple of months after Trump’s second win, two other professors argued Colbert, et. al.’s over-reliance on politics at the expense of comedy helped The Donald occupy the White House yet again.

As College Fix Editor Jenn Kabbany noted over a decade ago, “Republicans get [Colbert’s] jokes, and most appreciate clever satire. What they don’t appreciate is being continually mocked and ridiculed. There are two sides to every story, or in this case joke, and Colbert’s condescension, even if it is delivered with wit, is more annoying than his jokes are funny.”

According to her faculty page, McClennen’s work “critique[s] the relationship between mainstream culture, politics, bias, and social injustice.” She’s also written about “cultural responses to social conflict such as those associated with war, imperialism, immigration, dictatorship, patriarchy, and globalization. “

MORE: Researchers retract study claiming Jon Stewart’s absence from ‘Daily Show’ helped Trump in 2016