An Obituary for 'The Opposition' and the Future of Fake News
Well, the mainstream media finally did it. Those fake news disseminating, Soros-loving liberals finally eliminated the last semblance of truth on the airwaves. June 28 is a day that will live in infamy: the final episode of The Opposition with Jordan Klepper aired on Comedy Central. After nearly nine months of InfoWars-style truth spewing, Klepper’s nightly follow-up to The Daily Show with Trevor Noah will be no more, simply replaced with reruns of The Office to herd the sheep. But it is worth remembering the show’s short time in the sun, as it signified the evolving state of funny news (because I can’t say “fake news” anymore). However, audiences will not be wanting of Klepper’s radical attitude for long because he is developing a new weekly show with Comedy Central, tentatively titled Klepper, and it’s expected to premiere early next year, according to Vulture. Until then, it seemed time to take a look back at this bold experiment in comedy news.
Klepper hasn’t always been the far right provocateur we knew him as last week. He started as a lowly tool of the globalists on The Daily Show, working for three years under deep-state agent and liberal mouthpiece Trevor Noah. But eventually Comedy Central decided to take a stand and catapult Klepper to the frontlines of the fight against progressive ideals by giving him his own show. Comedy Central still hadn’t been able to restore the late-night lineup to the golden years of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or The Colbert Report. After the dismal failure of The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore (which has a highly suspect 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes) the network took a chance on Trevor Noah’s field reporter Jordan Klepper, sensing that his fake outrage and cocky conservatism was the perfect way to process the front nine of the Trump administration. But Klepper didn’t enter the fight alone, as one of the defining features of The Opposition was his correspondents.
One of the brightest stars from Klepper’s pool of reporters was Kobi Libii, formerly an actor getting bit parts on Transparent and Madam Secretary, but now at the forefront of comedy news. Libii took the angry, emboldened ignorance that defined The Opposition and kept it moving forward by not being just another pissed off white guy. By far one of Libii’s finest segments was when he confronted Alex Jones of InfoWars at a speaking event, demanding to know whether or not Jones was himself a crisis actor. The report culminates in Jones dumping a bottle of his snake oil supplements on Libii’s head in the middle of the sidewalk, and later addressing Libii only as “Mr. Chuck E Cheese” before having him thrown out of a hotel. Comedy Central has made clear that it has another home for Klepper, but it cannot allow the deep-state to silence Libii by not getting him another gig.
However, Libii was not the only talent The Opposition sent out into the field. In another attempt to break away from the traditional comedy-news format, the show featured the tag-team of citizen journalists Aaron Jackson and Josh Sharp. These two are sassier than if Tyra Banks got wine drunk in a special guest spot on Queer Eye. Just as Libii broke the usual mold by being a conservative person of color, Jackson and Sharp represent the ignorant and entitled millennials that have become a cornerstone of conservative political conquest. One of the defining moments for the duo was when they went out to cover the issue of censorship and the fight against conservatism on college campuses, or as they referred to it, “conservative political action.” When the pair sits down for an interview with Turning Point USA founder and Tucker Carlson with a time machine Charlie Kirk, the outcome is far more cringy than the most awkward thing Ricky Gervais ever did on The Office. The two being paired together allowed them to concoct a captivating chemistry but also could end up limiting future career options as dual hosting a talk show isn’t exactly commonplace, unless you count Paul Shaffer.
But even though Comedy Central has calmed fears about Jordan Klepper going away, we still don’t know which Jordan Klepper will show up in his new show. When Stephen Colbert left The Colbert Report and started hosting The Late Show we were presented with a completely different character than the founder of “truthiness.” There would be no “tip of the hat, wag of the finger” on CBS because Comedy Central claimed ownership of the copyright of Stephen Colbert’s character, Stephen Colbert. Therefore he had to ditch his conservative counterpart and is now an outspoken critic of Donald Trump, somehow while still maintaining his creativity and bite. Luckily, Klepper will not be changing networks like Colbert did. However, he will be changing formats as he moves to a weekly, in-depth investigative program rather than the nightly news format he molded his character to fit. But this change goes far beyond Jordan Klepper or anybody on The Opposition. This is about the future of fake news.
Ever since Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert left, Comedy Central has been trying to fill their shows and shoes with something just as culturally relevant. But after Larry Wilmore tanked, Klepper is out and Trevor Noah somehow manages to stay afloat, the network seems to be switching baskets. Nowadays, people aren’t tuning in every night to hear the day’s events because by 11 p.m. they’ve heard the stories and jokes a dozen times on social media. Now weekly shows like Last Week Tonight and Real-Time are dominating ratings, and other networks are trying to get in the game with shows like The Break with Michelle Wolff. Just as real TV news is dying, as is its fake news counterpart. So, while you may have never watched The Opposition, the show’s cancellation marks a renunciation by audiences of Comedy Central simply trying to ride on past successes without considering innovative new projects. But rather than creating those new projects, Comedy Central is merely trying to ride on the past success of HBO. Should go well this time around.