Stephen Colbert congratulated America for making it to the end of another week on Friday’s edition of Global‘s “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert”.
“TGIF!” he told viewers. “Which means ‘this government is fascist.’ I’m kidding obviously. It really means ‘tell God I’m furious.”
As Colbert noted, the week was marked with protests over the death of George Floyd that were largely peaceful, “despite the best efforts of some police.”
After displaying an array of cellphone video of unprovoked police attacks on peaceful protesters, Colbert segued to President Donald Trump’s speech on Friday, which Colbert described as his “plan to crack down for racial justice.”
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He also highlighted the mysterious armed forces that showed up in Washington, DC, clad in riot gear but with no uniforms, badges or identification. “You can’t do that!” Colbert declared. “Clear identification is how we hold law enforcement accountable.”
He continued: “The bad news is we have a secret police, the good news is they’re really bad at keeping it secret.”
Colbert also responded to a letter written by former Trump attorney John Dowd, which included the Trump-esque sentence that “the phony protesters near Lafayette were not peaceful and are not real.”
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“Well, for something that is not real, Trump sure is scared of them,” he said, also noting that the letter described peaceful protesters as “terrorists.”
“Terrorists? Why is the government afraid of its own citizens? That’s not an opinion or an accusation, that’s a plain fact. Trump is afraid of us. Why else would he put the White House inside a shark cage? Only this time it’s to protect the great whites,” said Colbert.
“Now it’s not necessarily a bad thing for the government to fear its own people. Leaders should have a healthy caution of overstepping the rights of its citizens, lest they rise up to remove them — in European history, a lot of times head first,” he continued.
“Over the past 10 days, the people have publicly assembled to petition the government to redress their grievances, and in response our leaders are trying to intimidate us into silence. It won’t work… as Isaac Asimov once said, ‘Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent,'” he added.
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“You’re not going to intimidate them,” Colbert said of the protesters. “If you think you can make them protest the way you want them to, then you’ve never protested. The whole point is making the powerful uncomfortable. Side benefit: it’s a great way to get your steps in.”
“The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. ET/PT on Global.
