Late Night Comedy Won’t Save Me This Time

The difference 8 years makes

In 2016, I was working at a small international preschool in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. We taught 60 students across 5 classrooms — my coworkers were Vietnamese, Canadian, Korean, British, Lebanese, and German. I was the only American on staff, but not the only one biting my nails. Vietnam is a full 12 hours ahead of the United States; as election results were finalized, I was sobbing on my lunch break. My fellow teachers surrounded me with a hug and commiserated with my dismay, shock, and anger. My boss sent me home early because I couldn’t get it together. I called off the next day as well, and spent the next 24 hours on the couch with my partner, also an American, reading every analysis of how the polls got it so wrong.

The only thing that helped was seeing Seth Meyers hold back tears, Stephen Colbert soldier through nausea, and Jimmy Kimmel unable to joke. The late night hosts reflected my own despair back to me. This was insanity, depravity, an unthinkable outcome. A bigoted and brash reality TV star, a serial offender against tenants, women, and anyone who dared question him, a man with no political experience — did half the country really just elect him to represent 330 million people? It was unbelievable, but indeed, they had. Over the next four years, I turned to the late shows for comfort and common sense…