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Americans want to move past angry political comedy. Can late-night?

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Picture two multimillionaires, supposedly grown men, blurting out vulgarities and throwing somebody else’s furniture off the top of a building in a major city. This might be cause for intervention from the police or perhaps counseling services. Instead, this was part of a going-away stunt by ousted CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert, along with his predecessor, David Letterman.

Colbert used to be a successful comic, but over time his attitude, ratings and career all spiraled downward, largely because of his political anger.

Colbert’s run on CBS ended on May 21. He spent much of his waning airtime berating his employer, congratulating himself and bringing on high-profile guests to flatter him. Those guests included former President Barack Obama and comedy hosts from rival networks, who spent much of their time psychoanalyzing their preferred target: President Donald Trump.

CBS announced last summer that Colbert’s show was getting canned. CBS attributed the cancellation to a financial decision. Various media outlets reported that Colbert’s show was very expensive to produce and losing upwards of $40 million per year. The host raked in a reported salary of $15 million annually. The........

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