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While I agree that it should be protected under free speech, I'm not sure haranguing the president who half the country voted for while making offensive remarks

While I agree that it should be protected under free speech, I'm not sure haranguing the president who half the country voted for while making offensive remarks with respect to the LGBT community is the best marketing ploy. Seems like if anyone should be upset it should be his employer CBS. However, paradoxically sometimes controversies actually increase ratings so they might be fine with it.

Meditato 10y ago
No, "half the country" did not even vote. Significantly less than half the popular vote was for Trump.
- blackflame7000 10y ago
  And the highest rated TV show of all time (Super Bowl XLIX) only managed to attract 115/330 million people so what's your point. Are you arguing that somehow TV viewers are far more likely to be Democrat? Is there some reason that the same distribution of voters wouldn't apply to TV as well? The final election results were Clinton 65,844,610 Trump 62,979,636 If you call the difference significant (2.2%), then what does that make the gross value of 62 million americans that might be turned off by his rant?
  - AbrahamParangi 9y ago
    I think the point of the objection was that about 19% of Americans voted for trump, instead of "half the country". Even if this were a strictly cynical action on Colbert's part (and I don't think it is) you could make the argument that given Trump's unpopularity you might create more value out of bashing him than you lose from his supporters. Moreover, I suspect that Colbert's target demographics skew richer, younger, and urban/suburban so he probably has less to lose and more to gain by alienating Trump supporters anyway.
    - blackflame7000 9y ago
      Assuming everyone that didn't vote has no political opinion, do you think that they would care about Colbert's rant? I addressed the phenomenon of paradoxical popularity reactions to controversies in my original post, but I still don't see the value of insulting anyone when you are in the business of advertising to as wide of audience as possible. Lets not forget TV is an advertisement driven business. Bill OReilly found out pretty quick that it wasn't his analysis that kept him around, it was the sponsors.
lawnchair_larry 10y ago
The only comments from the LGBT community that I've seen are that they found it funny and not homophobic. It seems to be the Republicans who are calling it homophobic.
- jmcdiesel 9y ago
  The irony there...
- blackflame7000 9y ago
  This story was on the front page of yahoo.com, a left-centrist publication, yesterday: https://www.yahoo.com/tv/stephen-colbert-hot-water-over-homophobic-donald-trump-201551070.html https://www.yahoo.com/tv/stephen-colbert-hot-water-over-homo... In today's age its a bad bet to assume something isn't offensive to anyone.
  - lawnchair_larry 9y ago
    But that isn't what's happening here and you know it. You're a Trump supporter, that's cool, but please drop the concern trolling. You're not offended, you're just being opportunistic.
    - blackflame7000 9y ago
      I'm not offended and never said I was. I was merely pointing out that an article citing a bunch of tweets from offended people was the cover story on yahoo yesterday, in response to a comment saying no one was offended except republicans.
      - lawnchair_larry 9y ago
        I encourage you to take a look at those "offended" people in the yahoo story. The first one has a twitter background that reads, "make liberalism ridiculous again" and a long list of very "right" leaning tweets. The second is full of the same concern trolling towards other media figures with their statements taken out of context - the exact thing you're expressing frustration with in the other thread. Also a republican. The third's twitter avatar is literally "I <3 TRUMP" The fourth, to his credit, admits in other tweets that he is a republican, wasn't actually offended, but was just making a point (you know, the thing you're doing now). The fifth has an avatar of Pepe the Frog, and a background of Trump stylized like Duke Nukem, holding a gun in front of the American Flag, and a pinned tweet about the "alt-left being pedophiles". I'll summarize the rest: I checked, and every single one of them are very outspoken republicans. I think I have you dead to rights here. If there is a non-republican somewhere in this country who was offended, you definitely didn't link to a yahoo article referencing any of them. The only thing you did was validate my point. Anyway, I know what you're doing. Your point is that the other side is constantly doing this same type of thing to Trump. I agree, and I think it's out of control. The Washington Post has become as bad as Fox News. I used to see this from the lunatic-right and wonder how certain headlines alone were not setting off their skepticism alarms. Now I'm being flooded by the same type of thing from the lunatic-left. It does not leave much room for optimism.
mcphage 9y ago
However, CBS doesn't seem particularly upset, which is why people are going to the FCC to complain instead.

Meditato 10y ago

No, "half the country" did not even vote. Significantly less than half the popular vote was for Trump.

blackflame7000 10y ago
And the highest rated TV show of all time (Super Bowl XLIX) only managed to attract 115/330 million people so what's your point. Are you arguing that somehow TV viewers are far more likely to be Democrat? Is there some reason that the same distribution of voters wouldn't apply to TV as well? The final election results were Clinton 65,844,610 Trump 62,979,636 If you call the difference significant (2.2%), then what does that make the gross value of 62 million americans that might be turned off by his rant?
- AbrahamParangi 9y ago
  I think the point of the objection was that about 19% of Americans voted for trump, instead of "half the country". Even if this were a strictly cynical action on Colbert's part (and I don't think it is) you could make the argument that given Trump's unpopularity you might create more value out of bashing him than you lose from his supporters. Moreover, I suspect that Colbert's target demographics skew richer, younger, and urban/suburban so he probably has less to lose and more to gain by alienating Trump supporters anyway.
  - blackflame7000 9y ago
    Assuming everyone that didn't vote has no political opinion, do you think that they would care about Colbert's rant? I addressed the phenomenon of paradoxical popularity reactions to controversies in my original post, but I still don't see the value of insulting anyone when you are in the business of advertising to as wide of audience as possible. Lets not forget TV is an advertisement driven business. Bill OReilly found out pretty quick that it wasn't his analysis that kept him around, it was the sponsors.

lawnchair_larry 10y ago

The only comments from the LGBT community that I've seen are that they found it funny and not homophobic. It seems to be the Republicans who are calling it homophobic.

jmcdiesel 9y ago
The irony there...
blackflame7000 9y ago
This story was on the front page of yahoo.com, a left-centrist publication, yesterday: https://www.yahoo.com/tv/stephen-colbert-hot-water-over-homophobic-donald-trump-201551070.html https://www.yahoo.com/tv/stephen-colbert-hot-water-over-homo... In today's age its a bad bet to assume something isn't offensive to anyone.
- lawnchair_larry 9y ago
  But that isn't what's happening here and you know it. You're a Trump supporter, that's cool, but please drop the concern trolling. You're not offended, you're just being opportunistic.
  - blackflame7000 9y ago
    I'm not offended and never said I was. I was merely pointing out that an article citing a bunch of tweets from offended people was the cover story on yahoo yesterday, in response to a comment saying no one was offended except republicans.
    - lawnchair_larry 9y ago
      I encourage you to take a look at those "offended" people in the yahoo story. The first one has a twitter background that reads, "make liberalism ridiculous again" and a long list of very "right" leaning tweets. The second is full of the same concern trolling towards other media figures with their statements taken out of context - the exact thing you're expressing frustration with in the other thread. Also a republican. The third's twitter avatar is literally "I <3 TRUMP" The fourth, to his credit, admits in other tweets that he is a republican, wasn't actually offended, but was just making a point (you know, the thing you're doing now). The fifth has an avatar of Pepe the Frog, and a background of Trump stylized like Duke Nukem, holding a gun in front of the American Flag, and a pinned tweet about the "alt-left being pedophiles". I'll summarize the rest: I checked, and every single one of them are very outspoken republicans. I think I have you dead to rights here. If there is a non-republican somewhere in this country who was offended, you definitely didn't link to a yahoo article referencing any of them. The only thing you did was validate my point. Anyway, I know what you're doing. Your point is that the other side is constantly doing this same type of thing to Trump. I agree, and I think it's out of control. The Washington Post has become as bad as Fox News. I used to see this from the lunatic-right and wonder how certain headlines alone were not setting off their skepticism alarms. Now I'm being flooded by the same type of thing from the lunatic-left. It does not leave much room for optimism.

mcphage 9y ago

However, CBS doesn't seem particularly upset, which is why people are going to the FCC to complain instead.