It has been a common retort among critics, especially in the aftermath of Stephen Colbert’s cancellation, that the late night comedy shows are just liberal group therapy sessions, but on Monday, NBC’s Seth Meyers decided to confirm these claims in an appearance on the Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard podcast. According to Meyers, his goal for Late Night is to make a show that is “both cathartic to do and cathartic to watch.”
Observing the highly political nature of Meyers’s show, Shepard asked, “Have you felt over the years that, like, it's a bit of a dog whistle for people to come commiserate with you in a way that you're like, ‘Ugh,’ I don't, let's put it this way. I have my own political opinions. I find one of the most boring things in the world is to hear someone else's political opinions because there's only two, but everyone's saying it as if they thought of it themselves and it's novel. No. You just declared you're on that side. I get it. So, I would imagine people find you in restaurants and they, like, they want to bond over that with you.”
Meyers briefly answered the question but then moved on to claiming that Late Night’s heavy leftward slant could be a beneficial get-out-the-vote operation, “Yeah, very, I mean, again, like sometimes, I think early on people would say, like, ‘Do you really think you're changing anyone's mind?’ And it was ‘no.’ I would like to think that maybe we could, like, if someone's like, ‘Should I vote or not?’ You would want to maybe if they watch our show they think ‘You know what I am going to get out and cast a ballot.’”
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