Conan O’Brien did something rare this week: he told the truth about what too many in Hollywood have become. Speaking at the Oxford Union, he pointed out that some comics have traded their craft for rage, reduced to repeating the same tired line about the former president instead of doing the hard work of being funny.
That observation matters because comedy used to be one of the last honest forums for holding power to account, not a permanent temper tantrum stage. O’Brien warned that those who default to constant outrage have “put down their best weapon” and “exchanged it for anger,” and he’s right: anger without craft is propaganda, not satire.
Americans who aren’t trapped in the coastal echo chamber know this instinctively — comedy that merely shouts talking points is boring and corrosive. Hollywood’s conversion of stand-up stages into left-wing rallies has hollowed out an art form that used to punch up with wit and surprise; Conan’s pushback is a breath of fresh air and a rebuke to the professional outrage industry.
Conservative voices on independent media rightly celebrated Conan for calling out the self-righteous mob. Megyn Kelly’s platform and commentators like Link Lauren have been rebuilding honest cultural criticism outside the old gatekeepers, and it’s encouraging to see them applaud someone in the mainstream who still values craft over cheap political theatrics.
There’s also a free?speech angle here that conservatives should embrace: when comedians resort to shrill censorship-by-popularity or let bureaucrats threaten shows, the first casualty is culture and the last thing we need is a nation where only state-approved outrage is allowed. Conan even criticized attempts to silence late-night voices, making his comments a defense of humor and open debate alike.
If conservatives want to win the cultural fight, we should welcome allies who tell the truth about the left’s performative fury — even if they wear a different label. Conan’s plea to be funny again is a patriotic appeal to restore an art that punches up, not down, and the applause from sensible hosts shows there’s a broad appetite for real satire rather than nonstop sermonizing.
