What Kimmel and Colbert Can Learn from Ancient Comedians Who Ticked Off Their Leaders

President Trump's celebration of Jimmy Kimmel's (now brief) and Stephen Colbert's (still happening) removal from the air — along with his calls for canceling other late-night comedians — may feel very 2025. But for classics scholars, it feels a lot like the ancient world.

Image

"The founders absolutely read Plutarch," said Stanford University history department chair Caroline Winterer, who studies the influence of the ancient world on early American history. "And they often alluded to people who dared in these early democracies, these nascent republics, to look tyranny in the face and say that tyrants were a threat to the very survival of democracies and republics, which ultimately rest not on the will of one, but on the good of the many."

Listen & Read More on NPR