After nine months on the air, Jordan Klepper’s late-night series ended its run on Comedy Central last night. For the show’s final “Just Between Us†segment, Klepper’s so-called “alt-right asshole†character had a rare moment of clarity. “I think the bad guys won. I think maybe we’re bad,†he said. “Dammit guys, let’s look at our team. Putin murders people. Kim Jong-un murders people. And Stephen Miller definitely has dreams where he murders people. And sure, none of those people I just mentioned are Nazis, but we also have Nazis. And oh yeah, we’re also the team that puts kids in cages, which doesn’t pair well with the alleged child molester we tried to make a senator. This is bad-guy shit, guys!â€
After a moment of self-reflection (“Is this who we actually want to be? Have the critics been right? Am I hurting America?â€), Klepper realizes that the only way he can live with himself is to embrace the reality of being a bad guy completely. “I am at the end of my rope here. I’m looking at Nazis running for office, American institutions being torn to shreds. I want to win, but I don’t want to feel this way — like I’m complicit, like because of our team, democracy is on its last legs,†he said. “Being the villain is how we win. It’s how we stay in power, in spite of all the costs. So no matter how blatantly obvious it is that we’ve become the worst versions of ourselves, I guess we’ll keep it just between us.â€
While last night’s Opposition finale marked the end of Klepper’s alt-right character, he is slated to return to Comedy Central sometime in 2019 with a brand-new weekly show.