With just hours to spare before Election Day, The Late Show implored Americans to vote on Monday night’s live election eve special. The 11-minute-long segment was built around an adolescent “orphan ragamuffin”—ostensibly borrowed from a local production of Oliver!—who sings sadly about being “too scared to vote.” Thankfully, host Stephen Colbert was there to give her the courage to exercise her right (never mind that she’s probably, like, 10 years old), with some help from Jon Stewart (aka “friend of children everywhere, Mayor of Candytown”) and Hamilton star Javier Muñoz.
At first Stewart, in his thickest faux-Southern accent and a bright red top hat, sided with the ragamuffin and insisted that she do as she pleases. But then Colbert reminded him that Donald Trump—Stewart’s known anti-Semitic nemesis—is a presidential candidate, and of course, he changed his tune. “Are you serious?” he exclaimed, after a perfectly setup spit take (right in Colbert’s face). “That angry tax- and draft-dodging little orange groundhog is running for president?”
Orphan ragamuffin was still not convinced, though—Hillary doesn’t seem like such a great choice either: “To add my voice to either side would be an awful lie/ There’s power in abstaining, sitting out feels justified,” she belted, passionately. (Cue a clever jab at this very publication, in which Stewart says she should write for Slate based on her “unbelievably contrarian think piece.” For the record, even we know the time to think outside of the box is absolutely not now.)
It finally took a rapping Muñoz, adorned in his Hamilton threads, to convince everyone that they must not sit out this election, complete with a reference to “My Shot.” As this bizarre, anxiety-inducing election season comes to an end, we can at least be grateful that it produced such entertaining—and crucial—moments like this.
