Before the Media Treated Him as a Threat, They Treated Him as a Joke

In March 2011, The Colbert Report aired an installment of “Difference Makers,” the segment in which Stephen Colbert, through the character he played on the show, satirized American “heroes” in the guise of celebrating them. Its subject this time was a lawyer who had been making headlines for his efforts to challenge the constitutionality of “ladies’ nights” at bars. “The latest giant of civil rights,” Colbert said, had been failing: His arguments had been rejected by every judge he’d brought them to, including the ones who sat on the Supreme Court. But he would not be deterred. “I’m going to fight the feminists,” the lawyer told Colbert, “until my last dollar, my last breath. And if there’s anything after death, I will fight them for eternity.” A Difference Maker, Colbert noted to the audience, never backs down. “Even alone,” he said, “Roy Den Hollander will continue to fight the good fight.”

The segment was a classic example of ’s sly brand of comedy. Now, though, it carries a new weight. This week, Den Hollander was named as the in the killing of Daniel Anderl and the wounding of in yesterday, Den Hollander seems to have left a long trail of racist and sexist writings—some of it, recently, directed at Judge Salas.