All opposed? Klepper’s ‘Opposition’ spoof sure is

By Frazier Moore

AP Television Writer

NEW YORK

Someone once famously said that “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”

That was then, before objective truth lost its power to persuade; before facts were swept aside like pesky tumbleweeds. Now, it’s not just evidence that’s putty in the hands of every partisan. Entire cosmologies are now do-it-yourself projects, made to order for each person’s mind-set.

So say hello to “The Opposition w/Jordan Klepper,” whose host aims to rally a rash of rabid world views. Following Comedy Central’s nightly fake newscast, “The Daily Show,” Klepper’s fake rantcast premieres tonight at 11:30 with a pledge to push back against the ever-present threat of reality.

A promo for “The Opposition” with Klepper wearing a know-it-all sneer helps explain: “THEY say, ‘Investigate Trump.’ I say, ‘Impeach Hillary.’ ... They say, ‘Our children should learn Chinese.’ I say, ‘China isn’t real.’”

TV-Klepper is opposed to mainstream media. Opposed to Oprah’s Book Club. Opposed to that Vietnamese soup with the name that sounds vaguely like the movement known as “antifa.”

Klepper, 38, was a correspondent on “The Daily Show” for three years and before that performed with the Upright Citizens Brigade and Second City improv troupes.

Now giving a tour through the rambling, recently occupied quarters of “The Opposition” in a building across from New York’s Penn Station, the off-screen Klepper is a rangy 6-foot-4 with an affable manner and a hearty laugh. Not the sort of chap for whom mad-dog fulminating would seem to come naturally.

Do the times make the man? Adapting to the current media ethos, with its even harsher, even more absurdist pitch, Klepper will in effect host a supercharged version of “The Colbert Report,” which from 2005 through 2014 occupied the same time slot with Stephen Colbert posing as a priggish conservative blowhard.

“We’re not ideologically based,” Klepper cautions. “We’re against it. What’s ‘it’? We’ll get back to you on that. But whatever ‘it’ is, we know we’re taking a strong stance against it.”

Home base will be a set that resembles a cushy concrete bunker, where Klepper will receive his “CJs” and, most nights, will interview – and mock-clash with – a guest. (First up: Kurt Andersen, author of the recent book “Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire.”)