By CLARENCE MCKEE

Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, and other late-night comics who are turning late night television into a platform for left wing political partisanship and anti-Trump messaging better enjoy their short-term ratings boosts for now — it won’t last!

The Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Henninger had a good name for them: “Democrats After Dark.”

Johnny Carson and Jay Leno didn’t rule late night television for over 50 years by playing political partisanship, spewing bitter and often hateful attacks on presidents, members of particular political parties, or by supporting failed presidential candidates.

You can bet that neither Carson nor Leno would have — as did Jimmy Fallon — turn the Tonight Show over to female staffers and singer Miley Cyrus to fawn over and grovel before Hillary Clinton — expressing regret over her loss and ridiculing the person who defeated her!

Late-night television, like NFL games, used to be a time where Americans could escape from everyday problems and politics.

Not anymore! We have seen how NFL ratings and audience have fallen off after athletes began refusing to honor the American flag and stand for the national anthem. A Winston Group poll found that the NFL has been replaced by Major League Baseball as America’s favorite sport.

Even more shocking to NFL owners is that just 42 percent of males aged 34-54 had a favorable view of the NFL in September, a 31-point drop from the 73 percent the poll reported in August.

Football now has the highest unfavorable rating of any major sport in the survey!

In the same vein, a Rasmussen poll at the end of September showed that 34 percent of people were less likely to watch NFL games because of athletes’ disrespect for the flag and national anthem.

That’s probably why the owners of the Dallas Cowboys, Jerry Jones, and the Miami Dolphins, Stephen Ross, have rightfully told their players to stand for the national anthem. I predict more will follow!

If these NFL self-important male prima donnas can’t stand the heat in the NFL kitchen, then let them forgo the NFL mega million dollar salaries and put their tattooed muscles to work on construction projects to rebuild America’s infrastructure!

Just as Americans do not want to be lectured on politics at NFL games by ungrateful millionaire athletes, they also don’t want to have politics shoved down their throats on late night television!

Few people could tell you the politics of Carson or Leno or where they stood on any particular issues based on their latenight comments. Not so now for Kimmel, Colbert, Fallon, Conan O’Brien, Seth Myers, or Trevor Noah.

Americans hear enough about Obamacare, gun control and other major issues during the day without it being shoved down their throats on late night television as they prepare for bed or just want to get away from the torrential downpour of often tragic news.

As Jay Leno said about today’s late-night television: “…it should be called ‘What did Trump Do Now?’ That’s basically what everybody’s monologue is. You almost wish for a normal day, just to have a joke.”

Exactly right!

Okay, so they are getting ratings by trashing Trump and Republicans and taking the position of the left on gun control and healthcare. The question is, how long can they continue to appeal to the elite liberals of Hollywood and New York and forget about the vast majority of people in the states in between responsible for Trump’s upset victory?

Late night comics may have writers who give them so-called funny anti-Trump and GOP jokes and monologues, but they are also apparently tone deaf to the values and views of most of America — their audience!

They can spout Democratic Party and leftist “anti-Trump” rhetoric all they want to gain a temporary rating boost over their competitors. But, they had better take a look at how liberal progressivism has been doing around the country — not well!