It’s been awhile since we’ve seen Stephen Colbert play a character. With a few exceptions for when he brings back his Bill O’Reilly–esque conservative alter ego from The Colbert Report, the host has generally played it straight on The Late Show—at least, when he’s not dressing up like Hunger Games emcee Caesar Flickerman and infiltrating the R.N.C. On Monday night, however, Colbert went high concept to debut a new doppelgänger—inspired by Alex Jones.

Jones, a fringe radio host and conspiracy theorist, is currently embroiled in a nasty custody battle, one Colbert noted may be affected by Jones’s public behavior—which includes saying that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was staged and that the American government had a hand in 9/11. Jones’s lawyer claims that Jones is merely playing a character when he makes these outrageous statements on Infowars, calling him more a performance artist than an actual proponent of fake news. And on Monday, Colbert pointed out that he knows all about how playing a character can muddle with your real-life reputation. But instead of bringing back his old pundit character from Comedy Central, Colbert proved his point by introducing his audience to Brain Fight host “Tuck Buckford,” a new persona who is decidedly more unhinged than his old Colbert Report host ever was.

“Listen, people!” Colbert-as-Buckford shouted into his mic. “The liberals want to tattoo Obama logos onto the skin of Christian babies, O.K.? And it makes me want to fight! Fight with my fists; my blood is on fire; my heart is a volcano; it’s time to throw a virgin in there! I am a skeleton wrapped in angry meat! I am a warrior! I am a king! One thing I am not is a performance artist because I hate artists because Andy Warhol put chemicals in Campbell’s soup that turns veterans into bisexual zombies! Now a word from our sponsor, self-lubricating catheters. Buy my vitamins!”

As the political landscape becomes more polarized, Bill O’Reilly—once Colbert’s favorite punching bag—and “Stephen Colbert” have given way to personalities like Alex Jones, Tuck Buckford, and Tomi Lahren—much farther-right figures (both real and made up) who seem poised to continue to permeate mainstream culture. If that’s the case, let’s just hope John Oliver finds a way to infiltrate Infowars with his own farcical catheter commercials real soon.