Jon Stewart returned to the host's chair on Comedy Central's The Daily Show, and I thought he did fine. Of course, I'm not afraid of pointing out shortcomings on the Dem side of the aisle, just as I'm not afraid of pointing them out on the aisle's other side.
While I thought his monologue was entertaining, it didn't pull any punches.
- He talked about Biden not being able to remember things in his deposition and he showed a clip of not one, but four people named Trump not being able to recall things in their depositions;
- he blasted Biden's handlers, who aren't keeping a good handle on him, allowing him to make bad decisions, and bad appearances, like going on TikTok instead of doing the traditional Super Bowl Sunday presidential interview;
- he mocked just one of Trump's absurd statements - that Pennsylvania would change its name if he didn't win the election;
- he said Trump and Biden are "similarly challenged" age-wise, and gaffe-wise and
- he lamented that the strong, focused, on-his-game Biden that all of his staffers, appointees, and friends see is never filmed.
She also penned an email newsletter titled Jon Stewart's Danger To Democracy, in which she blamed him for low voter turnout in 2012 and 2016 - and for helping her uncle get elected.
Mary Trump, and the many others who jumped all over Stewart for "both-side-ism," missed the real point of his monologue. I added emphasis for her, and them.
We are not suggesting neither man is vibrant, productive, or even capable - but they are both stretching the limits of being able to handle the toughest job in the world. What's crazy is thinking that we're the ones, as voters, who must silence concerns and criticisms. It is the candidates' job to assuage concerns, not the voters' job not to mention them.
Stewart goes out of his way to say Biden isn't Trump, and lists the many ways they are not the same, and then says
But the stakes of this election don't make Donald Trump's opponent less subject to scrutiny - it actually makes him more subject to scrutiny. And if the barbarians are at the gate, you want Conan standing on the ramparts, not "chocolate chip cookie man."
The 'chocolate cookie man' comment is not a slap at Biden per se; it's a slap at the people who kept him away from - or didn't get him into - the Super Bowl Sunday interview and instead posted a bad TikTok video. Those folks, he said, deserve to be fired.
Stewart told us that "The next nine months or so, depending on the coup schedule - they're gonna suck." We're going to be bombarded with emails, phone calls, and more,
and it's all going to make you feel like Tuesday, November 5th is the only day that matters. And that day does matter, but man, November 6th ain't nothing to sneeze at, or November 7th. If your guy loses, bad things might happen but the country is not over, and if your guy wins, the country is in no way saved.
He continued, after admitting that the old Jon Stewart was "too glib" and "too dismissive" of the fact that
... the work of making this world resemble one that you would prefer to live in is a lunchpail fucking job day in and day out where thousands of committed anonymous smart and dedicated people bang on closed doors and pick up those that are fallen and grind away on issues until they get a positive result and even then, have to stay on to make sure that result holds.
So, the good news is, I'm not saying you don't have to worry about who wins the election - I'm saying you have to worry about it every day before it and every day after it. For ever. Although on the plus side, I'm told that at some point, the sun will run out of hydrogen.
If Mary Trump and all the others who jumped all over Stewart had paid attention to his full monologue, they'd understand that he's not "a danger to democracy," he's promoting participation in our democracy, and he's promoting accountability on the part of people who put these candidates before us.
Is he wrong?
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