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Jon Stewart, in his second Monday as The Daily Show host, is aware that the television as a medium is dying… also, he's contributing to it. You're welcome, he said.
Oh, and he's not backing down in the midst of the backlash from Democrats when he compared Trump and Biden. While Stewart didn't directly address the criticisms from former MSNC host Keith Olbermann to Mary Trump, he understood that it's Twitter (now X).
“Everything on Twitter gets a backlash. I've seen Twitter tell labradoodles to go f*** themselves,” he said.
Trump, a vocal critic of her uncle the former president, even posted on Twitter that Stewart's “both sides are the same” rhetoric as unfunny and a “potential disaster for democracy.” Also, she has thoughts.
For Stewart, “We're just talking here.”
It was one show — his first one back on The Daily Show after nine years. It was 20 minutes.
And in a play on the famous saying, “Democracy dies in darkness,” Stewart said, “Democracy dies in discussion.”
“It was never my intention to say out loud what I saw with my eyes and then brain. I can do better. I can haz learning. I can haz it,” he stated, referencing an old cat meme.
And that's the end of his address to the criticisms… which isn't anything really, if you think about it. Maybe because he doesn't have time. After all, Tucker Carlson just interviewed Russian president Vladimir Putin.
“Where do I study the particulars of unquestioning propaganda? I would need mentorship,” Stewart asks in his trademark '90s snark.
That would be Carlson interviewing Putin.
Stewart spent much of the monologue tearing into the Fox host and his “world-class fealty to power.” He continued to analyze how Carlson seemed to be at a loss on how to school his facial expressions as he sat across Putin.
The Daily Show Monday host then started to fake taking notes on how to do better and learn “the delicate dance of speaking ‘Of course' to power.”
Step one: Lie about what your job is. Carlson said he was a journalist.
Step two: Lie about what your duty is. Carlson said his duty is to inform people.
And lastly, he said, “Freedom of speech is our birthright. We were born with the right to say what we believe.”
Stewart interpreted this as disguising “your deception and capitulation to power as noble and moral and based in freedom.”
Carlson is then shown to have gone on a field trip from a Moscow underground train station — comparing it very favorably against the “filthy” New York subway system — to a “modern 2024 Russian grocery store.”
I've only been to two places in the US: Charlottesville and Washington D.C. I've never actually done any grocery shopping outside of CVS. I did go to a farmer's market twice. All that to say, does the US not have escalators where carts lock into place so they don't fall back when it's going up? What is Carlson's fascination with this apparently new-fangled — at least to him — technology?
Also, are you telling me bread in Russia is better than the one in the states? I haven't had Russian bread, but is it really THAT much better than the ones in America?
Anyway, as he's paying at the counter, Carlson states that he only spent $104 for a week's worth of groceries. And that amount, he said, radicalized him. I'm not sure how many people Carlson is supposedly feeding with that, but this is what's gotten him radicalized.
Let's suppose that $104 is what a Russian would actually spend to feed a family of four. In the US, according to USA Today, an average family spends $270 a week; a family of four $331. That's more than twice as much an American family spends compared to what Russian families do.
However, as Stewart pointed out, most Russians earn less that $200 a week. An average American family, according to USA Today statistics, earns $2,190 a week. But Carlson didn't include that in his report. Maybe his radicalization prevented him from doing so.
Stewart then stated that there's a hidden cost to the supposedly clean train stations and cheap groceries: one that dissident Alexei Navalny, who recently died in prison, and others like him paid.
The show then cuts to a video of Russian protesters being arrested for “daring to honor Navalny so publicly.” The TDS host mocked Carlson fawning over daily Russian conveniences and said, “Liberty is nice, but have you seen Russia's shopping carts?”
He then introduced correspondent Michael Kosta in what was supposedly a candy store in North Korea. There is something so disconcertingly similar with Carlson's Russian field trip with Kosta saying “death to America” while putting a quarter in a gum ball machine — all while pretending to be in a Pyongyang confectionery.
I'm sure Stewart isn't worried about the backlash. After all, his first episode had 1.9 million viewers, the largest for The Daily Show in six years.
Another thing he shouldn't be worried about? The backlash. I don't think there really is much of it. The comments that journalists from other shows have been highlighting aren't big players in the Democratic party. They don't affect how the Democrats are going to strategize a win in this election.
The White House hasn't responded to Stewart's first monologue, but I don't think they will. And honestly, they shouldn't. Jon Stewart, as much as still a lot of people would like him to do, will not save America. He be your information peddler, and he'll be your entertainer. But he won't be your savior.
