TV viewers really wanted to see Jon Stewart host The Daily Show again
Jon Stewart’s return to The Daily Show brought Comedy Central its highest ratings in five years
Aux News The Daily Show
Television’s death has been greatly exaggerated—at least if ratings tell us anything. Hot on the heels of CBS reporting that Super Bowl LVIII was the most watched broadcast in television history, a basic cable network that mostly airs reruns of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia and The Office garnered its biggest numbers in five years. Jon Stewart’s return to The Daily Show pushed Comedy Central toward a rare ratings success for the network. Nearly one million viewers watched The Daily Show live last night, and a total of 1.85 million watched between the broadcast and its encores, making it the most-watched broadcast on Comedy Central in more than five years.
Morbid curiosity over whether or not Stewart still had the juice drove viewers to the show. Of course, this was not a foregone conclusion. It’s not like Stewart’s much-hyped Daily Show follow-up, The Problem With Jon Stewart, was the cultural juggernaut Apple hoped it would be. But the chance to see Stewart back at the desk where he commanded 15 years of political discourse was too exciting to dismiss, apparently.
To the surprise of many, Stewart didn’t miss a beat. His work was so effective that he ended up putting off many voters with his criticisms of President Joe Biden and his complete lack of interest in fighting the perception that he’s too old to run for office again. Moreover, The Daily Show treated Stewart’s return with the self-awareness befitting such an event. After all, it would be easy to treat this like Jay Leno taking back The Tonight Show. But in a field segment toward the end of the show, correspondents Dulcé Sloan and Jordan Klepper expressed the feelings of many skeptical viewers.
“This is the same shit all over again,” joked Sloan. “We need more than just the same show with an old, yet familiar face […] “I mean, they already had this job. Now these old white dudes got to come back and reclaim it. Like, come on, sir, go do something new. It’s so desperate.”
Klepper, too, got a moment on the soapbox to challenge Stewart’s “90s brand of snark and both siderism,” asking him condescending questions like “Did you save democracy yet?” While these jokes don’t erase the criticism, which is valid, they did help ease whatever lingering apprehension anyone in the audience might have toward Stewart’s return.
Comedy Central fumbled the bag twice in their search for a replacement for Trevor Noah. First, the network failed to lockdown Hasan Minhaj before The New Yorker dropped a bombshell report about how the comedian made up situations for jokes. Behind Minhaj was Roy Wood Jr., who probably made the right move to distance himself after the controversy and took himself out of the running. However, at the Emmys, as the staff of The Daily Show collected their Emmy for Outstanding Talk Series, Wood mouthed, “Please hire a host,” on stage. Wood got his wish.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Thankfully for Comedy Central, no one seems to mind.
111 Comments
a basic cable network that mostly airs reruns of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia and The OfficeHey, they also air a ton of South Park reruns!
Don’t forget Seinfeld marathon day!
Yup. Those are called weekdays.
I think Comedy Central’s been making a mistake with The Daily Show that the makers of Jeopardy! have also been making, and that’s trying to emphasize the show as opposed to a single host.
Anecdotally, I stopped watching The Daily Show after Jon Stewart left, but I never watched The Problem with Jon Stewart – and I have Apple TV+. In fact, I haven’t watched any of the TDS alums’ (Bee, Klepper, Minaj, etc) shows except for Last Week Tonight. I can’t speak to the mistakes Jeopardy!’s makers are making, but in The Daily Show’s case, for me it really was the perfect marriage of show and host.
Yeah the Daily Show became what it was after plenty of years of Stewart gradually refining both its format and his on-air personality. The two were inseparable. You can’t tell me it much resembled Kilborn’s patrician snarkiness (which I also enjoyed, but it was another show).
I thought Kilborn was actually much better at reading the headlines, but Stewart was far better at interviewing. Craig got better at that in his major network career though.Plus when Garofalo came on and threw herself at him it was always hilarious.
The Problem is worth the watch.
I haven’t watched any of the TDS alums’ (Bee, Klepper, Minaj, etc) Bee had some good episodes.
I’ve heard that her show was very good. I’ve heard mostly good things about everyone’s shows (I forgot to mention Wilmore’s The Nightly Show which I did watch and enjoyed very much). There’s just only so many takes on the news accompanied by a clapter track that I want to watch.
I’m actually curious as to why they didn’t make Klepper the heir apparent back in the day—he was seemingly the perfect fit. Maybe because his “Colbert Report” replacement show failed?
The biggest problem with this show was never the host, but the obnoxious sound mix that makes it sound like the audience is rooting for a sports team or something. Can we take it down a notch?
Its funny, too many ignore that, I appreciate your recognition of this irritating sound affect, surprises me how each generation inherits some and has to tolerate other assumptions about what entertains or if its our choice of media.
Morbid curiosity over whether or not Stewart still had the juice drove viewers to the show.
That’s a cynical way of thinking.
I watched because I like Jon Stewart performing. I don’t even have to agree with everything he says, his style is entertaining and funny.
I was apprehensive, but wasn’t watching in the hopes it would be a trainwreck. The only thing I wish he’d drop his is old Jewish man noise schtick.
Yeah, humor’s such a subjective and relative thing though.
I’ll take old Jewish man schtick over whatever Bill Maher thinks is comedy.
I mean… are we supposed to pretend he’s not an old Jewish man?
Want to clear something up for everyone. “Both-siderism” is when you use the bad things that your opponents do to excuse the bad stuff that your own side does.It is not both-siderism when you point out that both presidential candidates are fucking garbage.
One candidate is old and a bit centrist for the more leftist-minded folks out there. One is a career criminal rapist who will sell out NATO and Ukraine to the Russians and plunder state secrets for his own personal profit.Yep, I can’t spot the difference!
You make it sound like oligarchy is a bad thing. Why do you hate America?!
Ask the 28000 dead Gazans or the 12000 dead Palestinian children if they can spot the difference, you fucking ghoul.
And what, you think they’d fairing better right now under Trump?
Who the fuck cares. Trump is not in office right now. Stop trying to “whataboutism” these candidates.
WHY WON’T BIDEN MAKE ISRAEL STOP BEING ISRAEL
Ask the 28000 dead Gazans or the 12000 dead Palestinian children if they can spot the difference, you fucking ghoul. Simple question: would Trump be a more stable presence for that ongoing war, or worse?Let’s stick to reality here and recognize that, barring a late surge in pro-Haley sentiment, the race is going to come down to Biden and Trump.
trump would have installed the bomb and gun-makers as secretary of defence. for a handsome fee, of course.
All I know is that maybe if we cross our fingers and click our heels three times, the sitting U.S. POTUS will snap his fingers and three quarters of a century of imperialist fuckery (on the part of multiple nations – stemming from actual centuries of imperialist fuckery in the same region) will just dissolve – with no resulting instability or power vacuums – and #freepalestine will become reality.Apparently this is how one of the most complex geopolitical quagmires of the past 500 years is solved. You’ve heard of the gas lever, right? The imperialism lever is just to the right of that.But yeah, Biden won’t do a diplomacy and slap Netanyahu into jail, or something.
We can recognize that reality and not minimize Biden’s support for ongoing genocide and slaughter of children
I’m more interested in this mysterious Democrat Jesus who doesn’t exist and yet could win the election by virtue of being young.
Biden’s popularity is in the toilet. Pick a name from the phone book, put a (D) next to it and they’ll out perform Biden.
if they can spot the differenceJust don’t ask all the dead in Ukraine, or the thousands of children kidnapped by Putin’s invaders.
This is a very bizarre defense of Biden considering that everything you’re talking about happened/is happening under Biden.
happening under BidenHe certainly didn’t create the situation, Trump’s buddy Putin did by invading a sovereign county. Biden is attempting to do something about it by aiding Ukraine.
Biden actually did help create the situation back in 2014 when he was VP and Obama’s “point man” on Ukraine . . .
“Ask the 28000 dead Gazans or the 12000 dead Palestinian children if they can spot the difference, you fucking ghoul.”Oh yeah. I’m sure Dump who had a hand in further destabilizing that region when he pulled out of the Iran deal would have fixed everything by now.Bibi was warned by his own intelligence agencies of a possible attack, what, exactly do you think Biden would have been able to do to head this off?About the best Trump would have done is make threats on twitter which nobody would have paid any attention to. Much like KJU, who sent comically large love letters while simultaneously rebuilding missile sites.
Which candidate is buddies with Netanyahu? I’ll help you out… it’s Trump. Do you honestly think it would have turned out better for Palestinians with Trump in office? Only if it was all planned to make Biden look bad, but that would mean you fell for it. I’m not into conspiracy theories though.
Sure. One moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem and antagonized the entirety of Islam, helping enflame the tensions already in the region and giving an explicit thumbs up to Israel’s colonialist impulses, the other sits in the same shitty place that every President save maybe Jimmy Carter has sat in since 1945.You’re the one using corpses to shit on an anodyne argument on the internet with whataboutism, so, feels like a zombie calling a ghoul undead here.
So did Joe Biden move the embassy back or . . .
Ask the 250,000 dead civilians in Iraq. We don’t give a fuck about dead children in the US.
Apparently Trump would have united Israel and Palestine, strongly rebuked Netanyahu, and ensured that aid would flow freely into the war zo-Ah, fuggit, had to stop. Couldn’t keep a straight face.FFS, people are actually going to pretend that Trump would have handled this war with ANY level of aplomb. We haven’t learned shit.
He also is the one who moved the embassy to Jerusalem, enflaming the tensions that helped lead to October 7th.
Biden let RvW die. Biden is an out and proud fascist (Zionism is a form of fascism) openly supporting and funding an apartheid state, that is conducting ethnic cleansing and a genocide. Not to mention has turned a blind eye to similar issues in eastern europe and africa. Biden is senile and clearly has mental capacity issues. There is a difference Trump bar for acceptable is in the fuckign ground. Biden is just at floor. You want the 90% of the public that is not terminally online to get exited about the floor? Stop treating this as “we just have to be a little bit better than the other guy” Everyone who is not in Trumps cult knows Trumps issues, and Biden and the Dems are aiming for the floor instead of the sky for a candidate. Give the people something to vote for, not against.
“Biden let RvW die.”Wha? How on earth would you have proposed he stop a SCOTUS ruling? You CANNOT expand SCOTUS without significant Congressional backing, and the GOP sure as heck isn’t going to lend a hand to do that.Roe v Wade died for one reason: pure happenstance. The joke that is SCOTUS’ appointees is entirely based on which party happens to control the Oval at the time one of the sitting justices retires or dies. Except of course, when the Senate blocks the appointee in an election year, like Evil McTurtle did to Obama and Merrick.THAT is the real thing that needs to be reformed—-until there is some other criteria than “who happens to hold the Oval at the time” we could conceivably end up with a 9-0 imbalance at some point, which would be extra comical since the majority of the electorate in this country is liberal versus conservative. But again, its another thing that requires significant approval to change, which isn’t likely.That’s the real clusterfuck here. You can’t fix critical problems when the side with the surge of power needs to help.“ Biden is an out and proud fascist”That’s funny, his detractors usually call him a communist.Are you just lashing out in all directions aimlessly?I have definitely been guilty of this at times, but this is pretty out there.
Nah, see, Biden’s a fascist because he didn’t use the imperialism lever to automatically free Palestine, oversee the dismantling of post-imperial Israel, and/or magically fix the Constitutional actions of a conservative SC majority while rebuilding the U.S. economy and winding down a pandemic.This is what some people think that the POTUS can actually do.
“This is what some people think that the POTUS can actually do.”Just wait till MIGHTY KING TRUMP re-enters the White House, you stupid lib!
Don’t forget turning down the gas-prices dial built into his desk!
Yep! The gas lever, imperialism lever, and Supreme Court override lever are just to the left of the Resolute Desk, behind an umbrella stand. Simple, really! 😀
You make it sound as the president has no power whatsoever, in which case, why does it even fucking matter?
(Of course, in reality the president does indeed have broad powers to act unilaterally on foreign policy. While no singular president can completely dismantle US imperialism by himself, he can take real steps to diminish US global hegemony. Now whether or not that gets him JFKed remains to be seen.)
He could have lead the effort to codify Roe, but no, he sat back and said “meh” You seem to have a lot to talk about without understanding fundamentals.Who cares what his detractors on the right call him. Zionists are fascists and Biden is a proud Zionist.
“He could have lead the effort to codify Roe, but no, he sat back and said “meh””Let me make this straightforward for you.
SCOTUS overturned Roe when Biden did not have a significant control of the House, meaning that he almost certainly could not have secured enough votes to push it through.Nobody thought SCOTUS would have the audacity to pull such a thing prior to that. Abortion rights have been such a hot-button issue for the past 50 years that most politicians and elected officials have run screaming in the other direction from having anything to do with changing it.Heck, the new nominees even TOLD US under oath they wouldn’t.He can’t do anything until the Dems take a majority in the House and Senate, and make sure that every single Dem will vote to support it, which is not a given in anything but a deep blue district.I find it amazing that you call me out for not having basic fundamentals grasped, when this is Congress 101 that everybody should know.
Biden is senile and clearly has mental capacity issuesAh, ageism. The last acceptable form of bigotry.
The dude is clearly in decline. You can’t just scream “bigotry” at any and all criticism as if that makes the very real problems go away.
What I don’t understand is if this is such a important election (the most important election of our lifetime I’m told . . . again) why are the Dems so hellbent on running this pudding-brained mummy? Surely, a candidate capable of actually speaking on camera without fucking up terribly would be better equip to win against Trump. Biden’s popularity is historically low. It’s at Bush in 2008 levels!
If you want leftists to vote against Trump, maybe don’t tell them that Trump wants to dismantle NATO. Because given NATO’s history violently quashing leftist movements in Europe (Operation Gladio) and its current role enforcing US imperial interests, its destruction should be sought by anyone on the left. I know that Trump won’t actually do anything to thwart NATO, but don’t threaten me with a good time . . .
Sure. Silver lining—that line of thinking may ensure that November is our last election ever, so perhaps it’s a moot point.
If you really believed that this for all the marbles and could be the last election ever, wouldn’t it be smarter to run someone other than a widely unpopular and senile octogenarian?
Wouldn’t that be a better strategy than just trying to gaslight the 85% of voters who are worried about Biden’s age that behind the scenes he’s really much sharper behind the scenes than he appears on camera?Do you think Joe Biden could safely drive a car at this point?
Do you think Joe Biden could safely drive a car at this point?Is there anything left-wingers like better than snarfing up right-wing propoganda
He test drove the F-150 Lightning a couple of years ago in office, I doubt he’d be too old for it now.
But can he drive a car, though . . .
Would I have wanted a different/younger candidate? Yes. But unless you have a spare flux capacitor hanging around, here we are. If he dies 5 seconds after he takes the Oath, viva la President Harris. The alternative is unbearable.Biden over Trump. In literally any scenario you spin. Joe at least could drive a car at one time. Unlike his opponent (who can’t even drive his own golf cart). If you don’t think this is for all the marbles, I gotta ask if you were in a coma from 2017-2020, or if you’ve paid any attention whatsoever to what the GOP has done over the last four years. I will gladly share your frustration with our 2-party system on Wednesday, November 6th.
Yeah, the discussions I’m seeing around the 2024 race just reinforce to me that we absolutely *will* try fascism in the future, and we absolutely *will not* learn anything permanent from it.
Joe Biden will never have to drive a car as President, so who the fuck cares.
underrated comment.
So what, instead you’re saying “but both sides!” in order to justify… what? Another long standing and tried and true use of both sides is to encourage people to disengage or support a third, less realistic choice. As someone who followed that logic into voting for Ralph Nader in 2000 (my first ever presidential vote!) I’m very familiar with this kind of they’re both bad, so pick a nonviable option line of thinking.Here’s the thing, they are both garbage, sure, but when you lean into that you flatten them so they sound the same, or at least similar, when in fact the choices are more like:1) A rusted out old beater of a car, belching smoke as it chugs along its last few miles. It might explode at any time, and it’s definitely unsafe and not up to standards in terms of emissions as it guzzles gas like instead of a carburetor it has a capuchin monkey with a tin cup pouring fuel into the engine. However it is still a car capable of taking us in a direction we need to go. And if this car dies on the way there, it will be swiftly replaced with something like a sensible, unsexy well maintained ‘98 Camry.2) A dumpster full of toxic carcinogens, on fire. It’s not going to take you anywhere, and it’s only ever been a receptacle for disgusting, hazardous material. If the fire finally consumes the whole mess, it will be immediately replaced by… oh, theocracy, probably.And unfortunately, those are the choices! I hate that those are the choices. In my perfect, My Little Pony dream world, we would have an entirely different level of politician to choose from. In a more realistic world, Biden was solidly middle of the pack for me in 2020, somewhere below Warren, Castro, and Jay Inslee I guess if we have to pick an old white man. I hate that for some reason 2024 is gearing up to be a repeat of 2020 but worse and stupider. I also hate that there is no viable American presidential candidate that’s not dangerously pro-Israel.But if you don’t see the difference between those two things, you’re not actually interested in harm reduction; you’re interested in not feeling culpable for their (or America’s) crimes.
Uh, that’s exactly “both sides”. “Both candidates are absolute garbage” is the very definition of “both sides”. The long form of “both sides” is “Both sides are terrible”.
There is no more “both sides” anymore, it’s just mildly ineffectual democrats versus actual nazis.
I’ve always seen “both-sides”erism used as “arguing that both sides aren’t just bad but equally as bad when that is so laughably not true.”Yeah, Biden’s a garbage candidate, and I didn’t mind Stewart pointing it out for 20 minutes. It doesn’t mean Trump isn’t worse; it means we had three years to find someone better, and we didn’t. Or the DNC didn’t. Or Biden spent three years threatening people to not challenge him. I have no fucking idea, but pretending Biden’s age isn’t a problem is just going to piss people off. At least by confronting the reality, we know exactly what we’re voting for.
He was right about politics in 2024. Trump and Biden are both old, corrupt, genocidal maniacs. The system is rotten to the core when those two are what the party puts forward. Biden and Trump supporters are no different than the people that supported Hitler.
Yeah…I probably won’t watch again.Stewart’s brand of “both-sides” humor worked when Republicans wouldn’t have actively sided with Putin’s invasion of a sovereign country, Russian and Chinese botnets weren’t doing everything possible to turn us against each other, the Supreme Court didn’t have a conservative supermajority, abortion was still somewhat protected, and 99% of the GOP wasn’t in thrall to a demented orange blob who only wants the presidency to enrich and shield himself from prosecution.
I don’t know what you’re talking about, it was clearly favoring Biden. Acknowledging the situation we’re in is not “Both-sides” humor
It was not clearly favoring Biden. About 75% of the episode was devoted to criticism of Biden. And his whole “if your guys loses, it’s not the end of the world” thing is classic “both sides”. I have no problem with criticizing Biden, but do it reasonably and ideally about things that matter, like his policies and actual performance as president. Not his age, which is not something that’s going to change.
For every criticism of Biden they would point out that Trump was at least as bad, if not worse. And if you think his last point was just “it’s not the end of the world no matter who wins” you completely missed it. Were you playing a video game or something at the same time? I really don’t understand how you arrived at your conclusions.
Part of Stewart’s entire point is that Biden’s age isn’t going to change, and that Trump is also old af, and conservative media is being disingenuous when it criticizes Biden’s age. Stewart’s Daily Show tenure was always about commenting on the current news cycle and how the media covers it. The media is talking about Biden’s age right now, so Stewart talked about it. Presumably he’ll be talking about whatever the media has moved on to when he returns next week. Like, I was concerned about Biden’s age four years ago. Eight years ago I was saying that Bernie was too old to be seriously considered. I’m still going to vote for the Democratic candidate in November because I don’t believe the country can withstand four more years of Trump. Two things can be true.
Isn’t “both sides” the whole point of finding dark humor for this particular election cycle?Trump is a meglomanical wanna-be dictator who has prayed on people being less informed in traditional ways because society has lost faith in the actions of legacy media.Biden is old and has obvious concerns regarding who is making decisions. There are dubious reasons why he turns down press appearances and that is problematic during an election year where he is the candidate.Because we are stuck voting for one of these two, it should be fair game to point out there are no alternatives waiting that have any strength. Republican Party officials are so scared of Trump bad mouthing them, they fall in line. Democrats are needing to talk about Biden’s hidden strengths while ignoring the weaknesses he shows.Being able to acknowledge the absurdity of choice depending on a person’s personal politics is necessary. We know what pain follows a Trump re-election, but not knowing if we are expecting a Harris Administration has some people worried as well. In a year where “None of the Above” would be a great write-in option, the fact this race is much closer than it should be leaves me voting for Biden when I really wish he had stepped aside (But I can’t think of a good replacement who absolutely could defeat Trump… polls be damned!)
Yep. It’d be easier to slip into the warm bath of late 90s/early 2000s-level nostalgia if we weren’t weathering multiple existential crises (on multiple existential *levels*).
There was no “both side humour” Yes, Dems all of them should be scrutinized, because the Republicans sure as hell are going to do it. You dont ignore your own fault just because the other guys are worse. You are looking for self validation, not honest discussion. Your attitude is really no better than that of MAGA “ignore all our issues and focus on the other guys” Biden has an enormous amounts of fuck ups, and those matter to the 90% of the population that are not terminally online. Asking or expecting anyone to ignore that is just idiotic.
You are looking for self validation, not honest discussion. Your attitude is really no better than that of MAGA “ignore all our issues and focus on the other guys”Nah, I’m in the “beat Trump at all costs” camp. I don’t need, want, or expect validation from Stewart or anybody else. I DO expect influential public figures to not make an already tense electoral season worse.Biden has an enormous amounts of fuck ups, and those matter to the 90% of the population that are not terminally online. Asking or expecting anyone to ignore that is just idiotic.“Enormous amounts” is a stretch for Biden. Mixing up a couple of names in off-the-cuff remarks does not qualify as “enormous amounts of fuck ups” to me. The fact that the media spends so much time talking about a biased special counsel’s opinion on what Biden might say in a trial, while ignoring Trump’s daily screeds on Truth Social (which are absolutely batshit) is frustrating at best. Stewart plays into that. Likewise, I suspect the 90% of the population that are not terminally online are the ones least concerned about Biden’s age—because Hur’s report was all the terminally online media people were talking about this weekend.
biased special counsel’s opinion on what Biden might say in a trialThis portion of your statement is exactly what MAGA Republicans say about Trump’s numerous investigations and lawsuits. And it describes why Jon Stewart gets to play both sides of the coin. (Meet The Press did 5 minutes in the beginning of their recent episode talking about the concerns of Biden’s age… and they’re nowhere near a Conservative News Outlet.)Specific to your Special Counsel positioning, if this had been any number of other people inside the Federal Government they would currently be sitting under indictment or prison. (I know this having spent the better part of my life consulting for the government. Biden will be seeing ad after ad comparing his public statements about Trump’s criminal behavior regarding document retention. Intent only plays a small role. So knowing that I get forms regarding my retention of information, I have no sympathy for either of them!)While not being “terminally online”, I do search through multiple sources for information to remove as much bias as possible. And that unfortunately is not what most people do. They group their Confirmation Bias and Authority Bias to the point of taking up arms, both literally and figuratively, to the detriment of the greater society.
Then congrats you are no better than MAGA. Stop ignoring what people in the Dem party, and those with no party affiliation have serious concerns over. If Biden can’t stand up to scrutiny from those in his own party, than he has no business running for reelection. Enormous fucks ups is exactly right; not codifying Roe, Being an open fascist (zionism is fascism), Supporting and financing an apartheid country that is enacting a genocide and ethnic cleansing with americas full political and financial support. Even not boasting about the policy they have put out, is a massive fuck up. Biden’s age is an issue for those not terminally online, in all polling it is one of the largest issues. Again, stop focusing on Trump, everyone knows he is bad, and Biden is still polling lower than him. That is a huge issue.
Enormous fucks ups is exactly right; not codifying Roe, That was never going to happen and you know it. Not with the razor-thin Dem majorities of 2021-22, and certainly not now.Being an open fascist (zionism is fascism), Supporting and financing an apartheid country that is enacting a genocide and ethnic cleansing with americas full political and financial support. OK. I can’t say that Biden turning on Israel now would guarantee Trump a victory in November, but it’s definitely going to ratchet up the probability. The “pro-Israel at all costs” lobby isn’t what it used to be, but it’s not gone either. By the way, the U.S. is actively investigating Israel’s use of its weapons—according to multiple news outlets today.Even not boasting about the policy they have put out, is a massive fuck up. They have been, but Biden doesn’t crap clickbaity headlines all over social media like Trump, so they don’t get the coverage they deserve. Biden’s accomplished a lot considering that Trump’s term as president absolutely gutted the administrative state of critical knowledge and institutional memory. There were stories in 2019-20 about how the State Department alone would need decades to recover from all the resignations.
I wasn’t a fan of his show as much as I’m a fan of one of his prior correspondents John Oliver. That show really doesn’t hold back on Trump like Stewart just did. People for the 50th time, yes it’s shitty they’re both old, but I’ll vote for a corpse over an actual fascist any day of the week.
Joe Biden will be in his mid-’80’s when he finishes a theoretical second term. How many other octogenarians do have running important aspects of your life? He is obviously a better choice than Trump, who would also be in his ‘80’s on top of being a mendacious id monster who would cheerfully burn the country to ground if it helped him get revenge on his enemies or made him 2% richer. But pretending that all criticism of Biden is taboo and de facto unreasonable 1.) will not win over any moderate voters, and 2.) reads a lot like the sort of “power over everything” bullshit we’ve been getting from hardcore Trump supporters.
Have been saying it for a while but if there is an age minimum for the presidency, there should be an age maximum too. Biden is obviously leagues better than Trump but neither of these guys should be in the running for president.
I agree with both sides of your argument, except the main point of age more so just being taken at face value. I think the challenge for most people is not just his age, but the state of health he appears to be in. You are 100% right, if we take age as the main factor- there is a majority of our power elite that fall into that category. But one persons 80 is not another persons 80, and its unfortunate the democrat’s are ignoring that he is at that lower threshold of capability at this time. We need better options- time for an update of south parks douche versus turd sandwich episode.
Electorate SHOCKED to discover incumbent president that 82 million of them voted for is 4 years older than previous election
we thought he was too old then too. but what other choice did we have?
The people who are mad and think we can’t say anything about Biden are idiots. We 100% don’t want Trump but to think an 80 year old man in charge is a good thing, come on now. And I say this as a 50 year old brown man who has vote Dem in every national election.
With that being said he has done lots of good things for workers and acting like Biden hasn’t been effective is also lame and short sighted. You can say he is too old, he is, but to act like they are both the same make me want to jam a nail thru my head.
So, what’s the viable, real world solution?
I think the main concern is that there are already a lot of people saying “they’re both too old and terrible choices, so I’m not going to vote” or “I’ll vote for a write-in candidate” – and then we end up with 2016 again thanks to electoral college math. So the knee-jerk reaction for a lot of Dems is to avoid all criticism of their candidate out of fear, because they know Trump and the GOP will jump on anything.
Having said that though, pretending Biden isn’t old and prone to gaffes and memory lapses isn’t helping anything – it just makes him look worse when those things inevitably happen.
Well said.
No one in my family lived into their 80’s. It’s insane to have people that old and out of touch running things. I want to see Biden play Jeopardy.
Said it yesterday: make fun of Biden. Go nuts.But as to this? 1.) will not win over any moderate voters “Moderate voters” could stand to commit some brain power to the question of “Is Biden better than wannabe Viktor Orban?,” take three seconds, and then come to the conclusion of “Oh shit well duh, yeah, let’s not pick the wannabe dictator because that’d be fucking stupid.”Anyone waffling at this point – multiple indictments, a RvW overturn, multiple impeachments, a stated desire to be a dictator with a full complement of loyalists in the entire Federal apparatus, etc. – already made their choice, and just don’t want to cop to it.
That attitude is a surefire election-loser, and that’s coming from someone who agrees that every one of those things is bad. “Everyone not already on my side is an idiot not worth talking to, none of whom are persuadable” will, as a collective stance, absolutely fuck us in November. It’s good for feeling morally superior on the internet, useless on the ground.
“Everyone not already on my side is an idiot not worth talking to, none of whom are persuadable” I didn’t say that. I said that people who are not sufficiently alarmed by the very clear and present threat that Trump presents (as in not at all hypothetical at this point) are locked in. If they look at that, and are still “on the fence,” I cannot think of much that would move them.How much energy should be expended on persuading people who are not or have not been paying attention to the most overtly destructive American politician in two centuries? Seriously, how much? What would that look like, in practice?In any event, it isn’t like this little exchange we’re having on a B-list blog is going to change anything. We’re either going to try American-style fascism (y’know, like a lil’ treat) or we’re not. But if there’s any significant percentage of non-MAGA cultists (so called because they absolutely are not moving from Trump, at all, as a point of pride) who are still weighing this as a choice, while ignoring Biden’s policy gains and ignoring the clown car fuckpile that is the modern GOP…yeah, man, have fun trying to punch that particular section of the incoming tide.
Oh FFS. Stop this BS. The bar should not be “we are marginally better than the other guy” (and yes he is marginally better, both far to old, both senile, Biden let RvW die, Biden is an out and proud fascist (Zionism is a form of fascism) and openly supporting and funding an ongoing apartheid state that is engaging ethnic cleansing and a genocide. What wins the admin has had they refuse to promote) Give people a reason to vote FOR SOMETHING, not against something.Keeping Biden on is only “voting against something” and that something is Trump, everyone in the world not in his cult already knows the downside to him. Why the dems and Biden want the bar to be literally at the ground floor is how you lose an election. 90% of the public are not terminally online and dont care about the daily online discourse, they care about what they see and read. They are right that neither is hopeful or inspiring of their vote. Jon is 100% and IMHO held back on criticism of Biden. With the floor of Trump being in the ground, the Dems should have been aiming for the sky as a candidate. Show the people, give the people something better. Instead they have all decide, “no the ground floor is fine”
Nope, I do not have time for people who will pretend with a straight face that the current situation in the Middle East would have been handled competently under Trump, because it’s stupid noise.You want to bitch about how Biden should have been primaried? Fine. He wasn’t, but fine. Have at ‘em, hoss. Maybe time will warp around you and cause a ripple effect on actual reality.As it stands, we have Biden and (most likely) Trump. Make your fucking choice and live with it. I’m not going to pretend that we didn’t do this “but I want MYYYYYYYY candidate!” shit already in 2016, and I’m not going to pretend that the online rending of garments on a kinja site is going to move the needle.However it shakes out, if Trump gets the seat again, don’t bitch about it. Or do! Do bitch about it. That’d be about par for the course.
Unfortunately, these days Americans (hell, everyone) have the attention spans of gnats. You mentioned RvW, but I’d be willing to bet that if you brought it up as an election issue, unless it affected them personally (i.e. be a woman) a not-insignificant number of voters would go “ohhh yeah! That was bad!” Everybody knows Trump is bad, unfortunately if it’s not recent/trending it kind of disappears under the umbrella of “Trump bad”
Unfortunately, these days Americans (hell, everyone) have the attention spans of gnats. Oh, yep. Absolutely. It’s why we’ll actually, definitely end up dipshitting our way into an actual fascist dictatorship at one point or another.
What I tell people is that Biden surrounds himself with mostly competent people who believe they’re doing the right thing (whether you agree with their politics or not) and Trump surrounds himself (or will) with people that’ll let him do whatever his little pea brain tells him to and protect him when he commits crimes.Also, Joe Biden has been a gaffe machine for 50 years – this is nothing new. Might he have lost a step or two – sure. But Trump is much more mentally unstable and much, much dumber.
Great points.
Raising questions about Biden being old isn’t the issue. It’s doing that while covering less (in aggregate let alone separately) the fact that Trump is old also —and— he plans to use his power to seek revenge on his enemies — and — he encourages Russia to invade our allies.
Trump is routinely in the news for his multiple scandals and trials. Comedians have been making fun of and pointing out Trump’s diminishing mental acuity literally for years. Yes, he’s old too. He forgets names too. He says and suggests absurd and awful things every week. I only know about any of those things because of the media telling me every time it happens.The thing is, the media gets bored and moves on. Better to let the talking heads opine and complain about how gosh-darn old Biden is now than a fucking week before the general election.
Criticism of Biden is not taboo or unreasonable. Yes, he’s old. So what? Why not focus on his actual performance as president, which has been pretty good? And beyond that, let’s really not promote “both sides”. Yes, he criticized Trump too and at times made him out to be worse, but so much of the criticism was of Biden’s age that it felt like he was being made out to be just as bad.
Biden thinks it’s him, and only him, that can defeat Trump, because he already did it. I’m really not a fan of how the Democratic party clamped down on any and all potential challengers, either, because I want 13 (legitimate) options for president when I vote, not 2.But my tinfoil hat theory is that if-and-please-god-when Biden wins, he’ll do another 6 months or a year or so before stepping down to let Kamala run things, and that’s honestly fine with me. They’re probably gearing her up for at as we speak.
I’ll vote for a brick before I vote for trump, or not vote against him. At least a brick won’t do any harm.
And? Let’s hear a viable alternative than doesn’t blow our lives up.
“pretending that all criticism of Biden is taboo and de facto unreasonable”Except the actual problem is the amount of criticism that doesn’t hold water, such as his age. I am old enough to remember when Joe Biden was widely known for saying wild things off the cuff that made you wonder if he was senile—- 20 years ago. He doesn’t actually talk that that now which undermines the claims that the problem was senility rather than saying wild things off the cuff.
Longtime hardcore Jon Stewart fan here, with some buyer’s remorse. Though his balanced and not-even-wrong criticism wasn’t really a surprise, it did leave me asking the television “Jon, why do you want to make Democrat voter retention even harder, when it could result in fascism?” I felt like I could hear the “both sides” crowd collectively deciding not to bother in November, and I gotta be honest, I read Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and it didn’t seem like a good time to me.
Disappointed Stewart didn’t bring back his news team or a new team. The Noah news team is not so great
This ratings discussion should also include the 4.4 million views of Jon’s monologue on YouTube. So many of us are cord-cutters who don’t watch traditional cable, and there are nearly triple the amount of viewers online as on cable.