Yesterday, Jon Stewart blessed us fans with over an hour of his uniquely acerbic commentary on, among other things, our Trump-obsessed media. Jon met up with David Axelrod at the University of Chicago for an episode of "The Axe Report," his YouTube podcast.
Jon gave us more wisdom in one show than we have heard from the rest of the media in months.
This is how Jews meet all the time, when people aren't paying attention.
Axelrod asked Stewart what he finds different about this particular election cycle versus the previous four presidential contests he's covered for The Daily Show. Was it really the big celestial joke Stewart claimed in his last weeks, as Trump emerged as a viable candidate?
STEWART: The media, as usual, is focused on the wrong things and abdicating responsibility for the general filtration of toxicity. You have enormous amounts of money flowing into crazy people who are channeling populists of years' past.
AXELROD: How responsible is the media for Donald Trump?
STEWART: He makes sense if you view it through the prism of talk radio. It is 24/7 of 'your country is being taken away from you.'
Stewart explains that the GOP's rhetoric has never matched their actions, so Axelrod addresses the right-wing paradox that President Obama is both an encroaching and threatening dictator while also being feckless.
STEWART: Are you suggesting, sir, that there might be some slight cognitive dissonance? I don't even know that Trump is eligible, to be President, and that's not a birther thing... Are you eligible to run if you are a man baby or a baby man? He has the physical countenance of a man and the temperament and hands of a baby. Trump tweeted (his real name) 'Jon Leibowitz, be proud of your heritage, don't run away from who you are, by the way, he's overrated.' So we thought, jeeze, let's answer with Trump's real name: which I don't know if you know this, it's Fuckface Von Clownstick.
AXELROD: Did he sue you? He tends to sue people for things like that.
STEWART: He is the most thin-skinned individual... Don't worry, when he becomes president, he'll be totally mature. What does it say about your constituency when the only way I can win this part of the race, I have to be an unrepentant narcissistic asshole and then when I have to appeal to everybody, I'll be cool?
Succinctly put, Stewart summarizes the media perfectly with this sentence:
They're covering the campaign, but they're not covering VERACITY.
As the 2016 election season moves into its final six months, who can we trust to bring us the FACTS so we can be a truly informed electorate? Sadly, the best source of accurate information seems to be...Jon Stewart. And he's retired.
Here's the full show:
H/T Sue in Rockville and Dr. Peter
