spoken from someone who really knows politics!
Jon Stewart Did So Much More Than Insult Trump in This Interview
He proved that the media conversation hasn't been the same since he left it.
Jon Stewart joined David Axelrod yesterday for a wide-ranging discussion of the 2016 campaign. So naturally, most of the headlines this morning have been about nothing except Donald Trump.
CNN, Time, EW, Politico, and others all announced that Stewart had applied a sick burn to the presumptive Republican nominee at the live taping of Axelrod's "Axe Files" podcast. (In fairness, the chirp was strong: "[Trump] is a man-baby," Stewart said. "He has the physical countenance of a man, and a baby's temperament and hands.") But all the insult-based hype has really only served to reinforce one of Stewart's main lines of reasoning through the discussion: That media malpractice—specifically an obsession with conflict and shiny objects—is failing citizens and undermining our politics.
The point is an old one for the ex-Daily Show host. It's the one he brought to Crossfire so famously, and one he's leveled at Beltway types brave enough to join him on his old show. But it's taken on a new significance with the rise of Trump, a candidate for whom the truth is actively irrelevant. Stewart cited the Authenticity Myth that has taken hold when it comes to the apricot demagogue: that the media, in his words, "have twisted this around so his ignorant pronouncements are somehow a sign of great character." This has been a prevailing narrative of the campaign—that because Trump "says what he thinks," he is better than a normal politician, regardless of whether Trump really believes it or if he said the exact opposite thing yesterday.
The problem, Stewart explained, is one of incentives. The media has the same ones as a "crack dealer," in that as long as the product keeps selling, they're not bothered about the consequences. Stewart rightly cited the network executives who have called the Trump narrative "good for business," and the 1.4 million Trump interviews where he's asked a question, goes post-reality, and then the discussion moves on without a word.
There are so many fascinating things to take away from this discussion. Stewart seems at odds with himself, for instance, about another part of Trump's rise—the inefficacy of government. At one point, he blamed Democrats and their fecklessness: "The door is open to an asshole like Donald Trump because the Democrats haven't done enough to show people that government, that can be effective for people, can be efficient for people. And if you can't do that, then you've lost the right to make that change and someone's going to come in and demagogue you."
But at another, he called attention to the Republican business model so frequently cited by Esquire's Charles Pierce: Tell people government doesn't work, then go to Washington and prove it. It's a "tautology," Stewart said, and a searingly effective one that has convinced enough people that the only way to change the system is to blow it up. That has produced the populism of Bernie Sanders, but it has also fueled Trump's rise.
All this is to say that the big things—the important things—have once again taken a backseat this morning as the flashy insults have carpe diem'd. Whether that's a systemic issue rooted in the modern news cycle or media types taking the easy way out, the end result is the same: the incisive commentary Stewart offered for over an hour yesterday is mostly lost. He talked about conservative hypocrisy when it comes to political correctness; he described the grinding bureaucracy of the Washington "cesspool"; he called Hillary Clinton "a very bright woman without the courage of her convictions."