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this post was submitted on 18 Feb 2024
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I don't think it's fair to say Stewart shouldn't critique Biden during a campaign just because dishonest talking heads will spin it to their advantage. Someone has to be willing to give an earnest and nuanced take that doesn't ignore valid criticisms of their own side. That's having integrity. And we need more of it, not less.
If Stewart had ignored all the criticisms of Biden during the show, the talking heads would have just spun some other show's takes like they always do. They're gonna do it regardless of how honest Stewart is cause that's their job.
It's not about if, it's about when.
People had three years to convince Biden that he shouldn't run. They didn't. Now you get Biden, and until he's elected again criticism equals promoting the Trump campaign.
I mean, Stewart isn't a complete idiot, he did make a case for both candidates being too old, which is a smarter counter than most of the Democratic campaign, let alone the Dem left, is using to push back. You're not gonna successfully deny Biden is old, but you can convince people that Trump is also, maaaaybe.
But that doesn't change the fact that any statement right now is a campaign statement. People think they can ignore politics for years and then act all surprised when they're told to postpone "valid criticism". Nah. The one thing Stewart said that I agree with wholeheartedly is that this is life now. Forever. And in this life you don't mess with your candidate's campaign even a little bit until after the votes are counted.
Welp, guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I don't think Stewart needs to campaign for Biden. We know Stewart is rooting for Biden to beat Trump. I'd rather he be a voice of reason than a campaign staffer. I doubt anyone watching Stewart's show is now going, "Hmm, maybe I'll stay home or vote for Trump instead cause Biden is too old."
Stewart's primary audience is already rooting for Biden. The audience of conservative talking heads spinning Stewart's reasonable criticisms already weren't gonna vote for Biden. Ultimately, I think Stewart has just introduced much needed earnest discussion into what is going to be an insane and vitriolic election year.
I'm not worried about the people watching the Daily Show.
I'm worried about people reading the article above reminding them that even Stewart thinks Biden is too old.
Is that what he said? It doesn't matter, it's something you can say out loud now. And repeat endlessly in campaign rallies and propaganda disguised as news.
I think I may be more frustrated by this pretense of normality than by activism of any political sign. What are reasonable criticisms for? What goal could they possibly achieve? What action can the political class take to address them that is even remotely viable in the next eight months?
More to the point, what do people think is happening right now? Do they think this is business as usual, the populace making up their minds about the future of the country (planet!) based on policy proposals? We left that behind a while ago. At least the trumpist weirdos have a sense of urgency. This beige normcore approach to politics seems baffling to me, and I was disappointed to see Stewart jump right back into it with both feet after the sense of dejected futility he left behind during his last Daily Show run. At least John Oliver (and even Stewart's own Apple TV show) had the honestly of highlighting very specific things that need practical, attainable fixes urgently.
It seems to me that your issue is with disinformation, which isn't Stewart's fault. You seem to be blaming him for the fact that people will take him out of context or misrepresent what he said. I don't fault him for that when he's being fair with his criticisms. Sure, he could completely avoid ever criticizing Biden at all to avoid getting taken out of context, but I do not fault him at all for not participating in the insanity by refusing flatly to ever criticize his preferred candidate. You seem to dislike that he has chosen to speak freely even though he knows disinformation campaigns will use his statements as ammunition, but I certainly don't. I appreciate his candor and I don't fault him for speaking his mind even though bad actors will be waiting in the wings to corrupt his positions.
It's not a problem of disinformation. Campaigns have been weaponizing image since TV entered the conversation, and have weaponized narratives since day one. None of the things Stewart or this article say are false.
Stewart chooses what to talk about. Focus is message. If you focus on Biden being old as opposed to, say, Trump being an actual rapist, you're choosing how the narratives are selected and framed. And if you think you're dodging that by also talking about Trump being old then you're either being naive or disingenuous.
He's not "speaking his mind", he's making an insanely hyped comeback to the limelight specifically targeted towards the liberals who became politicized watching him act as an arbiter of common sense on-screen during the 2000s.
And he went "but her emails".
The Daily Show has always talked about the current news cycle, specifically to try to inject some sanity into the discussion because people are going to talk about whatever the current hype is regardless of whether or not The Daily Show ignores it or not.
And Stewart absolutely is speaking his mind. He's telling his audience what he thinks about the current thing being talked about. Which is that Biden and Trump are both the oldest candidates to ever run for office, and questions about their faculties are valid from their voters.
Do you think next week Stewart will still be talking about Biden and Trump's age? Doubtful. He'll likely be talking about some different topic that has been making the rounds in the news cycle, like aid for Ukraine or the Isreal/Gaza conflict, etc. He could've covered those topics last week, but that would've just been ignoring the elephant in the room regarding the fact that many voters are unhappy with geriatric candidates. So he addressed it. That's speaking his mind.
Yes. I don't care about his mind.
He can speak his mind at home. He's been doing that for years.
Can we at least agree that Stewart's mind has many things in it, and choosing to turn a specific one into a TV show is a conscious decision? I'm not gonna convince you that we should be treating this entire election as an act of information warfare at all times, that much is clear, but man, for the sake of a shared reality, at least let me shake off the blindfold where framing is a random event and the most notorious political voice in a generation lacks any sort of influence.
If Jon Stewart doesn't shape the political viewpoint of at least some liberals, then what the hell is he doing on TV? He can't possibly be "injecting sanity into the discussion" and also be a completely harmless, neutral event in the political conversation.
I believe we fundamentally disagree about what Stewart's job is. He spoke his mind in public for years, retired for several years, and now is back to speaking his mind in public again.
Sure? But that hasn't exactly been the fundamental issue you seem to be taking with his actions, is it? First you said:
To which I replied that it isn't fair to say Stewart can't criticize his preferred candidate just because talking heads will spin it whichever way benefits them. Then you said:
To which I replied that Stewart's audience isn't on the fence and the conservative talking heads' audience isn't either. Then you said:
To which I replied that your core issue seems to be with disinformation, not Stewart himself. Then you said:
To which I replied that TDS has always talked about the current news cycle and attempted to inject sanity into the discussion, which is absolutely true; I won't argue this point with you.
So yeah, Stewart made a conscious choice to talk about... the topic that everyone is currently talking about. And he didn't treat his preferred candidate with kid gloves. And pundits will use it as ammunition. If Stewart had been silent about this completely valid criticism of Biden, pundits would have just used someone else's out-of-context quote, or just made something up entirely.
It appears we will not agree on this issue, which is fine. Just giving my perspective on why Stewart isn't obligated to silence himself when he's not being in any way unreasonable. He's a comedian and a commentator, not a campaign staffer.
Stewart wasn't retired, mind you. He's had a show for the past two years. He only recently got cancelled for speaking of subjects Apple didn't like.
Also, please don't rehash our conversation. It's still written up there. The only possible purpose of that exercise is to put together a straw man. I remember what I said.
You could have skipped to the last line, which is where we disagree and where I think democrats and their larger sphere of influence are repeating a catastrophic mistake.
He's a campaign staffer. You're a campaign staffer. Everybody is a campaign staffer until such time as the opposing force isn't a fascist cult of personality.
If you don't see that, you're part of the problem. If Stewart is back to pretending that he can "restore sanity" by acting as if the other side had legitimate concerns that should be heard, he's part of the problem. That's not the game we're playing anymore. If you didn't realize the rules had changed when Trump won the first time, surely you must have noticed after January 6th, or when the poll numbers of the, again, actual rapist refused to climb down.
So no, his honest statements aren't irrelevant. They're a drop in a pond of, once again, information warfare. The wilful blind spots and bothsideism may be naivete or disingenuous misinformation, but my entire point is at this stage it doesn't mater. They don't belong. We're past those. You either play the game we're all playing or you're playing for the other guys.
True, he wasn't retired during that time. I was wrong. He just wasn't the frontman sitting behind the desk each night.
If you think I'm part of "the problem" because I do not identify as a campaign staffer and do not assign that role to others during an election cycle, or that valid criticisms of candidates are off the table during the election cycle, then we can end the discussion here. As far as I'm concerned, you're part of the problem because you assume, ultimately, that any nuanced discussion is invalid because Americans are too stupid or ignorant for that kind of discussion to ever be anything more than ammunition for the opposition, which I know isn't the case. Have a good one!
To be clear, I think being part of the problem isn't the same as being malicious, hostile or stupid. I think being stubbornly naive about the system working the way it's supposed to has its uses. It's a powerful tool to get the corrupt to shy away from breaking the rules if enough people assume the rules will be followed.
But I also think we punched through that wall like a bunker buster dropping from orbit years ago and a lot of the US is a toad that has been simmered to being full-on al dente by this point. Well meaning people hoping to get through this as if it's... you know, an actual democratic election are part of the problem despite themselves.
I don't think I'm being "stubbornly naive about the system" by thinking it's okay for people to engage in nuanced discource. You and I will not agree on this, and I am not interested in further engaging with someone whose hardline rhetoric has gone so far as to demonize valid criticism.
There's nothing Biden could do to lose my vote in this election, but I'm not going to pretend he's a perfect candidate. And anyone who thinks we need to treat him as such is deluded. Democrats and progressives (like me) knew he wasn't a perfect candidate in 2020, but they knew he could garner enough support to beat Trump, and he did. Will he do it again? No idea, but I'm not interested in silencing valid criticisms now any more than I was in 2020, because the game hasn't changed since then. You think January 6 changed anything? Ask any given Republican if January 6 changed which party they'll be voting for. There's your answer.
The game has changed because Republicans will stick with the coup party. That's my whole point.
If your political rival is willing to violently disrupt the process when they lose you're not having a fair and free election, and "valid criticism" becomes a distant second priority to... you know, going back to a situation where you get to have a democracy with fair and free elections.
That's the shift the Stewart approach refuses to acknowledge. And when I say "stubbornly naive" I mean that acting under the fiction that the rules are followed and things will behave how they're supposed to can be an inspiring, powerful thing. It can shame those who would flip-flop or gloss over procedure or principle to stick to the norms and conventions that keep society afloat.
But there's no shaming Trump and no shaming the trumpists. And if you're still hoping to inspire them into reasonableness when the death cult of the rapist orange fascist is actively telling you... what is it this week? That he will fund a completely unaccountable Gestapo? Well, you're being idealist right into democracy's collapse.
And to be clear, I'm not worried about your vote. I'm worried about the vote of the people who haven't gotten the memo, or are in the process of sliding down the spiral of fascism but aren't there yet. And I'm sure worried about the Rashida Tlaibs and the Berniebros and the leftists who will gladly butcher anything short of ideological purity and stay at home because "nobody has earned their trust".
If you or Stewart think voting for Biden exempts you from being part of that issue.... well, it doesn't. It doesn't under normal circumstances, arguably, but right now we're very far from that point. It's not like this hasn't happened before. That's why I keep going back to "but her emails". Was it valid criticism? Yes. Did it kill thousands of people during the pandemic? Also yes.
Is the tradeoff worth it? What will the "it's reasonable to ask if Biden is too old" body count be?
Biden said he wouldn't run again three years ago. We already did that.
Here's the thing that pisses me the fuck off: Biden is old - he'll be critized about that... Jon Stewart is basically the kids gloves warm up round. If pundits and Biden don't have counter arguments for Stewart then they'll be fucking worthless when it comes to Trump and Fox News... and those assholes will be a lot less polite and even in their attack.
I was a voter in 2016, I remember "Thou shalt not validly critize Hillary during the primary"... and Sanders didn't, he used fucking kids gloves on her and then in the general when she was accused of being a corporate stooge she deer-in-the-headlights and we got Trump.
Candidates will be critized, it'll happen regardless of what their party does - Trump's team has had a big folder of oppo research on Biden since 2018. It's the candidate's job to respond to that criticism and it's our, the candidate's buddies, job to attack him early to defuse those flaws so they don't come out two days before the election.
Trump is just as old. Ask a Republican, a conservative pundit or a vaguely conservative voter and Trump is the peak of the human form, strong as an oak and in full posession of superhuman intellectual prowess.
You want to complain that a candidate is old? That's the one you are supposed to be focusing on.
For the record, Sanders didn't criticise Clinton. His followers did. Ruthlessly. Constantly. With this exact playbook. He tried to stop them and we all realized in horror he couldn't. The berniebros didn't lose the 2016 election, because they didn't really influence much either way, but they sure as hell didn't help.
They should have convinced him the first time but instead they all got behind him and smothered any opposition because they were terrified that Sanders had a shot at beating their very bad candidates.
There's no way they could not do reelection, though. We're stuck with him, one way or another. He can't even step down because his VP is even less liked.
Unfortunately, that means Trump (another historically weak candidate who just has a rabid but small fan base) has a good shot at taking this.