Oh, how we miss Jon Stewart being on our television every evening. Jon Stewart was interviewed on The Axe Files, David Axelrod’s podcast interview show. Axelrod’s show is pretty good as his access to guests from Nancy Pelosi to CNN’s Anderson Cooper, and the respect he’s earned for being President Barack Obama’s Chief Campaign Strategist, gives his shows a certain gravitas. The interview covered quite a few topics but, being both political animals, it was only a matter of time before they spoke about Donald Trump (about two minutes). Axelrod made the joke that Stewart, when retiring from the Daily Show, had said that he had seen quite a few elections and the one coming up wasn’t going to be any “different.” This gets a laugh from the audience but Stewart isn’t laughing because he does not think there’s anything new about Trump.
I mean we talk about it like it’s something incredibly different, but in truth, how different is it, really? 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 populism of years past. I mean, if you took Sarah Palin’s head and jammed it on Trump’s body, would it make any more sense?
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Stewart spoke initially about the traditional media’s inability to cover the veracity of Trump’s statements—or anyone’s statements for that matter. He went into how completely not surprised Stewart is that Trump is the Republican frontrunner as, Stewart explains, he loves to drive and listens to a lot of right-wing talk radio.
24/7, as far as I can tell, the conservative side, on the right side, they feel an ownership of America. They are the stewards of America. They are its forbearers. Republicans, conservatives love America. They just hate like 50 percent of the people in America.
He goes on to talk about how the Republican Party has let down its constituents and how delusional Trump’s concept of “America” is. It’s worth a listen as Stewart is funny and insightful and refreshing. Stewart, who spent many many man years looking at the 24-hour news cycles, gives the final—not new—but most damning indictment of the traditional media and the simplicity of Trump’s political acumen.
What works for 24-hour [news]? What is it incentivized for? Here’s what you would want it to be incentivized for—clarity. It is incentivized for what? Conflict.The voices that are amplified are the ones that are the most conflict oriented, the most extreme. Those are the guys that get the airtime. Trump is not playing this, everybody keeps talking like “He’s amazing,” he’s not. This is the first season of Survivor. This is reality show 101. “I’m going to be an enormous dick at the beginning of the show to get all of this attention and then once I make it to final council, then I’m gonna reveal...
Watch below.