At various times during the campaign and the Trump presidency, Jon Stewart would emerge from under the desk of his old friend Stephen Colbert to deliver heartbreaking rants on the state of the political world.
Return to The Late Show Wednesday night before the premiere of his new political satire movie Irresistible. But in the midst of a global pandemic and just months away from another presidential election, the mood was noticeably darker.
Stewart, who joked that he was going to “complete Christopher Christopher” during the quarantine, said the “politicization of basic hygiene” has been “one of the most surprising aspects” of this particular crisis. “The mask is now the snake ‘do not step on me’, it is the symbol of tyranny. It is the outfit of the authoritarian. It is the bracelet of the swastika. It’s the brown shirt.
“And I keep thinking to myself, ‘They use them in the operating rooms, right?'” He continued. He imagined people walking into the operating room and saying to his surgeon, “You take that liberal shit somewhere else! ANDDon’t wash those hands and stick them in my open wound because I’m an American!
Later, they moved on to protests against systemic racism and police brutality that have erupted across the country and the world in recent weeks.
“In some ways, I wonder if the pandemic, because we all went into a kind of stasis, and the distractions from their daily lives were removed, that allowed the country a moment of clarity,” said Stewart. “It’s almost like in this moment of calmer reflection, the United States suddenly stopped and smelled racism, you know what I mean?“
After several minutes discussing the problem of racism in this country, Stewart finally admitted that it was “ridiculous “so that” two old white guys are sitting around saying, ‘The problem of racism in this country …’ “But at the same time he said he believes that” whites can function as avatars “to compel other whites to pay attention .
Finally, Colbert asked Stewart to intervene in the 2020 elections. “Who do you like this year, Biden or Trump?” he asked. “Is it a coin flip right now?”
“It’s a jolt, I’m going from side to side,” Stewart joked. When Colbert noted that 14 percent of voters in a recent New York Times the poll just “still not sure,” Stewart dropped his head into his hands.
“I think his pants are on fire and he’s just running around the room. And he really cares mainly about credit and praise.“
“For me, I remember thinking, when he went down the escalator and said that many Mexicans are rapists, I thought, okay,” said Stewart. “And then ‘grab them by the pussy,’ it’s over. His morale has been litigated. I didn’t expect it to be moral. I think what caught me by surprise was complete incompetence. I was a little surprised, you know, they sold you the idea that it was a disruptor and that the chaos was strategic. And now you know, no, no, I think his pants are on fire and he’s just running around the room. And he really cares mainly about credit and praise. ”
In early 2017, Stewart attended Colbert’s show and joked that he felt Trump had been in office for a hundred years. “The presidency is supposed to age the president, not the country,” he said now, suggesting that Biden’s motto should be “Enough is enough!”
As for the 2020 race, Stewart admitted, “Biden was not my boy,” explaining that he was more in the lane of Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren. “I’m not crazy about the ‘Uncle Joe’ character,” he said.
But while he doesn’t “like that trick,” said Stewart, “I feel like that’s not the core of who that guy really is.” Since the country is “in terrible distress right now,” he said, “when I see Biden beyond the obstacle, I see a guy who knows what loss is, who knows pain.”
“That’s it,” said Colbert.
“And I think that kind of pain humbles you,” Stewart said, adding that it’s also something he appreciates from Colbert. “There is a humility in the randomness of the tragedy that causes care that cannot be falsified. And you can’t invent it.
“What I think this country needs right now is a humble leader,” he continued. “That understands that he doesn’t understand, that he understands the humanity of this experiment and the difficulty of keeping it going, and that we have to connect with each other on a much deeper level without the shit. And he gives me hope that this can provoke, that perhaps he is the man of the moment. “
“Trump doesn’t have that team,” said Stewart. “He still has the mindset that COVID was created to stop him from a second term.”
“Right. It requires you to worry about something other than yourself,” added Colbert.
“So I’m not just presenting a negative case for Biden anymore,” Stewart said. “It’s not just, ‘Well, we have to get rid of that damn guy.'” In fact, I think that something in your life experience can benefit this country at a time when you desperately need it. ”
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