Jon Stewart Investigates What Went Wrong for Democrats on Election Night
Jon Stewart opened the latest episode of The Daily Show by jokingly declaring, “Welcome to the resistance.” However, he added that due to holidays and him only being on the late-night show on Mondays, it will be about “15 hours of resistance in total” over the next four years.
The host recounted how the last time he addressed The Daily Show audience was Election Night. “It seemed, even at that moment, very clear that Donald Trump had won the election in a bit of a thumpening,” Stewart said. “Now, part of the disorientation of the Democrats losing the electoral vote and the popular vote and losing ground in the cities and the areas around the cities and the areas around those areas—I guess you’d call it America—was that we had all been told by many of our best prognosticators that it was going to be close.”
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He added, after playing clips of many of the pundits, “It’s a delight to hear about why it happened from so many people who were so wrong about what was going to happen.”
The host also joked that the Democrats did protect Democracy “just for the other side.” “Because when all is said and done we had a free and fair election in which the Democrats had been prepared for almost every scenario but one,” Stewart said. “It turns out the election was stolen by more people voting for Donald Trump. It’s quite a caper.”
Stewart confirmed that he himself thought the Democrats would have the upper hand since, well, they are great to fundraising. “See, the Democrats, in a 50/50 election, had $1 billion, a war chest to be spent on data analytics and consultants and polling and, very clearly, texting,” Stewart said. “There was a lot of texting… And while of course maybe just giving $1 million of it away every day would have been the smarter, more efficient plan—no!”
All that money, Stewart recounted, went to the “one thing Republicans didn’t have.” He then played a news clip about Democrats knocking on doors to rally up votes, sometimes even knocking on the same door twice.
“You know, if there’s one thing people love more than someone appearing randomly at their door, it’s that same fucking person coming back two or three times to talk politics,” Stewart quipped. “Even though everyone from vacuum salesman to Jehovah’s Witnesses knows that’s a losing strategy.”
The Democrats losing has, of course, led to a lot of blame over the past week. Stewart addressed several of the theories about why Kamala Harris lost to Donald Trump, including that the Left was “too woke.” “I only have one problem with the woke theory,” Stewart said. “I just didn’t recall seeing any Democrats running on woke shit.”
He then played a montage of centrist Democratic campaign ads positioning candidates as pro police, anti-illegal immigrant and critical of transgender healthcare. “And don’t forget about Kamala Harris,” Stewart added. “It’s not like she was exactly waving around her NPR tote bag.”
The host continued, “[The Democrats] acted like Republicans for the last four months. They wore camo hats and went to Cheney family reunions. Do you know how dangerous it is to wear a hunting hat around Cheney? Democrats were mostly running against an identity that was defined for them based on a couple of months of post-George Floyd, defund the police Instagram posts from four years ago. What happened was the country felt like government wasn’t working for them, and that the Democrats in particular were taking their hard-earned money and giving it to people who didn’t deserve it as much as them. So the Democrats have got to chill out.”
Stewart concluded his monologue with a glimmer of hope. “I’m sure any robust examination of better policies is very welcome,” he said. “But I just want to please assure people: This isn’t forever.” He showed a map of the electoral college results from the 1984 presidential election when Ronald Reagan won re-election. Every state in the country except for Minnesota voted Republican.
“Everyone thought that was the end of the Democrats,” Stewart said. “But eight years later, there was a Democrat back in office. We don’t know what’s going to happen in four years at all.”
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