Jon Stewart is to blame for Trump.

[Timsup2nothin]

My, my, my ... I blew it, that happens when your an old, old, guy!

It happens a whole lot more when you are willing to sacrifice any appearance of integrity in your hurry to make a provocative assault on "the enemy."

 

[Camikaze]

There's a difference between causation and fault. It could be argued that, if not for Seth Meyers' ruthless taunting at the White House Correspondent's Dinner, Trump would never had decided to run, such is his bruised ego. Yet it would not then be correct to say it's Meyers' 'fault', or that Meyers is to blame.

Similarly, it's possible that by drawing attention to the problems/incoherence of the right-wing in the US, or by offering a consistent and cogent critique of the Republicans, Jon Stewart caused those who were the the target of this criticism to be more defensive/insular in their thinking. But that doesn't mean jumping off the deep end is anyone's fault but the people who have actually done so. If person A tells person B that they're a bully for hitting their wife, and this causes person B to become enraged and hit their wife some more, that doesn't make it person A's fault.

I recognise, though, that, despite there being no fault, it does raise the legitimate question of what course it's best for person A to pursue. If we know that making sustained comedic criticism of Republicans simply isolates and entrenches those with reprehensible/undefensible views, there's a valid argument to be made that the self-indulgent entertainment value isn't worth the societal cost. But then again, I think the stronger argument is that legitimate criticism shouldn't be suppressed simply because it will cause those being criticised to be even worse.

BTW, I would note the implicit recognition by the OP that Trump is something for which there should be 'blame'.

 

[Kaitzilla]

The process went something like this: Someone said something on Fox News that mainstream liberalism didn’t like; Stewart and/or Colbert aired a sustained critique of the idea and the thinking behind it; liberal internet publications hailed it as the greatest rhetorical victory since Darrow argued for Scopes; liberals’ Facebook feeds full of liberal friends filled up with clips of the takedown. No one learned anything, no one engaged with an idea, and nothing outside of a very specific set of ideas was given any real credence.

That sounds about right.
Smug Liberals is a thing.
And the anger they generate gets worse every year.

http://www.vox.com/2016/4/21/11451378/smug-american-liberalism

There is a smug style in American liberalism. It has been growing these past decades. It is a way of conducting politics, predicated on the belief that American life is not divided by moral difference or policy divergence — not really — but by the failure of half the country to know what's good for them.

In 2016, the smug style has found expression in media and in policy, in the attitudes of liberals both visible and private, providing a foundational set of assumptions above which a great number of liberals comport their understanding of the world.

It has led an American ideology hitherto responsible for a great share of the good accomplished over the past century of our political life to a posture of reaction and disrespect: a condescending, defensive sneer toward any person or movement outside of its consensus, dressed up as a monopoly on reason.

Diversity in everything except opinions.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Would you consider the possibility that the smugness is a reaction to a genuine decrease in the reasonableness of the opposed opinions? In 2012 I tried very hard to argue reasonably and without condescension, but when the opposition was supporting the premise that a man using a fake birth certificate had bamboozled the authorities sufficiently to have served in the US senate and as president it was extremely hard not to give them the credit they were due...and call them an idiot straight to their face.

 

[Leoreth]

Of course no one learned anything and no idea was engaged with. Garbage in, garbage out. The Stewarts and Colberts are the garbage men of public discourse.

 

[BvBPL]

The notion that whomever does not share a specific ideology is stupid and ideserving of ridicule is bothersome. It reinforces partisanship and hampers cooperative efforts. Stewart didn't invented it, but he did bring it to mainstream democrats in a way few had before.

 

[Cheetah]

It's not the ideology as much as the absolutely loony positions which have been increasingly peddled by the Republicans during the last couple decades.

There are reasonable ways to be a Republican. Whether or not one disagrees with them, John McCain, Bruce Bartlett and David Frum are (three examples I used a bit of googling for) all sound people it is possible to discuss with. The majority of the Republican party is completely over the edge though.

The only reason I'm not terribly enraged by Trump's success is that I think he will hurt the US, and I think you need your situation to get worse before it can get better. I have trust in your institutions to ensure that you don't go completely of the rails in the meantime.

 

[Leoreth]

That's not what Stewart did at the Daily Show. It's not his fault that so much stupidity was produced by public personalities associated with a specific ideology.

It's a ridiculous standard of objectivity to expect stupidity to be ignored just because it overwhelmingly makes one political ideology look bad, even though that is what is called fair and balanced these days I suppose.

 

[FriendlyFire]

That sounds about right.
Smug Liberals is a thing.
And the anger they generate gets worse every year.

I think Kansas has done itself a fine service voting in Republicans and Republians didnt Lie at all, and they are the voters were not conned, they knew what they were voting for and got it in spades.

What's the matter with Kansas?

The smug style arose to answer these questions. It provided an answer so simple and so emotionally satisfying that its success was perhaps inevitable: the theory that conservatism, and particularly the kind embraced by those out there in the country, was not a political ideology at all.

The trouble is that stupid hicks don't know what's good for them. They're getting conned by right-wingers and tent revivalists until they believe all the lies that've made them so wrong. They don't know any better. That's why they're voting against their own self-interest.

G.W.Bush clearly the Democrats fault too somehow

Smug liberals said George was too stupid to get elected, too stupid to get reelected, too stupid to pass laws or appoint judges or weather a political fight. Liberals misunderestimated George W. Bush all eight years of his presidency.

George W. Bush is not a dumbass hick. In eight years, all the sick Daily Show burns in the world did not appreciably undermine his agenda.

I suspect that will also be Obamas fault or Liberals fault for being too smug

"Why are they voting against their own self-interest?"

This, I suspect, will one day become the Republican Party's rationale for addressing climate change: Look, we don't know how the dead hooker wound up in the hotel room. But she's here now, that's undeniable, so we've gotta get rid of the body.

This I agree with, its the Democrats election to lose

Faced with the prospect of an election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the smug will reach a fever pitch: six straight months of a sure thing, an opportunity to mock and scoff and ask, How could anybody vote for this guy? until a morning in November when they ask, What the [censored] happened?

The party of stupid appealing to the poorly educated ? No thanks
Obama bent backwards to compromise with Republicans, The only way forward is to allow the Linlcon conservatives to take back control or let the GOP shot itself
When GOP is calling you a Muslim Kenya, ISIS founder and spreading lies I dont think the problem lies with the Democrats

I am suggesting that they instead wonder what it might be like to have little left but one's values; to wake up one day to find your whole moral order destroyed; to look around and see the representatives of a new order call you a stupid, hypocritical hick without bothering, even, to wonder how your corner of your poor state found itself so alienated from them in the first place. To work with people who do not share their values or their tastes, who do not live where they live or like what they like or know their Good Facts or their jokes.

This is not a call for civility. Manners are not enough. The smug style did not arise by accident, and it cannot be abolished with a little self-reproach. So long as liberals cannot find common cause with the larger section of the American working class, they will search for reasons to justify that failure. They will resent them. They will find, over and over, how easy it is to justify abandoning them further. They will choose the smug style.

 

[Gori the Grey]

This just in: Jonathan Swift responsible for poverty in Ireland.

 

[luiz]

The notion that whomever does not share a specific ideology is stupid and ideserving of ridicule is bothersome. It reinforces partisanship and hampers cooperative efforts. Stewart didn't invented it, but he did bring it to mainstream democrats in a way few had before.

This. I don't think John Stewart is to blame for anything, and I don't think he invented anything either, but he certainly became an exponent of an annoyingly smug left.

And yes: there's much to ridicule on the right. But there's also much to ridicule on the left, if you go to the fringe extremes. There are lunatics and imbeciles throughout the political spectrum, and they're very common in the extremes. I've seen Jon Stewart ridicule plenty of white racists or bigots, but I've never seen him ridicule someone who claims that white people using dreadlocks are guilty of "cultural appropriation". We all know this sort of left-wing stupidity not only exists but is abundant in some places (US college campuses), but you wouldn't see it on the Daily Show. Plenty of mocking of ignorant West Virginians or Arkansans, though...

 

[SupremacyKing2]

I blame right wing talk radio, specifically Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Anne Coulter for the rise of Trump. Most of the fearmongering and falsehoods that Trump is spreading (like Obama is the founder of ISIS), was first popularized by right wing talk radio for years. They basically prepared a group of voters for Trump to use.

 

[Camikaze]

The notion that whomever does not share a specific ideology is stupid and ideserving of ridicule is bothersome. It reinforces partisanship and hampers cooperative efforts. Stewart didn't invented it, but he did bring it to mainstream democrats in a way few had before.

You're conflating the idea that those who don't share a specific ideology are deserving of ridicule with the idea that those who have a particular other ideology are deserving of ridicule. Stewart was never about the former; he was not the type to denigrate reasonable disagreement, and had plenty of reasonable conversations/interviews with people with whom he had profound disagreements. He did employ ridicule, but this was reserved for those who were being truly ridiculous. Naturally, episodes of ridiculousness were disproportionately highlighted, but that should not be confused with everything not strictly conforming to a particular ideology being ridiculed.

The important question is probably whether or not the entitlement to have ridiculous opinions is an entitlement to not be ridiculed for those ridiculous opinions. That is a different matter entirely to the idea that all those who you disagree with are deserving of ridicule.

 

[Leoreth]

This. I don't think John Stewart is to blame for anything, and I don't think he invented anything either, but he certainly became an exponent of an annoyingly smug left.

And yes: there's much to ridicule on the right. But there's also much to ridicule on the left, if you go to the fringe extremes. There are lunatics and imbeciles throughout the political spectrum, and they're very common in the extremes. I've seen Jon Stewart ridicule plenty of white racists or bigots, but I've never seen him ridicule someone who claims that white people using dreadlocks are guilty of "cultural appropriation". We all know this sort of left-wing stupidity not only exists but is abundant in some places (US college campuses), but you wouldn't see it on the Daily Show. Plenty of mocking of ignorant West Virginians or Arkansans, though...

I generally agree that there is lots of left-wing flavoured stupidity out there, but it seems legitimately less widespread among persons of public interest on the left. Do you really think it's appropriate for a TV program to criticise the political opinions of fringe blogs on tumblr or college campus gatherings? O'Reilly, Palin and people who follow their template address themselves to a national audience. This warrants a different (i.e. more public) response than people who address themselves to their respective communities.

That's just another example of false equivalency between the political camps, where statements have to be generalised to an extreme degree to be applicable to both, in this case "stupid opinions exist". Without regard for the context and general prevalence in the media and political landscape that is true. But it's a completely irrelevant perspective.

The fact remains that overt stupidity has been normalised and become mainstream in the conservative media sphere. That's the criticism. You can't defend against that criticism by arguing from its normalisation.

 

[Arwon]

This is a really stupid take. If Trump loses badly like he's on his way towards, isn't the satire and ridicule part of what's cooked him?

 

[luiz]

I generally agree that there is lots of left-wing flavoured stupidity out there, but it seems legitimately less widespread among persons of public interest on the left. Do you really think it's appropriate for a TV program to criticise the political opinions of fringe blogs on tumblr or college campus gatherings? O'Reilly, Palin and people who follow their template address themselves to a national audience. This warrants a different (i.e. more public) response than people who address themselves to their respective communities.

That's just another example of false equivalency between the political camps, where statements have to be generalised to an extreme degree to be applicable to both, in this case "stupid opinions exist". Without regard for the context and general prevalence in the media and political landscape that is true. But it's a completely irrelevant perspective.

The fact remains that overt stupidity has been normalised and become mainstream in the conservative media sphere. That's the criticism. You can't defend against that criticism by arguing from its normalisation.

That would be a valid counter if Stewart & co. only mocked high profile stupid right-wingers. But when it's election time, or even when it isn't, he loves to go to the boondocks of West Virginia find the most ignorant possible redneck and then present him as a typical person of the opposing camp. I still remember in the 2008 election when the Daily Show interviewed some people on why they would not vote for Obama. They found an old lady in West Virginia who looked 120 and said something along the lines of "I ain't voting for no Hussein... we've had too much trouble with them Husseins already". This is not mainstream right-wing stupidity, it's fringe lunacy from a barely literate hillbilly, and Stewart chose to exploit this to make a political point. There are equally idiotic leftist positions to be found, but Stewart and co. will never mock them. And I'm not saying he should, he is of course welcome to be leftist partisan hack. But let's not delude ourselves into thinking that he mocks the right because the right is dumb. He mocks the right because he is a leftist partisan hack.

 

[SupremacyKing2]

There are equally idiotic leftist positions to be found, but Stewart and co. will never mock them.

Actually Jon Stewart did mock the Left on the daily show. The difference is that he mocks the left for being incompetent whereas he mocks the right for being wrong and dumb. His jokes about the Left are basically "I can't believe you guys can't beat these dumb right wingers".

 

[Gori the Grey]

His jokes about the Left are basically "I can't believe you guys can't beat these dumb right wingers".

Here's a quick stat, though, that helps explain why it's so difficult to triumph over the dumb: less than half the American populace is of above-average intelligence.

True fact. You can look it up.

 

[Leoreth]

That would be a valid counter if Stewart & co. only mocked high profile stupid right-wingers. But when it's election time, or even when it isn't, he loves to go to the boondocks of West Virginia find the most ignorant possible redneck and then present him as a typical person of the opposing camp. I still remember in the 2008 election when the Daily Show interviewed some people on why they would not vote for Obama. They found an old lady in West Virginia who looked 120 and said something along the lines of "I ain't voting for no Hussein... we've had too much trouble with them Husseins already". This is not mainstream right-wing stupidity, it's fringe lunacy from a barely literate hillbilly, and Stewart chose to exploit this to make a political point. There are equally idiotic leftist positions to be found, but Stewart and co. will never mock them. And I'm not saying he should, he is of course welcome to be leftist partisan hack. But let's not delude ourselves into thinking that he mocks the right because the right is dumb. He mocks the right because he is a leftist partisan hack.

I disagree with your (partisan) conclusion, but fair enough point. I never was a fan of those "ask 200 random people on the street and air the three worst answers" segments. But I contend that these aren't really the Daily Show editorials the "smug left" shares among themselves when talking about the right.

 

[metalhead]

One criticism of Jon Stewart that I agree with, is the one where he always passes the buck for responsibility for his commentary by saying he's "just a comedian." I think he tried to downplay the amount of influence and his importance as a voice in the body politic, and pass his commentary off as merely entertainment when it suited him to avoid criticism, or stay out of controversies even while commenting on them. This despite the fact that his commentary was often serious in tone.