“Welcome to the resistance,” Jon Stewart started Monday’s episode of The Each day Present, the place he joined the refrain of late-night TV reactions to Donald Trump’s 2024 win. “I promise you: For the rest of the following 4 years, I’ll solely converse to you on this tone of voice this near the digital camera. I shall be relentless—or, effectively, they will,” he mentioned, acknowledging The Each day Present correspondents who host this system Tuesday via Thursday. “I’m right here Mondays, actually not even that many. There’s darkish weeks and holidays. It’s really about 15 hours of resistance whole.”
The final time Stewart sat behind The Each day Present desk was to host the reside one-hour 2024 election evening particular. “It appeared, even at that second, very clear that Donald Trump had gained the election in a little bit of a thumpening,” mentioned Stewart—although the victory got here as a shock, partially, as a result of “we had all been advised by a lot of our greatest prognosticators that it was going to be shut.” He then performed a montage of many such pundits, who’ve since gone on to investigate Kamala Harris’s loss. “It’s a delight to listen to about why it occurred from so many individuals who have been so unsuitable about what was going to occur,” Stewart quipped.
Stewart adopted up by lasering in on the argument that Democrats misplaced as a result of they’d gone “too woke” in campaigning. “I solely have one drawback with the ‘woke’ principle,” Stewart replied. “I simply didn’t recall seeing any Democrats working on woke shit.” This was accompanied by clips of Democratic marketing campaign advertisements highlighting conservative-to-moderate stances on points like immigration and the police. “They didn’t speak about pronouns. They didn’t say ‘Latinx.’ It was the alternative,” Stewart continued. “And don’t overlook about Kamala Harris. It’s not like she was precisely waving round her NPR tote bag,” he mentioned, chopping to the clip of her declaring, “I own a Glock” on 60 Minutes.
Stewart later added, “They didn’t do the woke factor. They acted like Republicans for the final 4 months. They wore camo hats and went to Cheney household reunions. Have you learnt how harmful it’s to put on a searching hat across the Cheneys?”
His principle on the left’s shedding technique? “Democrats have been principally working in opposition to an id that was outlined for them based mostly on a few months of post-George Floyd “Defund the Police” #MeToo Instagram posts from 4 years in the past,” Stewart mentioned. “The nation felt like authorities wasn’t working for them, and the Democrats specifically have been taking their hard-earned cash and giving it to individuals who didn’t deserve it as a lot as them. And so the Democrats received shellacked.”
Stewart then dug into Democrats’ fundraising efforts, noting that they “did defend democracy—only for the opposite facet,” including, “As a result of when all is claimed and achieved, we had a free and truthful election through which the Democrats had been ready for nearly each situation however one. It seems the election was stolen by extra folks voting for Donald Trump. It’s fairly a caper.”
However Stewart didn’t finish his almost 15-minute monologue on a bitter observe. “I simply need to please guarantee folks this isn’t endlessly. That is the map in 1984 when Ronald Reagan gained,” he mentioned, displaying a rustic awash in pink, aside from Minnesota, his opponent’s residence state.
“Everybody thought, that’s the tip of the Democrats,” Stewart mentioned. “However eight years later, there was a Democrat again in workplace. We don’t know what’s going to occur in 4 years in any respect.”
