He also said that the danger posed by another Trump term doesn’t excuse Biden from scrutiny but “actually makes him more subject to scrutiny.”
To leftists and progressives fed up with Biden, particularly his commitment to Israel as it continues to bomb civilians in Gaza, the assessment was not just fair — it was obvious. But more centrist Democrats, including those most likely to have appended “Blue Wave” and “Resistance” labels to their social media accounts in the Trump years, were appalled at what they saw as a betrayal by one of their own.
Which “liberals?” I thought it was funny. I guess I’m not “liberal” enough? I’m voting for Biden because I’ll do anything to stop Trump, but I’m not going to pretend he shouldn’t be mocked.
yeah I enjoyed it too, a couple of different friends mentioned it being funny I don’t know anyone that was upset about it.
probably just another article about some random vocal minority complaining
I thought it was funny too, but man is it uncomfortable knowing that it could sway people away from voting for Biden and swing the scales in favor of Trump.
He was just as hard if not harder on Trump in the same segment, so I don’t think it would.
The problem is of the people that watch him. The majority of them would never vote for Trump in the first place. Most of them would probably vote Biden. So being hard on Trump he’s simply preaching to the choir. Being hard on Biden. He might demoralize a few from participating. It doesn’t mean he was wrong or wrong to do it. But it is a possible concern. Though the only group to actually blame for that is the Democrats.
I mean I’m still going to vote for them. Because I like the idea of still having elections even if they are highly flawed. You don’t get that sort of thing under full blown fascism.
It won’t, it was honest and painted Trump in a worse (and deservedly awful) light. The apologists that call the sky yellow when you can see it’s fucking blue cause much more damage by eroding public trust in the democrats.
I prefer flawed candidates that overcome their flaws so that, hopefully, we can find a less flawed candidate next time.
If Jon’s audience somehow got swayed into voting FOR Trump over some criticisms on Biden, they were never listening in the first place.
That’s a fair and comforting point. I thought Stewart was a bit heavy on criticism, but it’s not so much that I dislike the criticism, but that I’m wary it’ll lead to apathy and people not voting.
Doesn’t really matter does it? A vote is a vote.
Wish the DNC had told themselves the same before insisting which bed we lay in for another four years.
Denial and scolding/belittling/abusing people for having legitimate concerns will lose a lot more people than being honest and having a sense of humor.
Yeah that’s my only concern really. I don’t want people to become apathetic and not vote. I think Stewart’s message though is probably the fairest way to prevent that though. Acknowledge that yeah, Biden is old, and he’s not as sharp as he used to be. He is by no means the ideal nor dream candidate. People are right to feel iffy about him.
But Trump means there’s really no question of who to vote for and who you should vote for. We can be honest and affirm worries about Biden while still encouraging votes for him.
That’s an interesting point. Jon Stewart’s job isn’t to get Biden elected. Just like Fox and MSNBC shouldn’t be their job to get their respective candidates elected. He should present things as he sees it and the people should inform themselves to select the best candidate
That’s fine, and I can respect that, but damn am I scared of another Trump administration.
Probably saw 2 people on twitter and then they just expanded and said all liberals?
So they saw both of the remaining Twitter users, makes sense
My guess is bot farms mostly. Russia, the DNC, the RNC, et al benefit in their own ways from posting their reactions all over social media. Sure some on the far left probably didn’t make it past the first commercial break, but with an election, everyone is coming out to play
Regardless, they are both way too old to be running again. I find it hard to believe these guys with one foot in the grave and an inability to speak coherently are our best bet.
Well said and agreed 100%.
It’s not hard to grasp really is it.
Too fucking bad. They’re accurate and we need to accept them to avoid making the same mistake in the future.
Biden is an absolutely awful candidate, especially if his running mate is Kamala Harris - but if it’s him vs. Trump I’ll vote for him any day.
Democrats need to stop picking the most deeply flawed candidates they can find - Hillary Clinton being such an awful candidate is how we got Trump in the first place.
Hillary Clinton being such an awful candidate is how we got Trump in the first place.
speaking of which…
How the Hillary Clinton campaign deliberately “elevated” Donald Trump with its “pied piper” strategy
I just read that article and that’s literally why I never wanted that stupid goddamn monster in the race. It wasn’t her fucking turn and she created so much of this mess…it was her goddamn ambition that created and fostered that orange goddamn abomination so she could get her place and turn. Fuck her… Sanders should have been nominated but her bullshit super delegates ruined the country by assuming we’re morons.
Turns out the country is significantly dumber than anyone considered unfortunately…
Whoever leaked those e-mails performed a valuable public service. Unfortunately, they were demonized for it.
I’d never vote for Biden. But I’ll vote against Trump any chance I get.
voting for Jill Stein or Cornel West is voting against Trump AND Biden
Voting for YOUR MOM is also voting against Trump AND Biden.
Except not in a first past the post system. Voting 3rd party is just a vote for whichever of the two main parties you like least. Sucks, but that’s reality.
this is election misinformation. votes for so-called third parties are counted as votes for those candidates. only votes for Republicans get counted as Republican votes and only votes for Democrats get counted as Democrat votes.
It’s not misinformation to state how things end up functioning in practice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger’s_law?wprov=sfla1 It’s a well known thing for anyone who’s studied the tiniest bit of political science (or you know, was around in 2000 for that US election).
The way the votes get counted only matters insofar as their tangible real world outcome. The fact that your individual vote went to a specific third party or even abstaining ends up being irrelevant. The outcomes are the same and the party you prefer least is more likely to win. Again, I’m not advocating that this is a good system, but it is our current reality and stating that to be misinformation is ignorant at best or straight up manipulative propaganda at worst.
>The way the votes get counted only matters insofar as their tangible real world outcome. The fact that your individual vote went to a specific third party or even abstaining ends up being irrelevant.
this sounds like misinformation AND voter suppression: telling people their vote won’t count.
shame on you.
I won’t disagree with you that it is voter suppression in the sense that it supresses votes for third parties, but I didn’t set up the system so maybe channel your anger towards more productive means other than shooting the messenger. The way things stand today, that’s how the math works out if you care to check the link I shared.
We’re not talking “literally” a vote for the major candidate you like least. We’re talking “mathematically” a vote for the major candidate you like least.
Since FPTP voting systems like the US employees do not require any candidate to achieve a majority, FPTP systems eventually decay into two major parties, and voting for a third party after that decay is a vote against your own interests.
Here’s a young CGP Grey explaining it beautifully 12 years ago.
mathematically, the vote goes +1 to the candidate for whom you vote. the rest of this is storytelling.
mathematically, the vote goes +1 to the candidate for whom you vote. the rest of this is storytelling.
No shit the +1 goes to the candidate for whom you vote. No one is disputing that. The problem is, the third party candidate will not win.
In a FPTP system that has devolved to two parties, without a major political upheaval bringing about the death of one of the two parties, there are, realistically, only two candidates who have a chance of winning the election.
If you vote for neither of those two candidates, the candidate it benefits the most is the major candidate you agree with the least. This is called the “Spoiler Effect.” This is Nader taking sufficient votes from Gore in 2000 to hand the election to Bush, because Green Party voters would have, given something like the Alternative Vote or Ranked Choice Voting, ended up mostly being Gore votes.
This is Teddy Roosevelt running independent in 1912 and getting Woodrow Wilson, an extremely racist shitbag, elected president by taking Republican voters away from Taft.
And we all understand this effect, because when it looked like Trump might lose the primary in 2016 and was threatening to run anyway, Democrats were thrilled because it would guarantee a Democrat win by splitting the conservative vote.
This “Spoiler Effect” is what is meant when someone says that voting third party is a vote against your own interests in a FPTP system. It’s the major reason FPTP is a terrible voting system.
So is setting yourself on fire, and it’s an equally bad idea.
self immolation is not voting
No, it isn’t. It’s abstaining.
Congrats, you were able to exercise your free will and feel good about it. Hope you enjoy the consequences.
He isn’t a HORRIBLE choice. He has a good chance of beating Trump and hasnt done a lot of bad things during his time. I would like someone younger and more progressive, but both sides edge towards the center.
He had a surprisingly productive term but he’s clearly showing his age and should be stepping back as he promised during the last election. I love the shit out of Bernie Sanders but at this point he’s too old to hold an office like president… this is a hard job and both the candidates in this cycle are clearly not as sharp as they once were.
His term has been wildly productive and done more good than any president in my lifetime.
But he’s also taking the exact wrong stance on Israel right now, combined with the typical democrats being fucking garbage at messaging, and the media helping Trump every step of the way.
I disagree with Biden about Israel, but it’s genuinely a hard decision. He thinks it’s more important for the US to be seen aiding an ally who suffered a sneak attack. Disagree with him about it, hate him for it, but he has a very good point.
Contrast that with Donnie’s declaration that he’d let Russia attack Europe.
We should have been harsher on Israel for the apartheid government starting decades ago. Many presidents and many congresses are to blame for that failure.
“I sat it out when asked, It’s my turn now”
Unfortunately it’s not exclusive to one party, (un?)fortunately the election cycles hasn’t made us pick the winner of the “Nth Generation Political Hack” bracket yet
Biden’s been a great president. I talk to young Democrats who dislike him. They don’t know anything about his accomplishments. Judging him in that fashion isn’t even on their radar. They are expressing a vibe they get from those around them.
Biden’s a hero. He beat Donnie and he made the win stick after the election. That was harder than he made it look. If the president of the US is staging a coup he’s got a lot of strings he can pull, and even a dumb guy like Donnie understands that much.
And Harris, the young men dislike her and they don’t know anything about her. Anything. They’ve never even heard her talk. It feels suspiciously like attitudes towards Hilary Clinton, except at least people had seen Clinton in action.
Biden has been a great President and really seems true to what he said he would do. My biggest complaint is also Harris - as in Biden said he would be the centrist attempting to bring things together (and he tried harder than I would have) but the goal has to be to help establish a new generation of leadership, including actual liberals and progressives. Yeah, it not all on him but I don’t see how any have stood out. Harris had the home court advantage but why aren’t we seeing her as the presumptive heir?
Neolibs might be crying but literally everyone else is laughing
…. Most of whom will still be voting for him. Extremely accurate criticisms aside.
Right. I laughed my ass off, because it’s fucking true.
We’ve got two old as shit dudes, both with shit memories, running for president.
Sure one is the better option, but neither are great options… And imagine them in four more years
Yikes.
Right. As I keep saying, I’ll be voting for the forgetful doddering old grandpa that isn’t a treasonous rapist who says he’ll be a dictator.
Yeah, addressing it directly and with humor is exactly the way to tackle the issue. All the liberals frantically trying to gaslight about an 81 year old’s memory just look like they’re in a cult, which will actually drive voters away.
He’s old, probably too old, but Trump is not only worse in general, but demonstrably worse on that very issue. It sucks that our choice is which declining man should be the leader of the free world, but that’s the question we’re faced with.
I hope so. Another drumpf term will be a disaster
We’ve seen what happens when a party refuses to scrutinize their own candidate. Learn that lesson part.
I’m pretty fuckin liberal and i thought it was more than due. Biden is far more competent than Trump when he’s feeling well but you can see the slips and very sudden demeanor changes coupled with what looks like instant onset exhaustion. He just crashes sometimes.
I was however a little annoyed that after almost no Israel discussion that whoever from the Economist looked directly at the camera and said Joe Biden was like the best person to have in office when it comes to Israel. The best? We could think of no one else?
Yup. When Biden is ‘on’ he’s great - passionate but not a blowhard, and sharp enough to apply his decades of political experience. But the Presidency is a really, really stressful and 24/7/365 ‘on-call’ job with landmines like “Global Thermonuclear War” and “Bipolar Great Power Competition” lurking on the field of play. Just as we recognize the value of experience and have set a minimum age limit, there needs to be a top limit as well
I have to admit the way Stewart approached the age question really hit. He pointed how old he looked and how many years older both candidates are. I so agree: I completely see Jon Stewart only wanting to do one show a week and only until November and he is years older than me. I really don’t see having the energy for president
Obama visibly aged like thirty years during his two terms, it’s rough on everyone but he showed it because he was on the younger side for Presidents
Jacinda Arden had the stomach to call it quits when she wasn’t able to meet the continuous demands, and good on her for having the self awareness and putting the country before her prestige. We need to encourage gracefully bowing out, and criticize wannabe Liches who are giving proxy votes from hospice wards as they cling to power and ego.
Yes, he’s the best person to have in office. Maybe I’m talking out of my ass from not remembering that part of the discussion but the context is the presidential race and there are really two possibilities. Of the candidate for President that have any chance of winning, Biden is clearly the best choice we could have in office
When people typically talk about the “best” person who could be in office, they don’t mean out of the candidates running in the election. They’re talking about all the possible candidates that the DNC could have put forward to run for President this time around, instead of Biden.
Good? Jon Stewart always took no prisoners. If you’re offended now then you weren’t paying attention before.
I don’t understand what people were thinking when Stewart came back? I mean he was always merciless to anyone’s failings regardless of party, it’s just that the republicans provided so much more fodder for him vs the Dems who at least on the surface went in with good intentions most of the time. It was usually him attacking the Dems for their failures in meeting their own standards vs attacking the republicans for having no standards at all.
Democrats are a lot further right than they were for his first go round.
He was right on all points.
But people obviously missed the point he made about the choice is still between a old Biden or old lunatic. So it’s not some 50/50 both sides bullshit
in a way, I wonder if JS was egging the mainstream media on to highlight the difference themselves, to distinguish a key difference - one’s an imperfect solution, the other is a deranged tyrant criminal. Yeah, do the math.
Who wasn’t laughing? It was hilarious. Jon Stewart’s points were spot on all around.
Who wasn’t laughing?
People who require uncritical support of their candidate.
Yes, betrayal - because the US devolved so much into tribalism, that any critique of “their own”, no matter if justified or not, is a betrayal and taboo.
You see, our side can do no wrong and is perfect. It’s their side that’s wrong, always. We’re the good guys, and they’re the bad guys - how could Jon betray the only side that’s good, noble and completely faultless? That clearly means he’s with them and not with us, because nuance is a foreign loan word that we don’t need, and everything is black and white!
Fucking sad and depressing - glad I get to look at it from the outside, but still…
I’m not American but I can see why the left going after Biden now is not a good idea. It’s just gonna lead to a Trump win. I hate Biden, the guy has blood on his hands from his constant support of the drug war. But you should have thought of that before. Either back him now, and get a better candidate going. Or go after Biden now and lose to Trump. And then you’ll get nothing done.
Biden should never have been the Democrats pick, Clinton either, but it’s too late for all that now.
what happened to “it’s ok if bernie doesn’t win you just gotta vote for biden and push him left when he’s in office” because this is not that.
No no no. You see, Union Buster Biden actually is the progressive champion and you’re a Russian bot for saying otherwise
It’s fucked. Life’s fucked. I’m fucked. You’re fucked. Everything’s fucked. It’s fucked to the point it can’t be unfucked. It’s completely, and thoroughly fucked.
It’s better than 1942
Until it isn’t.
He basically helped create the current atmosphere during his tenure on the daily show. It’s poetic justice I suppose.
Yes, betrayal - because the US devolved so much into tribalism, that any critique of “their own”, no matter if justified or not, is a betrayal and taboo.
Just look on here whenever I post an article critiquing Biden. I get called every name in the book. Russian bot, China bot, Trumper etc
I am only disappointed because his big comeback was sold to us as a man against MAGATARDS.
Depends on the article and what it’s advocating for. Anything advocating for not voting or voting third party (unfortunately equal to not voting in the American electoral system) will get shit from me… Biden is the worst option available to us except Trump. Trump is a fucking existential crisis.
“If you don’t vote for Biden that’s a vote for Trump!”
“If you don’t vote for Trump that’s a vote for Biden!”
Yeah that’s how the 2 party system works. Until a third party is strong enough (hint: they need downticket seats) to overtake another party, voting third party is worthless.
Ah, so you understand - good.
The logic is flawed
I understand where you’re coming from, I really do. The logic isn’t flawed the system we’re working within is flawed and unjust. Voting for one of the two leading candidates is the only logical option within this system.
If you want to change the system then fuck yea - I’m with you brother… but I honestly don’t know how to accomplish that other than primarying in candidates that support RCV or proportional representation… once we get to the general election you vote for whichever of the two choices is less awful. If you don’t then bad shit happens - if Trump hadn’t been elected we’d still have Roe v. Wade and that difference is fucking important in an intimate way to a lot of people’s lives.
Biden fucking sucks and I hope he’ll be our next president.
I go back to this video and still nothing has changed. It’s even worse now…
We’re in a weird spot. On the one hand, legitimate criticisms should always be welcome especially when directed at our elected officials. In a healthy democracy we would vote out people who disappoint or underperform. On the other hand, we don’t have a healthy democracy and one side is determined to vote for a man with the most extensive list of abhorrent behavior ever documented in the nation’s history. Criticizing Biden just makes it more likely that a super close race will go to Trump, who is unquestionably worse than Biden.
Part of me wants to say “let’s get the Trump threat behind us and THEN we can work on building a healthier democracy,” but that isn’t how a healthy democracy works! If we compromise on our values to get rid of someone we disagree with, are we the baddies? It’s a frustrating and scary place to be.
“The ends justify the means. But what if there never is an end? All we have are means.”
U.K. LeGuin
ONE-TIME FANS WHO perhaps remember comedian Jon Stewart only taking satirical swipes at conservatives while host of The Daily Show
Not a good look for an article to start with such a hot take. Anyone who thought Stewart never took aim at Democrats couldn’t have been a fan because they must have never watched his fucking show.
I would guess they know that? Stewart will likely do what he did when Hillary was running. Spend 9 months bad mouthing Biden and then wonder why the hell he didn’t win in the end, but feel sanctimonious that it couldn’t possibly be anything he did while Texas murders a few thousands migrants at the border.
So Hillary lost because of Stewart’s criticisms and not because her own team prompted trump up under the illusion that he could never win?
thank you
If you’re unable to secure a better candidate, you’d better laugh.
If you didn’t laugh at Stewart’s criticism, you’re no better than a Bill Maher or new york times liberal.
Who cares? Like me, personally, I think too much is being made of the age thing for Biden (and not enough for Trump) but Jon Stewart is not some party spokesman. If he wants to go Enlightened Centrist “BOTH SIDES are too old!” for comedy he can. His job is the comedy, not the election.
He’s also just correct. Just because Trump is such a scum human doesn’t make Biden’s three star rating into a five star. It just means three stars is better than this opponent’s zero.
And it’s not like the entire show was about Biden age. Jon Stewart does have a clear preference and does find reason so skewer one side of the political spectrum more than the other but we shouldn’t expect nor even want blind allegiance
Biden leaves me the fuck alone and passes good policy. He is my dream president.
Guess I’m not a liberal. The man is genius.
That episode was scathing and I love it.
