“Daily Show” host Jon Stewart on Monday night admitted he didn’t think Donald Trump would “get this authoritarian, this fast” after the president threatened to send U.S. citizens to prison in El Salvador.
“I think the hosts of ‘The View’ are about to get ‘administratively errored,’” he warned.
But that led him to one question, complete with its own logo: “How authoritarian is we?”
Stewart looked at what makes authoritarians tick, from a love of tacky decor to an inner circle of cronies who shower them with flattery, applause and laughter.
He played a clip of Trump’s Cabinet offering “the most embarrassingly sycophantic hosannas” as they went around the table delivering over-the-top praise.
“When I watch those Cabinet meetings, I actually think: Are they making fun of him?” Stewart said.
But it’s not just praise that authoritarians crave.
“The real autocrats extract something much, much weirder and humiliating: The forced uncomfortable laughter,” Stewart said.
He rolled footage of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un getting that kind of laughter ― followed by “America’s dear leader” Trump getting laughter from his Cabinet after making a joke that no one seemed to get.
“It’s just so fucking weird,” Stewart said.
And that’s not the only way Trump is hurtling toward authoritarianism.
See more in the Monday night “Daily Show” monologue:
