Jon Stewart Names The Trump Strategy He Didn’t See Coming In New Podcast
Jon Stewart said what surprised him most about President-elect Donald Trump’s victory was that it was on the up-and-up. (Watch the clip below.)
Not laughing yet?
Let the “Daily Show” comedian explain further on his “The Weekly Show” podcast, which dropped in full on Friday. You’ll get rueful chuckles out of his alternative take.
“This feels different because it is a democratic victory,” he said. “I feel like we were prepared for all scenarios and in each one of those scenarios it was: How is Donald Trump going to finagle his way back into the [White House]? How is he going to use undemocratic principles? What measure of intimidation and underhanded shenaniganery will this man use to worm his way back into the Oval Office? And it turned out he used our electoral system, as it is designed. And in that moment, I thought, ‘Well, fuck. … I’m not sure we have a team of lawyers for that. I don’t know if we have a team of canvassers for that.’”
That was Stewart’s segue into the current bane of his existence: the overhyping of the term “ground game” for door-to-door campaigning. Stewart is declaring a moratorium on it, particularly from Democratic strategists.
“I don’t ever in my life want to hear about: Our vaunted ground game will put us over the top,” he said. “It’s a 50-50 toss-up race, we’re sure of it, but the vaunted ground game. Turns out that people knocking on other people’s doors doesn’t get them to do what you want them to do, as, I believe, vacuum and Bible salesmen probably have known for many, many centuries.”
“Fuck us. Fuck me. I was wrong, will continue to be wrong. I love to sit back and think about the autopsy and where you move from there, but I think I still feel as though I’m in that moment of vertigo to some extent,” he continued.
As he did amid Trump’s march to victory on election night, Stewart offered a hopeful message:
“Man, I still believe in this country, and I still believe in individuals, and I still believe in the power of change and organization, and goodness, competence. I mean, for God’s sakes, the Mets made the playoffs.”
