Jon Stewart hasn’t changed, and that’s the problem. As far as his comedy, no notes. He’s undeniably funny. But his politics just leave a sour taste. His enlightened centrist voice of reason shtick hits different now.
He’s defended people like Rogan and Chapelle. And I get it, they’re his buddies. He doesn’t see them as public figures, but as flawed individuals. And that’s a valid perspective, just a rarefied one.
His first guest upon his return was the editor of The Economist magazine who gushed about Reaganomics and Thatcherism. She framed the rise of right-wing politics in the West as first and foremost a threat to the neoliberal world order as Jon nodded along. And we all know that progressiveism is just the other side of the horseshoe to people who think this way.
I’ll be watching Stewart, and I really do admire him. But never meet your heroes I guess.
Could it be more that you’ve changed over the years? And the more you get to know Stewart’s politics, the less you agree with them; because you are now in a different place politically?
So it’s not that Stewart is out of touch or a centrist, or whatever; it’s that you’ve grown up and learned new things that make you think differently than he does. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s life. People go in different directions all the time.
Two things can be true and Jon Stewart is most certainly a centrist hack these days.