One of the biggest gaps in American understanding of historical fascism is that we always point at Germany and not at our own Japanese internment. It keeps us from recognizing the reality of the moment.
Yep, and much like giving Jewish property owners a dollar for their homes/apartments to SS officers, American officials had long coveted the land of the Issei/Nisei. Pearl Harbor was merely the excuse they needed…
And the treatment of Native Americans, and the entire history of immigration from Mexico, not just the past decade or so of Republican media screaming "Migrant caravan!" every time an election rolls around, and the American response to other waves of immigration, and the rise of authoritarian regimes (occasionally objectively fascist ones) in countries other than Nazi Germany and...
No, I think the biggest gap is pointing at fascism in Germany in its final form after the invasion of the Soviet Union, and only having the vaguest notions of how things got there. Nazism was already bad a decade earlier when they came to power, well before the gas chambers & WWII and even before the establishment of concentration camps (which weren't a Nazi invention and aren't synonymous with death camps). What's more, fascism was already bad another decade earlier, when Mussolini came to power. Unfortunately, Americans were taught that fascism was something evil defeated by US soldiers, rather than the cautionary tale of democracy abolishing itself in suicidal hubris.
@@Daneelro I believe there are a lot of big gaps, one being usa not revisiting their own reason to enter the war (ignoring, for example, the majority of citzens that at time agreed with the n-azy perspective), the literal war crimes committed against japanese/europeans and finally, not taking a look at what happened in those countries in the war aftermath. Most history books take the cold war and run with It, ignoring the absolut turmoil in those societies. They had to literally reinvent themselves under a new world order and this didn't come without great suffering and violence. My point is that there is only one rout in facism, wich is the complete destruction of a society as It is (including themselves) and the slow building of a new one under decades of uncertainty. This, in my humble opinion, is what is going to happen to usa over the next years.
Because all of you ARE over reacting…. All I heard for like 3 YEARS like YEARS was that there was a trans genocide….. and guess what no genocide… a boy who cries wolf situation
@@esmith4646The term “genocide” isn’t meant to be literal when it comes to trans genocide. I can see how that would be confusing or misleading on the outside. The best way I can summarize is that it’s about the systemic discrimination, demonization, censorship, and ‘social death’ of trans people. Effectively these things would ‘kill off’ any trans person from ever transitioning out of fear, or even lack of education / understanding. Like keeping gays in the closet, as they basically had been for centuries.
There is something very important I learned in history class: After Hitler was elected, nothing the Nazis did was illegal. There is a stark difference between law and justice
Hm. Not to dismiss your point, but that’s not true at all. Hitler had a lot of people killed illegally before and after his election to secure his place.
@@lukivanknobi5428 and then he says the Nazis weren't doing anthg illegal, drawing the parallel, he was being sarcastic and he even called on the other party for not moving a finger.
As a disabled person from birth, I've been screaming about eugenics ever since Trump has been put into power. He wants to make massive cuts to Medicaid and Social Security. That in addition to him wanting to get rid of DEI/established civil rights law has me absolutely terrified. Disabled people are the canaries in the coal mine. It's been absolute radio silence from those in my circle.
And he will use those funds to fatten his coffers... the ONLY reason he's in this. He can't do it legitimately because he's a documented serial failure in business.
@@tunguskalumberjack9987 Yep, and the sad thing is that Trump's own nephew gave the country a warning prior to the election. The people who voted for him can't pretend they didn't know. I go on FB now in disability spaces and I see people posting outright Nazi rhetoric regarding disabled people.
Its very clear from the disableist language that came right out of his mouth as soon as he was casting around for someone to blame for his own mistakes. "DEI" includes "A" for accessibility. It's also been very clear that disableist language and tropes have been used in anti-trans rhetoric for some time now. Stewart and liberals like that are the natural end-point of respectability politics. I've have to push against those calls for civility etc. when organising disabled people to be more disability justice focussed. We need to organise and build solidarity now more than ever.
Yes, that`s how it worked in Germany: Hitler came to power democratically and than got rid of the guardrails and put loyalists into power and consolidated power more. Thank you for pointing that out.
Of course, here in the United States, the guardrails have been eroding since at least January 20, 1981, preceded by the lack of maintenance thereof beginning January 20, 1969. And, they have been a state of abject failure since January 20, 2017. We’ve been experiencing the outright removal of the guardrails since January 20, 2025.
Funnily enough the one time they go in by brute force (Spain) it lasted until the 70s No lesson there except the fascisms are not uniform; eco was right to call it urfascism; believe people warning you'd
"Trump can't be a fascist because he's simply working within our system of government" is probably the most insane take I've heard in the couple years.
He will work within the system, expanding the systems to suit the needs of his "party" until he no longer needs them. By that point it will absolutely be too late. We can't complacently sit by and watch him drag us into the pit
hink what Jon Stewart is referring to is fascism as a system of government, not an ideology. He's saying that Trump isn't a fascist dictator he's just the president of a country where people don't care about anything except who they hate anymore.
@@JeffNighswanderhe's a fascist dictator though, cause the system allows him to be. (Technically he's not a dictator but let's see how much his party does against him 🤷🏼♂️)
He is gutting the government - replacing qualified people with clowns who are not qualified at all but loyal to trump so he can have the power "under the law".
I recently watched the movie Conspiracy about a the Nazi meeting which authorised the Final Solution. A key scene is of Nazi Colin Firth arguing to Nazi Kenneth Brannagh that they needed to follow the Nuremberg Laws, and Brannagh telling him that they didn’t need laws. The laws were only needed until they weren’t.
Jon’s is such a weird take, didn’t Hitler famously convince the government to disenfranchise communists so he could consolidate power, PERFECTLY LEGALLY? A bunch of shady but legal maneuvers that led to him being able to declare martial law and usher in the holocaust? I’m not an expert but I do not understand Jon here.
I saw this segment Jon Stewart did last week and was very disappointed as well. The part where he claims Trump firing 17 inspectors general is "No big deal because I don't know what those inspectors actually do" was insane. Literally just implying something can't be bad if you don't know what it means is child level logic
Completely agree. I was surprised and very disappointed that, even within the context of a comedy show, Stewart did not seem to be taking things seriously. The inspectors general, the idea of "things are fine because Trump is allowed to do all these things," and even his shockingly lukewarm reaction to Musk's salute last week. Idk what's up but I really expected better
And he missed the point about their firing being illegal. It wasn't a technicality like "using the wrong font". It was requiring 30-day notice to Congress and specific and *detailed* reasoning. The entire purpose of those requirements is to ensure that they can't be fired en masse for no reason. Which is what happened and Jon Stewart is handwaving away as if it's nothing....
Look, i like John i really do. Most of the time he actually has a really good head on his shoulders. But last weeks takes are so bad i honestly wouldn't be surprised if he was forced to read a script he had nothing to do with writing. Or his bosses are fearful of the whip from the White House.
Yeah all these liberals go on and on and on about the Constitution is going to protect us while seemingly forgetting that the constitution isn't magic. If people in power went to ignore the Constitution all they have to do is have no one stop them
Just look at the laws that the US has had regarding slavery, spousal abuse (it was okay so long as a husband uses "a reasonable instrument"), oppression of ethnic minorities...
70% of children who identify as T outgrow it by the time they hit puberty. I went down the detransition rabbit hole of people that regret their surgery and it is some of the saddest stuff I have ever seen. Allowing kids to make life long decisions is setting them up for failure. They will regret mutilating themselves later on. That's why we need to save them. You want to change your sex? You should wait until you're at least 25. My son was born male and he wanted to be female. We gave him testosterone instead of estrogen. He is happy, wearing blue again, wants to get married to a girl and have kids..
@IDF_92 thats not true The study your referencing included any amount of gender non-conformance as being trans. The information you're vomiting out is so stale and malformed you would think it was a wet bag of chips Do you bother to look into what you say at all or do you just blindly regurgitate information that's fed to you by your favorite reactionary Daddy
Glad I wasn't the only person who thought, "What the f*ck, Jon?!" when they saw that. Like, dude...They're literally doing all of the things the Italian and German fascists did as if it's a Super Mario Bros speed run.
My 70+ year old MOTHER said to me today that the Orange was speed running fascism. My mother who, in 2016, didn't vote because she 'didn't like Hillary', and then spent the next 4 years regretting her decision, so made sure to vote for Kamala this time. My mother who used to watch Fox News religiously. And who now posts insults and fact checks on Facebook pages of ridiculous conservative politicians in her local area and in the country in general. If my mother can see that, why can't someone like Jon Stewart?
@@citrinedragonfly if one is paid to not see something, then i guess that person would have some motivation to find ways to not see what they arent supposed to see
70% of children who identify as T outgrow it by the time they hit puberty. I went down the detransition rabbit hole of people that regret their surgery and it is some of the saddest stuff I have ever seen. Allowing kids to make life long decisions is setting them up for failure. They will regret mutilating themselves later on. That's why we need to save them. You want to change your sex? You should wait until you're at least 25. My son was born male and he wanted to be female. We gave him testosterone instead of estrogen. He is happy, wearing blue again, wants to get married to a girl and have kids...
Jon Stewart lost his edge. John Oliver and even independent creators like Some More News do a better job at what he does while actually calling out fascism when they see it.
I mean, isn't some more news more or less explicitly socialist? (At least they hang out with very socialist and anarchist people) But yes, John Oliver tends to be the liberal with the most effective edge that I've seen
Wealth will do that, every time. Look at Bill Maher. He was good, then he donated a million bucks to Obama and didn't get his money's worth, so now he's a centrist "liberal" that supports conservative policies and talking points because his paycheck was more important.
..... wasn't Biden there? And the other choice was Kamala " I have no personality" Harris. And before that "pacifist" Obama and before that "trustworthy" Bush. ALL of them where and will be clowns, the circus has been there all this time, and there was no palace.
To argue that he is not fascist because "he got elected and didn't throw a coup", or that "it's all in the limits designed by the law and the law will limit him, eh, what can we do", is to be gullible at best - and complicit at worst.
@@loferx 100% complicit. Stewart is an impotent liberal and part of the problem. Trump is re-elected and we shouldn't point fingers at a man whose been on prime time for the last 25 years? He depends on capitalism maintaining itself.
Using that reasoning neither Hitler and Mussolini are not fascist as they where both elected to power Hitler as the leader of the largest party in a coalition and Mussolini outright with 64.94%.
In the TH-cam comments of that segment it was pretty unanimous that Jon's take was insane. Those are liberals saying that btw, so thats my silver lining.
Wasn’t Jon really just saying how insidious this movement is because of how it really manipulates the very system we took to be fairly secure into fascism? He was marveling THAT it didn’t require a special revolution, but that the means are built in for a bad faith actor to take advantage of.
When i first listened to that segment on his show, i was hoping that he was working toward the conclusion "This is actually how the system has been contorted over the years to work, and the fact that he can do this within the existing structure should let you know just how deeply fascist the U.S. had _already become_ by the time he got into office." He's had enough experience dealing with politicians due to trying to get the 9/11 first responders justice to shed his neoliberal views, but it may well be that he's just too wealthy and wedded to the capitalist structure to see it for what it is.
4:10 Hitler was appointed by the conservative Paul von Hindenburg in 1933 after the nazis got 1 in 3 votes in the 1932 election - the same share of votes nazis continue to have in many countries to this day. What people usually cite as Hitler winning the election was after his 1933 appointment when the nazis got a plurality of the vote in the following election afterwards, the first unfree-election.
Yup. That crossed my mind too, after not winning he was appointed Chancellor by Hindenburg. Also, iirc, a lot of conservatives in government initially thought they could control Hitler, keep him in check - not unlike Republicans who decided appeasement was the way to go after trump won in 2016.
Actaully Hitler was apointed in Jan 1933 inbetween the November 1932 election where the Nazis got 1/3rd of the votes and March 1933 election where they got 44% of the vote.
I was in disbelief when this tone-deaf Daily Show episode came out, because it seemed like Jon was finally ...bought... by someone into underplaying fascism. Also, the way I see it is that Jon is privileged enough to be insulated by the effects of fascism, so he is free to be as contrarian and dismissive of the threat as he feels comfortable. He has a few zingers that are effective, but I often have to return to reality that he and his old buddy Steven Colbert are capital 'L' liberals that had the supposed 'Return to Sanity' movement that both-sided the shit show we are living in today.
I don't think he was bought. I think he's both terrified and worn-down, and he's doing the very human thing of going into denial. Denial is absolutely the wrong response to the current situation, and will ultimately cause things to get much, much worse, but... well, he'd getting older, and he's Jewish, and he painted a target on his chest when he was younger and more vocal and far more pointed in his critiques of power. And, clearly, he is so, so tired. That was obvious when he retired in 2016, and it's only become more obvious since. It won't save him, in the end. And to describe me as being disappointed in him would be an understatement. But I don't think he sold out to anyone but himself.
The things I found interesting is Colbert actually does call it fascism and nazism. Stewart is not… or if he is, his bosses are meddling in the script. Idk.
@@BewareofTarps He's old and terrified of change. The old system, he reasons, worked just fine. He rose through the ranks after all, why can't everyone? America is definitely a meritocracy and always has been. All we have to do is ease back onto the knife's-edge balance of neoliberal corporatism and everything will be just like it was in the 90s! It's the kind of delusional thinking that old people engage in.
In defense of Jon Stewart, he is actually more on top of this then 99 percent of democrats. He has been banging his head against his desk telling the party they need stop letting the Republicans be the only ones who find the levers of power, to stop treating it like a game were you shake hands and go on with your day if you lose. "Republicans exploit the loopholes. Democrats complain about the norms over and over and over, and it has ghastly consequences."
@@ashfordwyrd7458I don’t know if you intended to type that year, but I agree with it. Stewart has been off the mark since early in the second millennium A.D.
Stewart has been disappointing in the past. Pretty recently the Luigi Mangione take. Also, I have distant recollections of a Rolling Stone interview he gave where he made fun of people who felt that Bush stole the 2000 election. And his whole mock Presidential campaign a little more recently: I forget how he framed it. Something like a "return to civility" or something. And it was basically gatekeeping the things the left could complain about. It was both-sidesing progressives and the alt-right, and placing himself in the center as the "reasonable" one. (I forget all the details. But I remember it really rubbed me the wrong way.)
Bush didn't steal the 2020 election, SCOTUS did. Top be exact his legal team did.... That team, hilariously, contained Brett Kavenaugh, and Amy Coney-Barret
Of course Trump is a fascist. Musk even more. I understand from his video that Stewart is pointing out that the american political system do not have the protections needed to avoid fascist takeover. And that the liberals do not have courage enough to act as they should. What Musk did in the inauguration would lead him to jail in other countries and the proud defense of absolute freedom of speech in order to avoid that freak show is a symptom
Oh, all corporate media hosts have flopped on Luigi. All they have to do is say his name and crowds start cheering, forcing the hosts to sit there making sour milk faces and going "Really??". Yeah, really. If you weren't relying on that check from GE to pay for your McMansion and armed guards, you'd be cheering too.
Something that strikes me as a German observing US-american politics for a couple of years now: The American far-right (mainly under Mitch McConnell) has spent several decades to slowly subvert the US court system to its own ends. One of the main issues that the first German republic had, was how the German state apparatus (and the courts in particular) were really opposed to the new democratic regime after 1918 and didn't resist much when the Nazis were elected. (The last holdouts were then quickly dismantled after '33.) The rest of the state apparatus in the US today is not as thoroughly anti-democratic as the one in Germany was in the 1930s, but coincidentally there seems to be a bit of a purge going on to bring it in line. I dunno. It's not quite the same thing, but there are enough similarities to make me worry.
Jon's monologue weirdly reminds me of the Titanic. Historians have pieced together that even 25 minutes before the sinking, people lucky enough to get in the lifeboats were sure this was a pointless safety precaution and were annoyed at being inconvenienced. The captain had known the ship would sink for nearly 2 hours, all the crew had been informed, and 3rd class passengers had seen the extensive flooding, but 1st class passengers refused to see the danger during an active evacuation until the literal final minutes.
Makes me think about a quote of a french political and writer, Françoise Giroud "Ainsi commence le fascisme. il ne dit jamais son nom, il rampe, il flotte, quand il montre le bout de son nez, on dit : c'est lui ? vous croyez ? il ne faut rien exagérer ! et puis un jour on le prend dans la gueule et il est trop tard pour l'expulser." which means "And so fascism begins. It never says its own name, it crawls, it hovers. When it shows its face, people say : Is it really here ? You think so ? We shouldn't overstate ! And then on day, we are hit by fascism and it's too late to evict it."
It’s worth saying that she was born in 1916. As a French journalist, she saw this firsthand. She helped the resistance and was briefly detained by the Gestapo. Her (jewish) stepbrother died in the camps. After the war, she fought for feminism and the independence of French Vietnam and colonies. She had seen it all.
his interview on his podcast with AOC, i was excited to listen to. but then it sounded like jon was saying “why don’t the democrats more broadly support things like the lincoln riley act, because people who cross the border and committ criminal acts shouldn’t be given citizenship”, and it’s like… is that really the framing and the argument we’re gonna make at this time in this place with our reach and influence? it was utterly maddening to listen to him focus and try to redirect the conversation to crime instead of immigration or border security or deportations. like what are we doing?
I noticed that too and was glad AOC pushed back on that, and then this past week, he had Chris Christie on and both of them said the opposite of most of this monologue.
It's because Jon is an optimist to a fault. He thinks that if you reach out to republicans and have their fears responded to they'll listen and become reasonable. Even if such a thing were true (en mass anyway) that still ignores the massive issue that the system basically needs to be disassembled and rebuilt. He at his core wants order and fears the chaos that a progressive movement could cause.
“Well Jon, I don’t think immigration is a real problem, I think it’s a distraction from real and serious economic issues that privilege a few wealthy billionaires at the cost of regular people.”
@@rahavan823it also ignores the fact that the Republican fears you have to respond to to magically make Republicans reasonable are, themselves, unreasonable. You can't extend an olive branch in the form of "Okay, maybe the millions of illegal Haitian immigrants in a small town in Ohio have eaten all the pets there..." or "You're right, trans people are grooming every single child in America to be trans and even doing the surgeries right there in their third-grade classrooms" and come out the other side with both you and the person you're speaking to being reasonable people. Quite the opposite, really. You can only meet Republicans on their wholly irrational, completely made-up fears by becoming as unreasonable as they are.
I also listened to that interview and I got the impression that he asked that question because he felt it needed to be addressed head on for some audience members so they could move on. Part of being a good interviewer is asking what the audience will need asked and that means that the questions don't always represent the interviewer's opinions
Some Liberals could stand staring into the mass graves at a concentration camp and still say ".....i know it's bad & I feel sorry for those affected but I wouldn't say that it's fascism. That word is thrown so much it means nothing"
Internet leftists decided to blame a 50 year old conflict on a black woman. Internet leftists and MAGA Cultists hate seeing black people in charge, especially black women. John Stewart is out of touch the same goes with the internet leftists. Just say you hate black women
bruh, here in argentina they are calling fascint nazi zionist to everyone cause one of the same lgbt+ movement asked that "please don't go nude in front of minors" for the march that they made yesterday. They sent death treaths and doxxed a 19 year old girl. Im not sure if you know what ANY of those words mean at this point, and its really fucking scary to see it happening all over the world.
And the ironic part, is that liberals and their "do nothing for the people, but kiss wealthy people asses all the times" with stupid virtue signaling, is the reason we are losing to fascism everywhere Almost everywhere. In mexico, they have an actual based left wing president, not liberal, and she is hugely popular. And you won't struggle to see why, if you even listen to her talking once and compare it to kamala harris talking once...
Are you suggesting that Jon Stewart is pro-holocaust or that you don't see the difference between the holocaust and a legally questionable firing of government employees? Because neither is a great look. Stewart's point is *precisely* that the two shouldn't be conflated because it's lazy and empowers the fascists rather than hurt them. You're *helping* them move the Overton window.
What really surprises me with this new monologue and others recently, he says things like this, but say completely opposite things in his weekly podcast, where he has spoken of how fascist Trump is many times. This stark contrast makes me genuinely wonder what happened to Jon Stewart.
It's a misunderstanding. It sounded to me more that he was outraged about the fact that the former, so-called democratic, system was already broken. He describes the seamless transition between the usual system and fascism.
@@johannageisel5390 Yeah, I see that, but I also see where Jessie is coming from, because some people don't always understand or catch stuff like that. Honestly, it feels like if that was how he intended the monologue to come across, it was from a place of privilege.
@johannageisel5390 This was also my read, along with I think was an attempt to make active resistance of Trump's (let's call it what it is) regime more palatable to the typical liberal. Kind of a baby-step your way to the resistance thing. At least I hope that's what he's doing. On his podcast he seems to understand the current fascist rise perfectly well.
I used to watch this guy and it's really frustrating to see him start to turn more into Bill Maher. This isn't to dismiss any precious criticism of him, as I've heard them as well, but him basically telling people not to freak out shows he's more interested in peace than justice. Someone on Bluesky said this and it rings true, which is that trans people and sex workers are the canaries in the coal mine, and they've been screaming about the poison gas and lack of oxygen... and a lot of dems are just shrugging and going "We must follow the law." Because they're interested more in peace than in justice.
I wouldn't go far as to say he's turning into Maher. And he does better than a lot of mainstream hosts. But that's because the standard is so low. Like a lot of mainstream figures, he's still acting like it's the early 2000s. And we're not. We're in 1930s Germany and have to acknowledge it.
@@Inkinhart this is unfortunately why it's so effective to divide us from one another: you get groups who want to claim "bottom spot" while neglecting their hierarchal peers--or without admitting that social hierarchy isn't actually so cut-and-dry. you're right: as a result, disabled people are left out in the cold as usual. our screams are made to be so quiet that others get to claim they're the ones who started screaming in alert.
Black people do the same job with alerting people to racism/prejudice/bigotry ... soooo many types of canaries go unheard and unseen until it's too late.
That monologue was absurd. Jon Stewart said "this isn't fascism" while literally displaying a picture of an appointed secretary where you can visibly see his fascist-coded tattoo. I actually yelled at my television in frustration "I can see the f-cking photo".
Your point is stupid. Trump government isn't fascist because a guy has a fascist tattoo, or because elon musk saluted twice. Trump cabinet is fascist because of his actions ans his rethorics being so goddamn close to what mussolini and hitler did. Trump is firing everyone but loyalists, he uses scapegoats (like dei, immigrants,...) for every single problem, he distracts people from their problem with bs baits like conquering greenland, or canada, the republicans OWNING all type of media spaces, with not a single strong left wing voice anywhere, but right wing nuts everywhere, and i could go on
He almost made some good points with the cheeto doing this within the bounds of his office. And rightfully pointing out that he was given this power by the system we live in. He was *so close.* But then flubbed it horribly by downplaying it and the real, immediate risks and damage already done. I've liked Stewart for a while (even if his take on Chicago deep dish is wrong). He has been more willing to call out and challenge than a lot of mainstream hosts. But I think everyone who is pointing out that he's insulated by his wealth and prominence are right, and it applies to so much of the mainstream. They won't, or can't, acknowledge the situation has changed. Bush was bad, but he was never the kind of existential threat that trump and his cronies are now. I think Bush 2 should be tried for war crimes and he was still better than what we have now. He never took fascist actions at the level we've seen in just the past two weeks. But soooooooo many of the mainstream think that this just like any other GOP administration. It is not. Part of it is no doubt not wanting to disturb their own position. But I think a part of it is also fear. Not just of being harmed, but the primal fear of your worst fears coming to life. They're terrified of admitting that it's real because that means their world doesn't actually work. I can understand that. But a lot of us have already been living with that fear for a long time. This is not business as usual. We can't just shake it off. I just hope more realize that before it's too late to save anything.
The big difference between Bush 2 and his era of Republicans and Trump and his era or Republicans, is that Trump's entire shtick is wanting to hurt people. Bush 2 was kinda dumb and listened to the wrong people around him, but I never got the sense he was maliciously trying to hurt people, even when that's what his base wanted.
I agree completely. I also think he can help and do good things by being able to speak with both sides, especially since that worked for the 9/11 first responders whom he helped. He probably thinks he could help in the very near future in the same way. Although the fear you describe is very real too. Are you sure he’s not in the right side of history regarding deep dish pizza though.
I will say this. The most disappointing thing I have seen in my life, is watching the critique that the biggest stumbling block to equality and fairness is not the white supremacist or fascist, but the white moderate, who cares more for a negative peace, which is the absence of tension, then the positive peace which is the presence of justice.
@@MasterDarkenRahl Some do, but the American system is based on White Supremacy and Fascism at its core, it cannot be reformed or it would cease to be what it is, and those in power do not want to not be in power which they wouldn't be any more on its changing.
@@MasterDarkenRahl hard to learn from history when we barely teach it properly, like the complete mishandling of the aforementioned dr. King. I heard about about him growing up but never quotes like these
Ive been warning about p25 since 2021 when Trump wasn't thrown immediately into prison and now I was right all along. The left are all Cassandras- destined to know the future, believed by nobody, but blamed in hindsight.
The plan remains the same as if Harris had been elected. It’s just going to be harder. Organize. Get connected locally to support the people who are in danger and protest what’s happening.
Jon Stewart's opening, "Let's stop calling Trump Fascist" before the massive amount of fascist takeover this week pretty much tells me he's always been a mouthpiece of corporate sanewashing. He never wanted to be actually challenging to power.
I think an important note about Hitler too, is that his party caused chaos and he demanded the Chancellorship despite president Hindenburg not wanting to. Even when they had power they had to use force to make the system bend to them, but it still was legal. Fascism is colonialism brought home, and we are their first target... again.
When warning against creeping fascism / authoritarianism I used to resort to quoting Georges Santayana: “Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it,” and offering historical examples as an illustration of the present. Unfortunately, people resistant to that message retort with a quote which they seem to think has the power of kryptonite: “It’s not the same thing!” because they can’t get past the specifics and focus on the ultimate goals while also failing to realize that there’s always strategy involved. It’s never the same thing right up until it is.
Night Of The Long Knives was an internal purge of those Shitler saw as a threat to his leadership. In today’s context it would be like Chump having Muskrat murdered because he thought he was getting too powerful within the party. A more historically analogous event would be the Nazis using the Reichstag fire to basically make Shitler dictator, or Krystalnicht when discrimination against Jewish Germans became mass violence.
Hey Jessie, I hope YOU have been taking care as best as possible. Your back catalog of videos (specifically the star trek ones) have been helping me during all this insanity. Much love from me and my two cats (who love you as much as I do).
Jon Stewart wasn't saying Trump wasn't a fascist. He is saying the the Democratic Party's rhetoric around this stuff is inconsistent and we would have cried "fascism" a long time ago if it were. It was a primer for how the American government allowed for fascism from the start. Essentially, this whole video is agreement framed as disagreement.
It's crazy that people didn't see Trump's cartoonish fascism when he first ran for president! And now we're past the cartoon, and living in a 1930s Germany and Italy. People seem to be waiting for a 1940s Germany/Italy, or just denying it altogether.
I'm personally of the thought that while you may be right (and probably are) about Stewart, I think you're going to see a _lot_ of much softer, harmless criticism of Trump and his regime from US mainstream media. Not because they agree with him, but because they like their money and Trump can take that money away now. They're scared, and do what most corporate media do when scared, they retreat into appeasing the tyrant.
Johns bad take is very emblematic of the "It can't happen here" mentality that is clouding a lot of peoples vision regarding what is going on in our country. I find it deeply frustrating that people who very likely had parents or grandparents who fought in WW2 against fascism and should know better, are giving into the very thing that their family members were fighting against. I'm glad that my grandpa didn't live to see this happening, as a WW2 combat vet I think this all would have broken his heart.
I feel this is completely missing Jon’s point. He was proclaiming how disturbing it was that everything Trump has done was entirely within the law. He was very clear that something terrible is coming, and I personally found that segment to be more chilling than any other segment he’s done. I genuinely don’t know how so many people came away from it not realizing what Jon was actually saying - that the only difference between Trump and German fascism is that Adolph had to take power through mostly underhand and illegal methods.
I mean, this is the same Stewart, who suddenly became extremely silent when his best friend Dave Chappelle started saying certain things You know you gotta defend those billionaires
Or maybe he's not going to attack people just because you want him to. I'm heart sick of all the mob mentality cancellation bullshit. A comedian should be able to do a set on stage without running it by the thought police first. Ultimately the audience will be the arbiter not you.
@@willsmith39idk man i think calling out a super rich person for punching down on a minority group that can't defend itself warrants a "hey dude that's kinda messed up of you". Also if cancellation is real why do people who get "cancelled" always end up getting on prime time tv or netflix talking about how they got cancelled?
@@enbydeadly Did I say you couldn't call him out if you think it was "punching down."? Your favourite phrase of course. I said Jon Stewart shouldn't have to and you shouldn't demand it of him. But that's what mobs do of course. And a lot of people did get cancelled when this fever was at its peak. Thankfully it seems to have broken a bit now.
@@willsmith39 You called mass defamation and low-key promotion of violence and oppression "doing a set." You'll have to excuse us if we don't make the most generous conceivable reading of everything you say (to the point of making your comments absolutely vapid and self-contradictory, which is how far we'd have to go for them not to be repugnant).
Just a heads up, the description says "The Daily Wire" instead of "The Daily Show." Anyway, we're reminded of how much Stewart cheered on Trump deciding to campaign for Presidency in 2015, to the point where he had an ongoing bit about how disappointed he was that Trump hadn't announced his campaign yet and considered retiring early if that wasn't gonna happen soon. Seeing that and remembering it so clearly is why we never really vibed with how he tried to act above other comedians regarding how he handled Trump during the last presidency.
I saw John Stewart pointing out the outrage that fascism could increase within the laws. He's not saying it isn't fascist, he's saying it's shocking how much room for fascism there already is in the system.
I'm scared and I live in Europe, not the US. I am scared by how insidious the slide into fascism is, and I'm scared by a lack of options for fighting back.
God, as someone currently getting a PhD in the social sciences (well, assuming the Department of Education doesn't cease to exist before I manage to defend my dissertation or something, that is), this has been such a frustrating thing to experience. Political scientists, sociologists, psychologists, communication scholars, economists, basically everyone I know and read has been raising the alarm since before 2016, but despite being close to 100% correct on predicting how this would play out over the last decade, it's still like shouting into the void. Even when literal authoritarianism is right on our doorstep. Especially then, apparently.
@@JN-xb6pq There's a difference between "the person who the reactionaries agree with and want to promote" and "the person doing the best and most rigorous work on the topic."
Thank you! So many people are forgetting that there are writers involved here and they also failed to meet the moment. The road to fascism is paved with people telling you that you are overreacting.
Please don't forget ableism here. As a disabled person I've learned so much about internalizing the societal gaze and body dysmorphia from my trans friends and teachers, and I'm glad that there is a living discussion about trans issues in the public debate. I think the disabled community also has a lot to contribute to the discussion for all, but we are very often dismissed and given the silent treatment when bringing our issues to the table. But we are also the canary in the coalmine.
I watched a little bit and he was mentioning how Trump could fire people legally if he gave 30 days notice A) obviously doesn’t stop it from being facism B) Trump isn’t doing that
A lot of people - liberals included - do not have a working understanding of fascism as an ideology. They think fascism is when you take power using violence, or when you use violence or threats of violence to get yiur way. But that's not a description of an ideology, that's a description of a set of tools and strategies. It's not why you do things, it's how you do them. And the reasons fascists are in the wrong isn't just because they do things using unsactioned violence, it's because their ideology is basically a death cult. The violence is an effect of the ideology. And that fascist ideology can be - and often is - expressed in other ways than literal brownshirts using unlawful violence.
You said correctly "fascism is not the exception of American polity, but an iteration." I am glad you are pointing out concrete consequences of this latest moment. I have been worried that it is so stupid and vile that we don't have tools to understand it and don't know what to do in response. JS is just a feature of the simplicity and complacency that have infected this iteration of fascism and our response. I do think those that the failures of our system have been alienated and traumatized appreciate the problems more precisely. Thank you for this video and the others expressing what should be obvious but far too easily is ignored or goes underappreciated. Who knows what will come of this but describing it is part of enduring and possibly overcoming it.
Hearing Jon Stewart explaining the fascistic actions of the new government and then say that those fascistic actions _aren't_ fascist... that was just so demoralising
You’re too focused on the base level of what he said. Jon was giving us a warning - that the only different between Trump and your average fascist, is that Trump is actually within the law. He wasn’t downplaying it - that was Jon explaining how bad the situation is. I found the wag he put it very chilling, actually. I’m surprised so many people missed his point.
@@calvinjohnson6242 The thing is of that Jon point he still wrong because the fascist poster boys Hitler and Mussolini both worked inside the law to gain power.
The "cartoonish Nazis" thing is such a big problem. We need to stop representing (all) Nazis as these twisted, over-the-top evil-for-the-sake-of-evil villains Hitler didn't rise to power by promising to murder children and slaughter innocents. He campaigned on the idea that he would make Germany a wonderful place, and rid it of the "bad influences" that were "ruining it". And people believed him. People cheered him on: people who _genuinely thought they were good and decent people_ And I'm not saying any of that to defend Nazis. But people ought to understand how _insidious_ Fascism is. If people think that every fascist comes pre-labelled with "I am evil" stamped on their forehead, then they're not going to recognize an _actual_ fascist when they see one No one wants to admit that fascism sounds appealing, or positive, or good, because that will make them sound like a fascist. But the truth is that fascist propaganda is very effective, and it can sound like a very good idea. Of course it can: that's how fascists get elected. People need to know that, so they can be ready to reject fascist rhetoric when it starts to appeal to them
Yeah..I had this US friend who, when trump won the elections, he told me he was just gonna ignore everything that is happening and going to happen (and just focus on his new gf instead.) I know better what's going on in america than he does and at some point I told him he no longer has the luxury to bury his head in the sand. But in his privilege he was still like: no it's too much for me." Even though he is not one of the marginalized groups..so..to say, we aren't friends anymore. Too frustrating and immoral for me.
My interpretation of Jon's monologue was that our system is working the way we've allowed it to become, which is not good. I don't think he is saying what's happening is good at all...
That Jon Stewart bit was also mostly about, “Here’s what MSNBC said! They exaggerated.” He barely focused on what Trump is doing and how it’ll affect Americans. Also, your shirt is incredible!
Italian here. Your analysis of fascism Is spot on. And there is also the element of armed militias: historical Fascism started thanks to the horrific violence of "squadracce", the militias that terrorized and often killed socialists, workers and sometimes even priests. Do not underestimate the role of those "Proud Boys", they serve as the de facto militia of Trump.
Shocked and disappointed by Jon Stewart's reaction to these events. If your response to what's happening right now is "well it can't be fascist because it's happening within the system that we created," then I have some bad news about the system we created. It may not be inherently fascist, but at the very least we are watching in real-time as it fails to stop fascism. We are watching the system of checks and balances fail *in real-time.* The system was not designed to handle all 3 branches of government bowing to a madman, and so we are seeing it fail to do what it *was* explicitly designed to do: prevent any one person from abusing their power and running amok with the government. My only hope is that if we survive the next 4 years, we can take what remains of the government and rebuild it into something better. Also just want to point out that Jon's reaction to Musk's salute at the inauguration was also shockingly mediocre. He just made some jokes about it, *even making some similar mocking gestures of his own,* but made no effort to point out how heinous it was. I'm quickly losing faith in him as a presenter.
I'm currently in US History class, and in one of the chapters, it explicitly states that Nazi Germany studied the US eugenics movement. So uh, take it what you will.
I would argue that Liberals propensity to target left-wing movements and historically trying to work with fascists, along with their love of capitalism, makes them a lot more right-wing than most would want to reckon with.
I agree that’s the point he was making, but I also think he was defending the legitimacy of the system rather than demanding it be dismantled because of its failures to stop this takeover.
That's what I felt he was saying as well. Though I would have liked to see a bit more anger towards that very idea of this mess happening within the legality of the system.
I also thought his point was "Trump is working within the powers America has allowed him to use... powers that maybe a president shouldn't." But it did also feel like he was trying to downplay the fears.
Yes, that was my takeaway too. I think he basically makes the same point as Jessie: That it is bad that the US system is designed in a way that makes it possible to seamlessly transition into fascism.
I'm GenX, I've been watching The Daily Show since before Jon Stewart was on it (he wasn't the first host). I usually appreciate his perspective on things, but this bit just left me with my jaw on the ground. I expect it to get weaponized by the right pretty fast.
My best friend was repeating this argument to me just yesterday and i immediately went "Trump absolutely is a fascist and he's working within a corrupt system".
The arrival of fascism is not a switch that instantly activated a move from a democratic state to a fascist regime. It's a slow shift from a gray area to a darker one.
Maybe a miss read from me, but I took his monologue to mean that our systems are fascist by nature (specifically the part about the power of a king being used). I didn’t think he meant that trump isn’t a fascist more that our systems being able to be used by a fascist is wrong. Again maybe an extremely charitable read but that’s what I got!
No, I think that people missed his point entirely. They just saw he got the definition of fascism wrong, and mussed his poignant point about the government allowing Trump to do these things without dipping into illegality.
So good that some of you understand it. I am from Brazil, we had over 20 years dictatorship here, Jon is in that delusional state of mind that things will figure it out by itself or with the magic of a old af constitution like it is a scroll that cast a democracy spell.
I’m probably being naive, but I didn’t hear Stewart’s bit as excusing Trump from fascism as much as he was saying “can you believe that this is what our democracy says is ok?” I heard a criticism of how few checks our government actually has against someone making this kind of power grab.
I feel like she's not considering the clip within the rest of Jon's beliefs. Jon is explicitly socialist and believes the American system is kinda broken. He's directly stated issues with the system and radical changes as necessary. So when he says, "Trump is operating within the law," that is not a justification as much as a condemnation of the law. I re-watched the segment after this video and was very disappointed that Jesse did not utilize the parts of the clips where Jon makes somewhat substantive arguments about how Democrats and the media need to communicate how Trump abuses the system alongside what needs to be done to fix it. Not including those bits makes Jesse seem dishonest.
Thank you for calling out this bullshit. You are spot on, as always. Another infuriating problem with that episode was Stewart asking why the Dems didn’t get their message out, when he spent a literal third of his entire show talking about Trump.
I sort of took the message to be "our system is actually quite prone to fascism," but that is absolutely not what he said. This wasn't a good segment for him. The whole last 8 years has made me feel like we don't actually have anyone representing us who's willing to stand up for anything. There's no bravery in Congress. That's exactly the kind of attitude that allows fascism to take root and grow.
7:55 The same thing is happening within the mixed race community as well. I talk to people about how this targeting of illegal immigrants is going to hurt those of us who get mistaken for mexican too and I get responses of "carry your documents" & "if you're legal you should be fine" as if thats supposed to make me feel safe
Yeah, the comments on that rant video give me some weird feelings of hope for the public actually understanding this better than Stewart does. A surprisingly large portion of the audience is educated enough to know that the Nazi's initial rise to power was 100% within the law. They even changed laws to make future actions legal, because they wanted that veneer of respectability. The Long Knives wasn't exactly legal, but by then they had full control and had enough fig leaf of respectability to plausibly say it was the actions of a bunch of individuals, not the party, the same way Rittenhouse was acting entirely on his own and not the responsibility of the people feeding him violent rhetoric for years...
I started to criticize Jon Stewart a lot more when a few months ago he started to argue that Democrats should play the same "Constitutional hardball" and play into the same manipulation of the system as Republicans do instead of, you know... closing those loopholes and working towards a more accountable system that isn't dependent on good behavior and an adherence to norms. Even as someone who's only studied democracy and the Constitution at an undergraduate level, I can see that our Constitution is outdated and creates a tyranny of the political minority; working within the labyrinthian system instead of making the system work for us just doesn't work.
I'm not even a little surprised. Given Stewart's ongoing detachment from "partisan" politics and slow shift into full-time eugenics work at NFA (edit: original acronym was incorrect), this was only a matter of time.
@@alexarkoette564 Color the Spectrum, the anti-autistic fundraiser that NEXT for Autism (sorry - screwed up the acronym above) ran in April 2022. Stewart and his wife are on the board. Their website used to include a mission statement about permanently ending autism, as well as a link to the genetic screening research center they fund, but the mission statement was scrubbed in the lead-up to the fundraiser, as were most of the links to organizations NAS funds on a regular basis. The Wayback Machine still has the original mission statement if you go back far enough.
I guess the liberal take on fascism is that it's something you _do_ rather than a system of power and belief. Much like the liberal take on racism is that it is the moral failing of individuals, rather than a system of power and belief.
I find he's a lot more on-target in his "Weekly Show" podcast than he is on the Comedy Central work "The Daily Show." I think he has more control over the writing in the Weekly Show, and he's a lot less afraid to call it what it is there. Still, I'm sure he has room to improve on these fronts, but I do see him call out these things a lot more clearly there. I don't watch the Daily Show anymore, it isn't hard-hitting enough for me in this time, and the "jokes" don't land anymore, but the more substantive interviews he gives on The Weekly Show are a lot more earnest and insightful. That spot from the Daily Show is pretty disgraceful though, I gotta say.
Everyone in these comments who is schocked or surprised by John Stewart's take, saying they didn't expect this from him or how he's changed, has not been paying attention. He has always been a liberal. Slightly left/progressive leaning, but a liberal at his core. The kind that wants to "meet in the middle" and get along. He started his career debating Tucker Carlson on CNN every week to show how "fair and balanced" a conversation between "both sides" could be, as if they are equally valid opinions that want the same things in the end, just coming at it from different angles. I don't think he's a bad guy, it's just that Liberalism has always been his misguided worldview, and he's blind to its flaws and blind to how it's actively hurting people.
I was super disappointed in Jon Stewart and this monologue of his. I've considered him an educated person, but I think he might need some refreshing of his history lessons. First of all, nazism was one, German, form of fascism. In Germany, the jewish people were the perfect scapegoat to blame for the failures of the society. They were already othered, and Hitler used that to his benefit. In the 2020s of the U.S., the convenient scapegoat are the immigrants and trans people. Fascism has different flavours in different times and places. Anti-semitism is not a requisite. One might even think that a jewish nation can be fascist, too. Trump is following pretty much the exact steps Hitler took, and the same steps Putin has taken in Russia. They start off with little changes within the law, and slowly change government officials, judges, military personell and such to people who share their views, and at some point, they can come up with their own laws, and no-one can stop them, because they own the judges, the lawmakers and the police and military. I have no doubt things would have progressed way beyond rhetorics by now, if Biden hadn't won the previous election.
I feel this is completely missing Jon’s point. He was proclaiming how disturbing it was that everything Trump has done was entirely within the law. He was very clear that something terrible is coming, and I personally found that segment to be more chilling than any other segment he’s done. I genuinely don’t know how so many people came away from it not realizing what Jon was actually saying - that the only difference between Trump and German fascism is that Adolph had to take power through mostly underhand and illegal methods. But I guess everyone is just obsessing over the fact that he said this wasn’t fascism? Fascism, as you’ve pointed out, has different definitions, and Jon is including “dictatorship” as a part of his definition, clearly.
I mean fascism does sometimes take over in the form of an outright military coup, that's what happened in Spain or Chile for example, it can take over in multiple ways.
establishment democrats really "but what was america wearing?" there way through this. so proud that nobody defied the evil tyrant. last year we were trying to move from a landlord who we knew had tossed other people out into the street and we were telling the council we had to deal with that cause we were terrified of being evicted from a crumbling slum and nobody helped they just kept saying "but that's illegal"
Yeah, this feels like an unfair critique and hit piece. I watched that episode. His entire point is that Democrats going on cable media screaming fascist isn't fixing anything. It's theater. What he said is that the system is working as designed and until you change that system, this was essentially inevitable and that Democrats are not coming to save you. You are misrepresenting his argument. Y'all will spit in the face of anyone who doesn't 100% agree with you, or say it exactly the way you want it said, in the name of lefty virtue signaling credits. Y'all are doing the dividing and conquering for them.
I really had a different take on this monologue. I think the idea that fascism is a part of our current norms is exactly what he’s saying. He’s saying the laws are themselves the problem. The system is itself the problem. If you listen to his podcast, his number one take rn is that the democrats are failing because they’re trying to protect a system that people can tell isn’t working.
Folks are feeling disappointed in Stewart, saying he's lost his edge, but Skip Intro did a great two-part episode on how he never really had an edge in the first place. At least not in the direction you may have thought.
As a disabled person of color I have been saying that Trump has been a fascist for forever. And the fact that Jon Stewart could drop the ball so hard is a disappointment. I swear North America has always had its head up it's rear end. People actually bought into the concept of "American exceptionalism." The next 4 years are going to suck. Going to survive this is going to be a pain in the rear end
Thanks for your brave work here! If the executive branch wants to force its gender expectations on us - then it can consider me nonbinary. I'm Spartacus.
One of the biggest gaps in American understanding of historical fascism is that we always point at Germany and not at our own Japanese internment. It keeps us from recognizing the reality of the moment.
Yep, and much like giving Jewish property owners a dollar for their homes/apartments to SS officers, American officials had long coveted the land of the Issei/Nisei.
Pearl Harbor was merely the excuse they needed…
And the treatment of Native Americans, and the entire history of immigration from Mexico, not just the past decade or so of Republican media screaming "Migrant caravan!" every time an election rolls around, and the American response to other waves of immigration, and the rise of authoritarian regimes (occasionally objectively fascist ones) in countries other than Nazi Germany and...
It's the "surely we, exceptional Americans, cannot possibly be fascists in our perfect free country!"
No, I think the biggest gap is pointing at fascism in Germany in its final form after the invasion of the Soviet Union, and only having the vaguest notions of how things got there. Nazism was already bad a decade earlier when they came to power, well before the gas chambers & WWII and even before the establishment of concentration camps (which weren't a Nazi invention and aren't synonymous with death camps). What's more, fascism was already bad another decade earlier, when Mussolini came to power.
Unfortunately, Americans were taught that fascism was something evil defeated by US soldiers, rather than the cautionary tale of democracy abolishing itself in suicidal hubris.
@@Daneelro I believe there are a lot of big gaps, one being usa not revisiting their own reason to enter the war (ignoring, for example, the majority of citzens that at time agreed with the n-azy perspective), the literal war crimes committed against japanese/europeans and finally, not taking a look at what happened in those countries in the war aftermath. Most history books take the cold war and run with It, ignoring the absolut turmoil in those societies. They had to literally reinvent themselves under a new world order and this didn't come without great suffering and violence. My point is that there is only one rout in facism, wich is the complete destruction of a society as It is (including themselves) and the slow building of a new one under decades of uncertainty. This, in my humble opinion, is what is going to happen to usa over the next years.
The road to facism is paved with people insisting you're overreacting.
you're not overreacting, but i doubt that you watched Jon's video lol
Because all of you ARE over reacting…. All I heard for like 3 YEARS like YEARS was that there was a trans genocide….. and guess what no genocide… a boy who cries wolf situation
@@esmith4646 did you miss the order trumped signed that literally removed trans peoples existence by law?
@@esmith4646The term “genocide” isn’t meant to be literal when it comes to trans genocide. I can see how that would be confusing or misleading on the outside. The best way I can summarize is that it’s about the systemic discrimination, demonization, censorship, and ‘social death’ of trans people. Effectively these things would ‘kill off’ any trans person from ever transitioning out of fear, or even lack of education / understanding. Like keeping gays in the closet, as they basically had been for centuries.
@@esmith4646 oh yeah, things seem great
There is something very important I learned in history class: After Hitler was elected, nothing the Nazis did was illegal. There is a stark difference between law and justice
So killing millions of Jewish people wasn't illegal? History class definitely didn't teach you that. But Donald Dump did. 🤣😩🤦🏽♂️🙅🏽♂️
Hm. Not to dismiss your point, but that’s not true at all. Hitler had a lot of people killed illegally before and after his election to secure his place.
jon makes that,,, same.. exact ,,,statement in the video... *Facepalm*
@ovschinikov No, he says quite the opposite. He's saying it's not fascism if it's not doing anything illegal
@@lukivanknobi5428 and then he says the Nazis weren't doing anthg illegal, drawing the parallel, he was being sarcastic and he even called on the other party for not moving a finger.
As a disabled person from birth, I've been screaming about eugenics ever since Trump has been put into power. He wants to make massive cuts to Medicaid and Social Security. That in addition to him wanting to get rid of DEI/established civil rights law has me absolutely terrified. Disabled people are the canaries in the coal mine. It's been absolute radio silence from those in my circle.
And he will use those funds to fatten his coffers... the ONLY reason he's in this. He can't do it legitimately because he's a documented serial failure in business.
We are just a drain on what he sees as “his wallet”, and he’ll have no compunctions about removing that “unnecessary expenditure.”
@@tunguskalumberjack9987 Yep, and the sad thing is that Trump's own nephew gave the country a warning prior to the election. The people who voted for him can't pretend they didn't know. I go on FB now in disability spaces and I see people posting outright Nazi rhetoric regarding disabled people.
Its very clear from the disableist language that came right out of his mouth as soon as he was casting around for someone to blame for his own mistakes. "DEI" includes "A" for accessibility. It's also been very clear that disableist language and tropes have been used in anti-trans rhetoric for some time now. Stewart and liberals like that are the natural end-point of respectability politics. I've have to push against those calls for civility etc. when organising disabled people to be more disability justice focussed. We need to organise and build solidarity now more than ever.
All he is proving is that America is already a fascist system
Yes, that`s how it worked in Germany: Hitler came to power democratically and than got rid of the guardrails and put loyalists into power and consolidated power more. Thank you for pointing that out.
He didn't win an election though.
Hitler was appointed, not elected. You obviously have no idea what you are talking about.
Of course, here in the United States, the guardrails have been eroding since at least January 20, 1981, preceded by the lack of maintenance thereof beginning January 20, 1969. And, they have been a state of abject failure since January 20, 2017. We’ve been experiencing the outright removal of the guardrails since January 20, 2025.
@@thomash.schwed3662this happens every time black people and women get empowered, which shows how misogynoirist America is
Funnily enough the one time they go in by brute force (Spain) it lasted until the 70s
No lesson there except the fascisms are not uniform; eco was right to call it urfascism; believe people warning you'd
"Trump can't be a fascist because he's simply working within our system of government" is probably the most insane take I've heard in the couple years.
He will work within the system, expanding the systems to suit the needs of his "party" until he no longer needs them. By that point it will absolutely be too late. We can't complacently sit by and watch him drag us into the pit
fascists always work within the system
hink what Jon Stewart is referring to is fascism as a system of government, not an ideology. He's saying that Trump isn't a fascist dictator he's just the president of a country where people don't care about anything except who they hate anymore.
Yeah, cause man with funny beard didn't work within the system 🙄
@@JeffNighswanderhe's a fascist dictator though, cause the system allows him to be. (Technically he's not a dictator but let's see how much his party does against him 🤷🏼♂️)
"He's not a fascist because he's working within the law" is _certainly _*_a_*_ take._
If it looks like a goose, honks like a goose, and steps like a goose...
He is gutting the government - replacing qualified people with clowns who are not qualified at all but loyal to trump so he can have the power "under the law".
I recently watched the movie Conspiracy about a the Nazi meeting which authorised the Final Solution. A key scene is of Nazi Colin Firth arguing to Nazi Kenneth Brannagh that they needed to follow the Nuremberg Laws, and Brannagh telling him that they didn’t need laws. The laws were only needed until they weren’t.
Jon’s is such a weird take, didn’t Hitler famously convince the government to disenfranchise communists so he could consolidate power, PERFECTLY LEGALLY? A bunch of shady but legal maneuvers that led to him being able to declare martial law and usher in the holocaust? I’m not an expert but I do not understand Jon here.
Whether you agree with his statement or not, it's still a true statement. For now, at least.
I saw this segment Jon Stewart did last week and was very disappointed as well. The part where he claims Trump firing 17 inspectors general is "No big deal because I don't know what those inspectors actually do" was insane. Literally just implying something can't be bad if you don't know what it means is child level logic
Completely agree. I was surprised and very disappointed that, even within the context of a comedy show, Stewart did not seem to be taking things seriously. The inspectors general, the idea of "things are fine because Trump is allowed to do all these things," and even his shockingly lukewarm reaction to Musk's salute last week. Idk what's up but I really expected better
And he missed the point about their firing being illegal. It wasn't a technicality like "using the wrong font". It was requiring 30-day notice to Congress and specific and *detailed* reasoning. The entire purpose of those requirements is to ensure that they can't be fired en masse for no reason. Which is what happened and Jon Stewart is handwaving away as if it's nothing....
Look, i like John i really do. Most of the time he actually has a really good head on his shoulders. But last weeks takes are so bad i honestly wouldn't be surprised if he was forced to read a script he had nothing to do with writing. Or his bosses are fearful of the whip from the White House.
I was wondering if it was supposed to be sarcasm or something?? But it didn't come off that way
I was absolutely shocked at how dismissive he was of everything. I’ve never disliked his videos before, but I certainly did that one. It was awful.
Legality has no intrinsic value, if a law does not protect the safety and freedom of all its citizens it should be opposed or if need be ignored.
Yeah all these liberals go on and on and on about the Constitution is going to protect us while seemingly forgetting that the constitution isn't magic. If people in power went to ignore the Constitution all they have to do is have no one stop them
Just look at the laws that the US has had regarding slavery, spousal abuse (it was okay so long as a husband uses "a reasonable instrument"), oppression of ethnic minorities...
I agree. if a law is unjust, then it follows that the morally correct thing to do is to NOT follow the law.
70% of children who identify as T outgrow it by the time they hit puberty. I went down the detransition rabbit hole of people that regret their surgery and it is some of the saddest stuff I have ever seen. Allowing kids to make life long decisions is setting them up for failure. They will regret mutilating themselves later on. That's why we need to save them. You want to change your sex? You should wait until you're at least 25.
My son was born male and he wanted to be female. We gave him testosterone instead of estrogen. He is happy, wearing blue again, wants to get married to a girl and have kids..
@IDF_92 thats not true
The study your referencing included any amount of gender non-conformance as being trans. The information you're vomiting out is so stale and malformed you would think it was a wet bag of chips
Do you bother to look into what you say at all or do you just blindly regurgitate information that's fed to you by your favorite reactionary Daddy
Glad I wasn't the only person who thought, "What the f*ck, Jon?!" when they saw that. Like, dude...They're literally doing all of the things the Italian and German fascists did as if it's a Super Mario Bros speed run.
i thought i had surely misheard what he was saying at first
My 70+ year old MOTHER said to me today that the Orange was speed running fascism. My mother who, in 2016, didn't vote because she 'didn't like Hillary', and then spent the next 4 years regretting her decision, so made sure to vote for Kamala this time. My mother who used to watch Fox News religiously. And who now posts insults and fact checks on Facebook pages of ridiculous conservative politicians in her local area and in the country in general. If my mother can see that, why can't someone like Jon Stewart?
@@citrinedragonfly $$$ is a hellova drug
@@citrinedragonfly if one is paid to not see something, then i guess that person would have some motivation to find ways to not see what they arent supposed to see
70% of children who identify as T outgrow it by the time they hit puberty. I went down the detransition rabbit hole of people that regret their surgery and it is some of the saddest stuff I have ever seen. Allowing kids to make life long decisions is setting them up for failure. They will regret mutilating themselves later on. That's why we need to save them. You want to change your sex? You should wait until you're at least 25.
My son was born male and he wanted to be female. We gave him testosterone instead of estrogen. He is happy, wearing blue again, wants to get married to a girl and have kids...
Jon Stewart lost his edge. John Oliver and even independent creators like Some More News do a better job at what he does while actually calling out fascism when they see it.
"even SMN"? they are goated
I mean, isn't some more news more or less explicitly socialist? (At least they hang out with very socialist and anarchist people)
But yes, John Oliver tends to be the liberal with the most effective edge that I've seen
Jon Stewart walked so John Oliver could stage an elaborate Broadway musical number telling a coal baron to eat sh*t
I don’t think one bad take means he lost his edge, it’s just a classic case of denial.
Wealth will do that, every time. Look at Bill Maher. He was good, then he donated a million bucks to Obama and didn't get his money's worth, so now he's a centrist "liberal" that supports conservative policies and talking points because his paycheck was more important.
There is an old Turkish proverb, 'If you invite a clown into the palace, he does not become king, the palace becomes a circus.'
..... wasn't Biden there? And the other choice was Kamala " I have no personality" Harris. And before that "pacifist" Obama and before that "trustworthy" Bush. ALL of them where and will be clowns, the circus has been there all this time, and there was no palace.
Turkish sounds almost identical to English
Turks would now they made a few actual lunatics sultans under the Ottomans.
oh my god, I can read Turkish!
I'M *AMAZING!*
To argue that he is not fascist because "he got elected and didn't throw a coup", or that "it's all in the limits designed by the law and the law will limit him, eh, what can we do", is to be gullible at best - and complicit at worst.
@@loferx 100% complicit. Stewart is an impotent liberal and part of the problem. Trump is re-elected and we shouldn't point fingers at a man whose been on prime time for the last 25 years? He depends on capitalism maintaining itself.
oh there’s a coup alright
It's the fact that he literally attempted to take it by force and failed.
Using that reasoning neither Hitler and Mussolini are not fascist as they where both elected to power Hitler as the leader of the largest party in a coalition and Mussolini outright with 64.94%.
What was jan 6, Jon?
In the TH-cam comments of that segment it was pretty unanimous that Jon's take was insane. Those are liberals saying that btw, so thats my silver lining.
Wasn’t Jon really just saying how insidious this movement is because of how it really manipulates the very system we took to be fairly secure into fascism? He was marveling THAT it didn’t require a special revolution, but that the means are built in for a bad faith actor to take advantage of.
Yeah - I’m confused how everyone has just completely missed his point.
@@calvinjohnson6242because he didn't state it very well, thus conflating two different ideas together in the audience's minds.
I came to the comments to write almost this exact same thing.
That's how I read it too. As in, "This isn't even its final form, and look how deranged it already is"
"This shit happened to us as designed." Yes, Jon. Exactly. You're so close, but so fucking far from understanding.
When i first listened to that segment on his show, i was hoping that he was working toward the conclusion "This is actually how the system has been contorted over the years to work, and the fact that he can do this within the existing structure should let you know just how deeply fascist the U.S. had _already become_ by the time he got into office." He's had enough experience dealing with politicians due to trying to get the 9/11 first responders justice to shed his neoliberal views, but it may well be that he's just too wealthy and wedded to the capitalist structure to see it for what it is.
Y’all that literally is what he’s saying. He gets it. He thinks Donald Trumps actions are the system working as intended and he thinks that’s bad.
4:10 Hitler was appointed by the conservative Paul von Hindenburg in 1933 after the nazis got 1 in 3 votes in the 1932 election - the same share of votes nazis continue to have in many countries to this day. What people usually cite as Hitler winning the election was after his 1933 appointment when the nazis got a plurality of the vote in the following election afterwards, the first unfree-election.
Kinda moot when the US has had voter suppression on top of luke warm attempts at anything progressive by the dems.
Yup. That crossed my mind too, after not winning he was appointed Chancellor by Hindenburg. Also, iirc, a lot of conservatives in government initially thought they could control Hitler, keep him in check - not unlike Republicans who decided appeasement was the way to go after trump won in 2016.
Actaully Hitler was apointed in Jan 1933 inbetween the November 1932 election where the Nazis got 1/3rd of the votes and March 1933 election where they got 44% of the vote.
I was in disbelief when this tone-deaf Daily Show episode came out, because it seemed like Jon was finally ...bought... by someone into underplaying fascism. Also, the way I see it is that Jon is privileged enough to be insulated by the effects of fascism, so he is free to be as contrarian and dismissive of the threat as he feels comfortable. He has a few zingers that are effective, but I often have to return to reality that he and his old buddy Steven Colbert are capital 'L' liberals that had the supposed 'Return to Sanity' movement that both-sided the shit show we are living in today.
That's what I thought too. There were other weird things about that episode, the town was just off
I don't think he was bought. I think he's both terrified and worn-down, and he's doing the very human thing of going into denial. Denial is absolutely the wrong response to the current situation, and will ultimately cause things to get much, much worse, but... well, he'd getting older, and he's Jewish, and he painted a target on his chest when he was younger and more vocal and far more pointed in his critiques of power. And, clearly, he is so, so tired. That was obvious when he retired in 2016, and it's only become more obvious since.
It won't save him, in the end. And to describe me as being disappointed in him would be an understatement. But I don't think he sold out to anyone but himself.
The things I found interesting is Colbert actually does call it fascism and nazism. Stewart is not… or if he is, his bosses are meddling in the script. Idk.
@@BewareofTarps He's old and terrified of change. The old system, he reasons, worked just fine. He rose through the ranks after all, why can't everyone? America is definitely a meritocracy and always has been. All we have to do is ease back onto the knife's-edge balance of neoliberal corporatism and everything will be just like it was in the 90s!
It's the kind of delusional thinking that old people engage in.
It was even earlier, when Jon lumped Luigi with mass murderers and terrorists. Even Colbert didn't do that.
Jon Stewart's complete inability to meet the moment over the past year has been such a massive disappointment.
only the past year? He's been off the mark since at least 1012
In defense of Jon Stewart, he is actually more on top of this then 99 percent of democrats. He has been banging his head against his desk telling the party they need stop letting the Republicans be the only ones who find the levers of power, to stop treating it like a game were you shake hands and go on with your day if you lose. "Republicans exploit the loopholes. Democrats complain about the norms over and over and over, and it has ghastly consequences."
@@ashfordwyrd7458 He really hasn't been himself since Oldřich, Duke of Bohemia, deposed his brother Jaromír
He still thinks it is 2004 politics.
@@ashfordwyrd7458I don’t know if you intended to type that year, but I agree with it. Stewart has been off the mark since early in the second millennium A.D.
Stewart has been disappointing in the past. Pretty recently the Luigi Mangione take. Also, I have distant recollections of a Rolling Stone interview he gave where he made fun of people who felt that Bush stole the 2000 election.
And his whole mock Presidential campaign a little more recently: I forget how he framed it. Something like a "return to civility" or something. And it was basically gatekeeping the things the left could complain about. It was both-sidesing progressives and the alt-right, and placing himself in the center as the "reasonable" one. (I forget all the details. But I remember it really rubbed me the wrong way.)
Bush DID steal the 2000 election, though. His own people stormed voting centers to prevent recounts. Like, definition of stealing.
The 2000 election used to be the most blatantly stolen election in US history. It was so obvious how they stole it.
Bush didn't steal the 2020 election, SCOTUS did.
Top be exact his legal team did.... That team, hilariously, contained Brett Kavenaugh, and Amy Coney-Barret
Of course Trump is a fascist. Musk even more.
I understand from his video that Stewart is pointing out that the american political system do not have the protections needed to avoid fascist takeover. And that the liberals do not have courage enough to act as they should.
What Musk did in the inauguration would lead him to jail in other countries and the proud defense of absolute freedom of speech in order to avoid that freak show is a symptom
Oh, all corporate media hosts have flopped on Luigi. All they have to do is say his name and crowds start cheering, forcing the hosts to sit there making sour milk faces and going "Really??". Yeah, really. If you weren't relying on that check from GE to pay for your McMansion and armed guards, you'd be cheering too.
Something that strikes me as a German observing US-american politics for a couple of years now: The American far-right (mainly under Mitch McConnell) has spent several decades to slowly subvert the US court system to its own ends.
One of the main issues that the first German republic had, was how the German state apparatus (and the courts in particular) were really opposed to the new democratic regime after 1918 and didn't resist much when the Nazis were elected. (The last holdouts were then quickly dismantled after '33.) The rest of the state apparatus in the US today is not as thoroughly anti-democratic as the one in Germany was in the 1930s, but coincidentally there seems to be a bit of a purge going on to bring it in line. I dunno. It's not quite the same thing, but there are enough similarities to make me worry.
Jon's monologue weirdly reminds me of the Titanic. Historians have pieced together that even 25 minutes before the sinking, people lucky enough to get in the lifeboats were sure this was a pointless safety precaution and were annoyed at being inconvenienced. The captain had known the ship would sink for nearly 2 hours, all the crew had been informed, and 3rd class passengers had seen the extensive flooding, but 1st class passengers refused to see the danger during an active evacuation until the literal final minutes.
Makes me think about a quote of a french political and writer, Françoise Giroud "Ainsi commence le fascisme. il ne dit jamais son nom, il rampe, il flotte, quand il montre le bout de son nez, on dit : c'est lui ? vous croyez ? il ne faut rien exagérer ! et puis un jour on le prend dans la gueule et il est trop tard pour l'expulser." which means "And so fascism begins. It never says its own name, it crawls, it hovers. When it shows its face, people say : Is it really here ? You think so ? We shouldn't overstate ! And then on day, we are hit by fascism and it's too late to evict it."
Reminds me of that quote about bankruptcy, but applies to so many things: "How did I go bankrupt? A little at a time, then all at once."
Exactly. Excellent quote, btw - apt descriptions of what’s happening now. Ty!
It’s worth saying that she was born in 1916. As a French journalist, she saw this firsthand. She helped the resistance and was briefly detained by the Gestapo. Her (jewish) stepbrother died in the camps. After the war, she fought for feminism and the independence of French Vietnam and colonies. She had seen it all.
THANK YOU for making this video! Saw that segment the other day and got a really bad feeling from it.
his interview on his podcast with AOC, i was excited to listen to. but then it sounded like jon was saying “why don’t the democrats more broadly support things like the lincoln riley act, because people who cross the border and committ criminal acts shouldn’t be given citizenship”, and it’s like… is that really the framing and the argument we’re gonna make at this time in this place with our reach and influence? it was utterly maddening to listen to him focus and try to redirect the conversation to crime instead of immigration or border security or deportations. like what are we doing?
I noticed that too and was glad AOC pushed back on that, and then this past week, he had Chris Christie on and both of them said the opposite of most of this monologue.
It's because Jon is an optimist to a fault. He thinks that if you reach out to republicans and have their fears responded to they'll listen and become reasonable. Even if such a thing were true (en mass anyway) that still ignores the massive issue that the system basically needs to be disassembled and rebuilt. He at his core wants order and fears the chaos that a progressive movement could cause.
“Well Jon, I don’t think immigration is a real problem, I think it’s a distraction from real and serious economic issues that privilege a few wealthy billionaires at the cost of regular people.”
@@rahavan823it also ignores the fact that the Republican fears you have to respond to to magically make Republicans reasonable are, themselves, unreasonable. You can't extend an olive branch in the form of "Okay, maybe the millions of illegal Haitian immigrants in a small town in Ohio have eaten all the pets there..." or "You're right, trans people are grooming every single child in America to be trans and even doing the surgeries right there in their third-grade classrooms" and come out the other side with both you and the person you're speaking to being reasonable people. Quite the opposite, really. You can only meet Republicans on their wholly irrational, completely made-up fears by becoming as unreasonable as they are.
I also listened to that interview and I got the impression that he asked that question because he felt it needed to be addressed head on for some audience members so they could move on. Part of being a good interviewer is asking what the audience will need asked and that means that the questions don't always represent the interviewer's opinions
Some Liberals could stand staring into the mass graves at a concentration camp and still say ".....i know it's bad & I feel sorry for those affected but I wouldn't say that it's fascism. That word is thrown so much it means nothing"
They did that already post 10/7 tbh
Internet leftists decided to blame a 50 year old conflict on a black woman. Internet leftists and MAGA Cultists hate seeing black people in charge, especially black women. John Stewart is out of touch the same goes with the internet leftists. Just say you hate black women
bruh, here in argentina they are calling fascint nazi zionist to everyone cause one of the same lgbt+ movement asked that "please don't go nude in front of minors" for the march that they made yesterday.
They sent death treaths and doxxed a 19 year old girl.
Im not sure if you know what ANY of those words mean at this point, and its really fucking scary to see it happening all over the world.
And the ironic part, is that liberals and their "do nothing for the people, but kiss wealthy people asses all the times" with stupid virtue signaling, is the reason we are losing to fascism everywhere
Almost everywhere. In mexico, they have an actual based left wing president, not liberal, and she is hugely popular. And you won't struggle to see why, if you even listen to her talking once and compare it to kamala harris talking once...
Are you suggesting that Jon Stewart is pro-holocaust or that you don't see the difference between the holocaust and a legally questionable firing of government employees?
Because neither is a great look. Stewart's point is *precisely* that the two shouldn't be conflated because it's lazy and empowers the fascists rather than hurt them. You're *helping* them move the Overton window.
What really surprises me with this new monologue and others recently, he says things like this, but say completely opposite things in his weekly podcast, where he has spoken of how fascist Trump is many times. This stark contrast makes me genuinely wonder what happened to Jon Stewart.
It's a misunderstanding.
It sounded to me more that he was outraged about the fact that the former, so-called democratic, system was already broken. He describes the seamless transition between the usual system and fascism.
@@johannageisel5390 Yeah, I see that, but I also see where Jessie is coming from, because some people don't always understand or catch stuff like that. Honestly, it feels like if that was how he intended the monologue to come across, it was from a place of privilege.
@@auberginebear He should have said it more clearly.
@@johannageisel5390yeah this is exactly how it sounded to me too.
@johannageisel5390 This was also my read, along with I think was an attempt to make active resistance of Trump's (let's call it what it is) regime more palatable to the typical liberal. Kind of a baby-step your way to the resistance thing.
At least I hope that's what he's doing. On his podcast he seems to understand the current fascist rise perfectly well.
I used to watch this guy and it's really frustrating to see him start to turn more into Bill Maher. This isn't to dismiss any precious criticism of him, as I've heard them as well, but him basically telling people not to freak out shows he's more interested in peace than justice.
Someone on Bluesky said this and it rings true, which is that trans people and sex workers are the canaries in the coal mine, and they've been screaming about the poison gas and lack of oxygen... and a lot of dems are just shrugging and going "We must follow the law." Because they're interested more in peace than in justice.
I wouldn't go far as to say he's turning into Maher. And he does better than a lot of mainstream hosts. But that's because the standard is so low. Like a lot of mainstream figures, he's still acting like it's the early 2000s. And we're not. We're in 1930s Germany and have to acknowledge it.
They don't care about peace, they care about order, there is a difference, and it matters
Don't forget about disabled people. We're also canaries, it's just we're not heard even by other canaries.
@@Inkinhart this is unfortunately why it's so effective to divide us from one another: you get groups who want to claim "bottom spot" while neglecting their hierarchal peers--or without admitting that social hierarchy isn't actually so cut-and-dry. you're right: as a result, disabled people are left out in the cold as usual. our screams are made to be so quiet that others get to claim they're the ones who started screaming in alert.
Black people do the same job with alerting people to racism/prejudice/bigotry ... soooo many types of canaries go unheard and unseen until it's too late.
That monologue was absurd. Jon Stewart said "this isn't fascism" while literally displaying a picture of an appointed secretary where you can visibly see his fascist-coded tattoo. I actually yelled at my television in frustration "I can see the f-cking photo".
Your point is stupid. Trump government isn't fascist because a guy has a fascist tattoo, or because elon musk saluted twice.
Trump cabinet is fascist because of his actions ans his rethorics being so goddamn close to what mussolini and hitler did.
Trump is firing everyone but loyalists, he uses scapegoats (like dei, immigrants,...) for every single problem, he distracts people from their problem with bs baits like conquering greenland, or canada, the republicans OWNING all type of media spaces, with not a single strong left wing voice anywhere, but right wing nuts everywhere, and i could go on
What dumber is going by Jon reasoning Hilter and Mussolini are not fascist.
John Stewart has been…. Disappointing lately.
He's always been disappointing hes just funny so you don't notice it
He almost made some good points with the cheeto doing this within the bounds of his office. And rightfully pointing out that he was given this power by the system we live in. He was *so close.* But then flubbed it horribly by downplaying it and the real, immediate risks and damage already done.
I've liked Stewart for a while (even if his take on Chicago deep dish is wrong). He has been more willing to call out and challenge than a lot of mainstream hosts. But I think everyone who is pointing out that he's insulated by his wealth and prominence are right, and it applies to so much of the mainstream. They won't, or can't, acknowledge the situation has changed.
Bush was bad, but he was never the kind of existential threat that trump and his cronies are now. I think Bush 2 should be tried for war crimes and he was still better than what we have now. He never took fascist actions at the level we've seen in just the past two weeks. But soooooooo many of the mainstream think that this just like any other GOP administration. It is not.
Part of it is no doubt not wanting to disturb their own position. But I think a part of it is also fear. Not just of being harmed, but the primal fear of your worst fears coming to life. They're terrified of admitting that it's real because that means their world doesn't actually work. I can understand that.
But a lot of us have already been living with that fear for a long time. This is not business as usual. We can't just shake it off. I just hope more realize that before it's too late to save anything.
The big difference between Bush 2 and his era of Republicans and Trump and his era or Republicans, is that Trump's entire shtick is wanting to hurt people. Bush 2 was kinda dumb and listened to the wrong people around him, but I never got the sense he was maliciously trying to hurt people, even when that's what his base wanted.
I agree completely. I also think he can help and do good things by being able to speak with both sides, especially since that worked for the 9/11 first responders whom he helped. He probably thinks he could help in the very near future in the same way. Although the fear you describe is very real too. Are you sure he’s not in the right side of history regarding deep dish pizza though.
He completely misses that Hitler and Mussolini worked within the law as well.
I have never been more disappointed in Jon Stewart than as of late.
it was always his job to relieve pressure of the outrage brought on by extractive capitalism
@@aughtntThis person gets it. Same with Berni. Same with AOC. Apply juuuuust enough coddling to keep the pot from boiling over
I will say this. The most disappointing thing I have seen in my life, is watching the critique that the biggest stumbling block to equality and fairness is not the white supremacist or fascist, but the white moderate, who cares more for a negative peace, which is the absence of tension, then the positive peace which is the presence of justice.
As true today as when MLK first said it. We don't seem to learn from history.
@@MasterDarkenRahl Some do, but the American system is based on White Supremacy and Fascism at its core, it cannot be reformed or it would cease to be what it is, and those in power do not want to not be in power which they wouldn't be any more on its changing.
@@MasterDarkenRahl hard to learn from history when we barely teach it properly, like the complete mishandling of the aforementioned dr. King. I heard about about him growing up but never quotes like these
We tried to warn people about project 2025 and the harm it would do, all we can do now is absolutely just say that we did our part.
Ive been warning about p25 since 2021 when Trump wasn't thrown immediately into prison and now I was right all along. The left are all Cassandras- destined to know the future, believed by nobody, but blamed in hindsight.
It is still not over.
Don't comply in advance.
The plan remains the same as if Harris had been elected. It’s just going to be harder. Organize. Get connected locally to support the people who are in danger and protest what’s happening.
Jon Stewart's opening, "Let's stop calling Trump Fascist" before the massive amount of fascist takeover this week pretty much tells me he's always been a mouthpiece of corporate sanewashing. He never wanted to be actually challenging to power.
I think an important note about Hitler too, is that his party caused chaos and he demanded the Chancellorship despite president Hindenburg not wanting to. Even when they had power they had to use force to make the system bend to them, but it still was legal. Fascism is colonialism brought home, and we are their first target... again.
When warning against creeping fascism / authoritarianism I used to resort to quoting Georges Santayana: “Those who forget history are condemned to repeat it,” and offering historical examples as an illustration of the present.
Unfortunately, people resistant to that message retort with a quote which they seem to think has the power of kryptonite: “It’s not the same thing!” because they can’t get past the specifics and focus on the ultimate goals while also failing to realize that there’s always strategy involved.
It’s never the same thing right up until it is.
"It can't happen here!"
John Stewart would argue that it would be immoral to oppose Hitler until the night of long knives.
Night Of The Long Knives was an internal purge of those Shitler saw as a threat to his leadership. In today’s context it would be like Chump having Muskrat murdered because he thought he was getting too powerful within the party.
A more historically analogous event would be the Nazis using the Reichstag fire to basically make Shitler dictator, or Krystalnicht when discrimination against Jewish Germans became mass violence.
Hey Jessie, I hope YOU have been taking care as best as possible. Your back catalog of videos (specifically the star trek ones) have been helping me during all this insanity. Much love from me and my two cats (who love you as much as I do).
Jon Stewart wasn't saying Trump wasn't a fascist. He is saying the the Democratic Party's rhetoric around this stuff is inconsistent and we would have cried "fascism" a long time ago if it were. It was a primer for how the American government allowed for fascism from the start. Essentially, this whole video is agreement framed as disagreement.
This is why I like Some More News. They hit this stuff head on, and it's beautiful.
It's crazy that people didn't see Trump's cartoonish fascism when he first ran for president! And now we're past the cartoon, and living in a 1930s Germany and Italy. People seem to be waiting for a 1940s Germany/Italy, or just denying it altogether.
I'm personally of the thought that while you may be right (and probably are) about Stewart, I think you're going to see a _lot_ of much softer, harmless criticism of Trump and his regime from US mainstream media. Not because they agree with him, but because they like their money and Trump can take that money away now. They're scared, and do what most corporate media do when scared, they retreat into appeasing the tyrant.
Johns bad take is very emblematic of the "It can't happen here" mentality that is clouding a lot of peoples vision regarding what is going on in our country. I find it deeply frustrating that people who very likely had parents or grandparents who fought in WW2 against fascism and should know better, are giving into the very thing that their family members were fighting against. I'm glad that my grandpa didn't live to see this happening, as a WW2 combat vet I think this all would have broken his heart.
I feel this is completely missing Jon’s point. He was proclaiming how disturbing it was that everything Trump has done was entirely within the law.
He was very clear that something terrible is coming, and I personally found that segment to be more chilling than any other segment he’s done.
I genuinely don’t know how so many people came away from it not realizing what Jon was actually saying - that the only difference between Trump and German fascism is that Adolph had to take power through mostly underhand and illegal methods.
I mean, this is the same Stewart, who suddenly became extremely silent when his best friend Dave Chappelle started saying certain things
You know you gotta defend those billionaires
Or maybe he's not going to attack people just because you want him to.
I'm heart sick of all the mob mentality cancellation bullshit. A comedian should be able to do a set on stage without running it by the thought police first. Ultimately the audience will be the arbiter not you.
@@willsmith39idk man i think calling out a super rich person for punching down on a minority group that can't defend itself warrants a "hey dude that's kinda messed up of you".
Also if cancellation is real why do people who get "cancelled" always end up getting on prime time tv or netflix talking about how they got cancelled?
@@enbydeadly Did I say you couldn't call him out if you think it was "punching down."? Your favourite phrase of course.
I said Jon Stewart shouldn't have to and you shouldn't demand it of him. But that's what mobs do of course.
And a lot of people did get cancelled when this fever was at its peak. Thankfully it seems to have broken a bit now.
@@willsmith39 just in case this is the famous Will Smith: sir you're no longer gettin' jiggy with it.
@@willsmith39 You called mass defamation and low-key promotion of violence and oppression "doing a set." You'll have to excuse us if we don't make the most generous conceivable reading of everything you say (to the point of making your comments absolutely vapid and self-contradictory, which is how far we'd have to go for them not to be repugnant).
Just a heads up, the description says "The Daily Wire" instead of "The Daily Show."
Anyway, we're reminded of how much Stewart cheered on Trump deciding to campaign for Presidency in 2015, to the point where he had an ongoing bit about how disappointed he was that Trump hadn't announced his campaign yet and considered retiring early if that wasn't gonna happen soon. Seeing that and remembering it so clearly is why we never really vibed with how he tried to act above other comedians regarding how he handled Trump during the last presidency.
I saw John Stewart pointing out the outrage that fascism could increase within the laws. He's not saying it isn't fascist, he's saying it's shocking how much room for fascism there already is in the system.
I'm scared and I live in Europe, not the US. I am scared by how insidious the slide into fascism is, and I'm scared by a lack of options for fighting back.
I saw this and thought,
Oh, a cis rich old white guy says we shouldn’t be scared.
Ok, wow. Let’s not listen to the leading academics then.
God, as someone currently getting a PhD in the social sciences (well, assuming the Department of Education doesn't cease to exist before I manage to defend my dissertation or something, that is), this has been such a frustrating thing to experience. Political scientists, sociologists, psychologists, communication scholars, economists, basically everyone I know and read has been raising the alarm since before 2016, but despite being close to 100% correct on predicting how this would play out over the last decade, it's still like shouting into the void.
Even when literal authoritarianism is right on our doorstep. Especially then, apparently.
Leading academics like Roger Griffin - THE academic expert on fascism - who says that Trump is not a fascist?
@@JN-xb6pq There's a difference between "the person who the reactionaries agree with and want to promote" and "the person doing the best and most rigorous work on the topic."
@ Have you read Griffin?
John Stewart isn't white. He's Jewish. Whites are Anglo saxton. Calling Jews whites is an interesting take. Pagrams aren't raised against whites.
Jon needs to fire his writers. This monologue was the most uneducated thing he has ever willingly read. And he was in a movie called Death to Smoochy.
Same writers who laughed off the Luigi thing without discussing the broken healthcare system that motivated him.
Death to Smoochy is a great film. Fight me.
Thank you! So many people are forgetting that there are writers involved here and they also failed to meet the moment.
The road to fascism is paved with people telling you that you are overreacting.
@@AbsurdlyGeekyi can’t say I loved the film, but I did think Edward Norton was weirdly hot as a half-dressed pink rhino
Please don't forget ableism here. As a disabled person I've learned so much about internalizing the societal gaze and body dysmorphia from my trans friends and teachers, and I'm glad that there is a living discussion about trans issues in the public debate. I think the disabled community also has a lot to contribute to the discussion for all, but we are very often dismissed and given the silent treatment when bringing our issues to the table. But we are also the canary in the coalmine.
I watched a little bit and he was mentioning how Trump could fire people legally if he gave 30 days notice
A) obviously doesn’t stop it from being facism
B) Trump isn’t doing that
A lot of people - liberals included - do not have a working understanding of fascism as an ideology. They think fascism is when you take power using violence, or when you use violence or threats of violence to get yiur way. But that's not a description of an ideology, that's a description of a set of tools and strategies. It's not why you do things, it's how you do them. And the reasons fascists are in the wrong isn't just because they do things using unsactioned violence, it's because their ideology is basically a death cult. The violence is an effect of the ideology. And that fascist ideology can be - and often is - expressed in other ways than literal brownshirts using unlawful violence.
The unwillingness to recognize fascism within the laws and systems of our country are exactly why fascism is succeeding
You said correctly "fascism is not the exception of American polity, but an iteration." I am glad you are pointing out concrete consequences of this latest moment. I have been worried that it is so stupid and vile that we don't have tools to understand it and don't know what to do in response. JS is just a feature of the simplicity and complacency that have infected this iteration of fascism and our response. I do think those that the failures of our system have been alienated and traumatized appreciate the problems more precisely. Thank you for this video and the others expressing what should be obvious but far too easily is ignored or goes underappreciated. Who knows what will come of this but describing it is part of enduring and possibly overcoming it.
I was happy to see that pretty much everyone in the comments on both of his uploads were on the same page about this
Hearing Jon Stewart explaining the fascistic actions of the new government and then say that those fascistic actions _aren't_ fascist... that was just so demoralising
You’re too focused on the base level of what he said. Jon was giving us a warning - that the only different between Trump and your average fascist, is that Trump is actually within the law.
He wasn’t downplaying it - that was Jon explaining how bad the situation is. I found the wag he put it very chilling, actually. I’m surprised so many people missed his point.
@@calvinjohnson6242 The thing is of that Jon point he still wrong because the fascist poster boys Hitler and Mussolini both worked inside the law to gain power.
The "cartoonish Nazis" thing is such a big problem. We need to stop representing (all) Nazis as these twisted, over-the-top evil-for-the-sake-of-evil villains
Hitler didn't rise to power by promising to murder children and slaughter innocents. He campaigned on the idea that he would make Germany a wonderful place, and rid it of the "bad influences" that were "ruining it". And people believed him. People cheered him on: people who _genuinely thought they were good and decent people_
And I'm not saying any of that to defend Nazis. But people ought to understand how _insidious_ Fascism is. If people think that every fascist comes pre-labelled with "I am evil" stamped on their forehead, then they're not going to recognize an _actual_ fascist when they see one
No one wants to admit that fascism sounds appealing, or positive, or good, because that will make them sound like a fascist. But the truth is that fascist propaganda is very effective, and it can sound like a very good idea. Of course it can: that's how fascists get elected. People need to know that, so they can be ready to reject fascist rhetoric when it starts to appeal to them
Yeah..I had this US friend who, when trump won the elections, he told me he was just gonna ignore everything that is happening and going to happen (and just focus on his new gf instead.) I know better what's going on in america than he does and at some point I told him he no longer has the luxury to bury his head in the sand. But in his privilege he was still like: no it's too much for me." Even though he is not one of the marginalized groups..so..to say, we aren't friends anymore. Too frustrating and immoral for me.
Jon’s point was that the system itself is broken and needs fixing. That the guardrails are not working.
It's sadly telling when you can accidentally put the Daily Wire in the description instead of the Daily Show..
My interpretation of Jon's monologue was that our system is working the way we've allowed it to become, which is not good. I don't think he is saying what's happening is good at all...
That Jon Stewart bit was also mostly about, “Here’s what MSNBC said! They exaggerated.” He barely focused on what Trump is doing and how it’ll affect Americans. Also, your shirt is incredible!
Italian here. Your analysis of fascism Is spot on. And there is also the element of armed militias: historical Fascism started thanks to the horrific violence of "squadracce", the militias that terrorized and often killed socialists, workers and sometimes even priests. Do not underestimate the role of those "Proud Boys", they serve as the de facto militia of Trump.
Shocked and disappointed by Jon Stewart's reaction to these events. If your response to what's happening right now is "well it can't be fascist because it's happening within the system that we created," then I have some bad news about the system we created. It may not be inherently fascist, but at the very least we are watching in real-time as it fails to stop fascism. We are watching the system of checks and balances fail *in real-time.* The system was not designed to handle all 3 branches of government bowing to a madman, and so we are seeing it fail to do what it *was* explicitly designed to do: prevent any one person from abusing their power and running amok with the government. My only hope is that if we survive the next 4 years, we can take what remains of the government and rebuild it into something better.
Also just want to point out that Jon's reaction to Musk's salute at the inauguration was also shockingly mediocre. He just made some jokes about it, *even making some similar mocking gestures of his own,* but made no effort to point out how heinous it was. I'm quickly losing faith in him as a presenter.
I'm currently in US History class, and in one of the chapters, it explicitly states that Nazi Germany studied the US eugenics movement. So uh, take it what you will.
If you expect a Centrist (Liberal) to fight Fascism you are just setting yourself up for disappointment.
Ain't that the truth!
hey liberal here you are wrong im gonna fight this shit
I would argue that Liberals propensity to target left-wing movements and historically trying to work with fascists, along with their love of capitalism, makes them a lot more right-wing than most would want to reckon with.
THANK YOU. I watched that video waiting for a punch line as he was giving Trump's fascism a total pass, and was left with a giant WTF at the end.
I totally thought his argument was "he's done this within the system and that's bad"...
I agree that’s the point he was making, but I also think he was defending the legitimacy of the system rather than demanding it be dismantled because of its failures to stop this takeover.
That's what I felt he was saying as well. Though I would have liked to see a bit more anger towards that very idea of this mess happening within the legality of the system.
I also thought his point was "Trump is working within the powers America has allowed him to use... powers that maybe a president shouldn't." But it did also feel like he was trying to downplay the fears.
This is how I heard it
Yes, that was my takeaway too.
I think he basically makes the same point as Jessie: That it is bad that the US system is designed in a way that makes it possible to seamlessly transition into fascism.
I'm GenX, I've been watching The Daily Show since before Jon Stewart was on it (he wasn't the first host). I usually appreciate his perspective on things, but this bit just left me with my jaw on the ground. I expect it to get weaponized by the right pretty fast.
My best friend was repeating this argument to me just yesterday and i immediately went "Trump absolutely is a fascist and he's working within a corrupt system".
The arrival of fascism is not a switch that instantly activated a move from a democratic state to a fascist regime. It's a slow shift from a gray area to a darker one.
Maybe a miss read from me, but I took his monologue to mean that our systems are fascist by nature (specifically the part about the power of a king being used). I didn’t think he meant that trump isn’t a fascist more that our systems being able to be used by a fascist is wrong.
Again maybe an extremely charitable read but that’s what I got!
No, I think that people missed his point entirely. They just saw he got the definition of fascism wrong, and mussed his poignant point about the government allowing Trump to do these things without dipping into illegality.
So good that some of you understand it. I am from Brazil, we had over 20 years dictatorship here, Jon is in that delusional state of mind that things will figure it out by itself or with the magic of a old af constitution like it is a scroll that cast a democracy spell.
I’m probably being naive, but I didn’t hear Stewart’s bit as excusing Trump from fascism as much as he was saying “can you believe that this is what our democracy says is ok?” I heard a criticism of how few checks our government actually has against someone making this kind of power grab.
Yeah I agree with you. It's such a short clip and it seems like Jessie is putting words in his mouth
Yes, that's how I understood it too.
@@Obscure128 I think it's a genuine misunderstanding. She is not the only one who read like that. I think Jon could have made his point a bit clearer.
@@johannageisel5390 I don't know. Seems like a lot of people in the comments were just looking for a reason to shit on Jon.
I feel like she's not considering the clip within the rest of Jon's beliefs. Jon is explicitly socialist and believes the American system is kinda broken. He's directly stated issues with the system and radical changes as necessary. So when he says, "Trump is operating within the law," that is not a justification as much as a condemnation of the law. I re-watched the segment after this video and was very disappointed that Jesse did not utilize the parts of the clips where Jon makes somewhat substantive arguments about how Democrats and the media need to communicate how Trump abuses the system alongside what needs to be done to fix it. Not including those bits makes Jesse seem dishonest.
I am not trans, and I don’t understand it. This video has been a great resource on why this is a real issue. Thank you for this.
Thank you for calling out this bullshit. You are spot on, as always. Another infuriating problem with that episode was Stewart asking why the Dems didn’t get their message out, when he spent a literal third of his entire show talking about Trump.
I sort of took the message to be "our system is actually quite prone to fascism," but that is absolutely not what he said. This wasn't a good segment for him.
The whole last 8 years has made me feel like we don't actually have anyone representing us who's willing to stand up for anything. There's no bravery in Congress. That's exactly the kind of attitude that allows fascism to take root and grow.
Thank you, Jessie, i was yelling at my monitor as if Jon could actually hear me, but _you_ hear us.
7:55 The same thing is happening within the mixed race community as well. I talk to people about how this targeting of illegal immigrants is going to hurt those of us who get mistaken for mexican too and I get responses of "carry your documents" & "if you're legal you should be fine" as if thats supposed to make me feel safe
hey kiddo, keep your head up. we all have to look out for each other more than ever and i thank you for keeping that message alive
incredibly well said, jessie. thank you for using your platform to share
Yeah, the comments on that rant video give me some weird feelings of hope for the public actually understanding this better than Stewart does. A surprisingly large portion of the audience is educated enough to know that the Nazi's initial rise to power was 100% within the law. They even changed laws to make future actions legal, because they wanted that veneer of respectability.
The Long Knives wasn't exactly legal, but by then they had full control and had enough fig leaf of respectability to plausibly say it was the actions of a bunch of individuals, not the party, the same way Rittenhouse was acting entirely on his own and not the responsibility of the people feeding him violent rhetoric for years...
I started to criticize Jon Stewart a lot more when a few months ago he started to argue that Democrats should play the same "Constitutional hardball" and play into the same manipulation of the system as Republicans do instead of, you know... closing those loopholes and working towards a more accountable system that isn't dependent on good behavior and an adherence to norms. Even as someone who's only studied democracy and the Constitution at an undergraduate level, I can see that our Constitution is outdated and creates a tyranny of the political minority; working within the labyrinthian system instead of making the system work for us just doesn't work.
I'm not even a little surprised. Given Stewart's ongoing detachment from "partisan" politics and slow shift into full-time eugenics work at NFA (edit: original acronym was incorrect), this was only a matter of time.
Can you please tell me what you are talking about? I've found no evidence of this anywhere?
@@alexarkoette564 Color the Spectrum, the anti-autistic fundraiser that NEXT for Autism (sorry - screwed up the acronym above) ran in April 2022. Stewart and his wife are on the board. Their website used to include a mission statement about permanently ending autism, as well as a link to the genetic screening research center they fund, but the mission statement was scrubbed in the lead-up to the fundraiser, as were most of the links to organizations NAS funds on a regular basis. The Wayback Machine still has the original mission statement if you go back far enough.
I guess the liberal take on fascism is that it's something you _do_ rather than a system of power and belief. Much like the liberal take on racism is that it is the moral failing of individuals, rather than a system of power and belief.
I find he's a lot more on-target in his "Weekly Show" podcast than he is on the Comedy Central work "The Daily Show." I think he has more control over the writing in the Weekly Show, and he's a lot less afraid to call it what it is there. Still, I'm sure he has room to improve on these fronts, but I do see him call out these things a lot more clearly there. I don't watch the Daily Show anymore, it isn't hard-hitting enough for me in this time, and the "jokes" don't land anymore, but the more substantive interviews he gives on The Weekly Show are a lot more earnest and insightful.
That spot from the Daily Show is pretty disgraceful though, I gotta say.
Everyone in these comments who is schocked or surprised by John Stewart's take, saying they didn't expect this from him or how he's changed, has not been paying attention. He has always been a liberal. Slightly left/progressive leaning, but a liberal at his core. The kind that wants to "meet in the middle" and get along.
He started his career debating Tucker Carlson on CNN every week to show how "fair and balanced" a conversation between "both sides" could be, as if they are equally valid opinions that want the same things in the end, just coming at it from different angles.
I don't think he's a bad guy, it's just that Liberalism has always been his misguided worldview, and he's blind to its flaws and blind to how it's actively hurting people.
I was super disappointed in Jon Stewart and this monologue of his. I've considered him an educated person, but I think he might need some refreshing of his history lessons. First of all, nazism was one, German, form of fascism. In Germany, the jewish people were the perfect scapegoat to blame for the failures of the society. They were already othered, and Hitler used that to his benefit. In the 2020s of the U.S., the convenient scapegoat are the immigrants and trans people. Fascism has different flavours in different times and places. Anti-semitism is not a requisite. One might even think that a jewish nation can be fascist, too. Trump is following pretty much the exact steps Hitler took, and the same steps Putin has taken in Russia. They start off with little changes within the law, and slowly change government officials, judges, military personell and such to people who share their views, and at some point, they can come up with their own laws, and no-one can stop them, because they own the judges, the lawmakers and the police and military. I have no doubt things would have progressed way beyond rhetorics by now, if Biden hadn't won the previous election.
I feel this is completely missing Jon’s point. He was proclaiming how disturbing it was that everything Trump has done was entirely within the law.
He was very clear that something terrible is coming, and I personally found that segment to be more chilling than any other segment he’s done.
I genuinely don’t know how so many people came away from it not realizing what Jon was actually saying - that the only difference between Trump and German fascism is that Adolph had to take power through mostly underhand and illegal methods.
But I guess everyone is just obsessing over the fact that he said this wasn’t fascism? Fascism, as you’ve pointed out, has different definitions, and Jon is including “dictatorship” as a part of his definition, clearly.
Fascism is the emergency button of captalism
I mean fascism does sometimes take over in the form of an outright military coup, that's what happened in Spain or Chile for example, it can take over in multiple ways.
establishment democrats really "but what was america wearing?" there way through this. so proud that nobody defied the evil tyrant. last year we were trying to move from a landlord who we knew had tossed other people out into the street and we were telling the council we had to deal with that cause we were terrified of being evicted from a crumbling slum and nobody helped they just kept saying "but that's illegal"
Yeah, this feels like an unfair critique and hit piece. I watched that episode. His entire point is that Democrats going on cable media screaming fascist isn't fixing anything. It's theater. What he said is that the system is working as designed and until you change that system, this was essentially inevitable and that Democrats are not coming to save you. You are misrepresenting his argument. Y'all will spit in the face of anyone who doesn't 100% agree with you, or say it exactly the way you want it said, in the name of lefty virtue signaling credits. Y'all are doing the dividing and conquering for them.
I really had a different take on this monologue. I think the idea that fascism is a part of our current norms is exactly what he’s saying. He’s saying the laws are themselves the problem. The system is itself the problem. If you listen to his podcast, his number one take rn is that the democrats are failing because they’re trying to protect a system that people can tell isn’t working.
I took actual psychic damage from this monologue.
Had to click away
Folks are feeling disappointed in Stewart, saying he's lost his edge, but Skip Intro did a great two-part episode on how he never really had an edge in the first place. At least not in the direction you may have thought.
5:40 as of 2/3/25 FYI-THE PASSPORT RENEWAL AND APPLICATION FORMS ARE CURRENTLY UNAVAILABLE ON THE FEDERAL WEBSITE!
As a disabled person of color I have been saying that Trump has been a fascist for forever.
And the fact that Jon Stewart could drop the ball so hard is a disappointment.
I swear North America has always had its head up it's rear end. People actually bought into the concept of "American exceptionalism."
The next 4 years are going to suck. Going to survive this is going to be a pain in the rear end
Stewart's previous success is predictably holding him back from seeing clearly.
Thanks for your brave work here!
If the executive branch wants to force its gender expectations on us - then it can consider me nonbinary.
I'm Spartacus.