Jon Stewart sat down with former Secretaries of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Condoleezza Rice and presented them with a very serious question: “Have the actions of America led to a more unstable and globalized situation that has inflamed populism in this country, inflamed it in Europe?”
On Friday’s “The Problem With Jon Stewart” podcast, the comedian brought both sides of the political aisle together and found common ground in discussing American foreign policy by taking a macro look at the tensions within America between liberal voices and conservative voices. As he sees it, the populous movements that are coming out of that tension have created “pendulum swings” that have become “fault lines” in our country, causing concern about the perception around the world.
“[Vladimir] Putin has made a very big distinction — and I think this is something that seems to be the way these movements are going — where he’s saying, ‘I’m not against the West; I’m against the liberal West,’” Stewart said of the Russian president. “I think there are populist illiberal movements within the West that more align with us. They’re anti-gay, they’re more Christian nationalists.”
“Of course, we should be much more inclusive, much more aware of those kinds of deeply held feelings and beliefs and values. But where the rubber hits the road too often is someone who says, ‘You don’t respect my religious views, and I want you to do what I believe. I want to impose that upon you,’” Clinton said. “That’s where it starts getting tricky. Because part of what we did, you know, with the first amendment and separation of church and state is say, ‘You know what? I do need to do a better job respecting your religious beliefs or your lack of religious beliefs.’”
Rice added that although she is noted conservative, she still frequently gets labeled by many on the right because she lives on the West and is pro-choice. “I’ve heard some of my colleagues say that, ‘I should go to Alabama and see what those people think,’” the Alabama-born former secretary said. “Right now when you have to go and do an anthropological dig on your fellow citizens, we’ve actually got a problem in this country of a split in a kind of cultural split, and I think we have to recognize it. We can’t allow one to oppress the other, but we have to recognize that it’s a two, two-way split, not a one-way split.”
“I think oftentimes, though, we fetishize that idea that the coasts are somehow out of touch. How many times do you see somebody say, ‘You don’t know what real America wants?’” Stewart said. “The prevailing wisdom is that the left is censorious, that the left because of political correctness is woke and wants to stop people from talking.”
All this back-and-forth labeling and division in America is seen by others around the globe – and Stewart wonders what effect it has had on the perception of this country in the process.
“Have the actions of America led to a more unstable and globalized situation that has inflamed populism in this country, inflamed it in Europe?” he asked. “Is our inability to control that aspect of our society sowing the seeds for the instability that we see around the world that’s leading to this more populist illiberal pendulum swing? And how do we reign that in?”
Watch the short clip of the interview in the video at the top or watch the entire podcast by clicking here.
