Jon Stewart theorized about how to upend the political campaign timeline in his latest episode of “The Weekly Show.”
As TheWrap previously previewed, presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and Politico White House correspondent Eugene Daniels joined “The Daily Show” host for his first podcast since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
Goodwin argued that the modern phenomenon of choosing candidates so early is a money waster. The Pulitzer Prize-winning author said that in the days of Abraham Lincoln and LBJ, delegates wouldn’t even think about the campaign until after the convention.
“Somehow, we may have done it better back then,” the historian pondered.
After the unpredictable past few weeks in the swift political news cycle, Stewart pushed back against the media’s flippant portrayal of the candidates.
Stewart pointed out how one day headlines read that Republican candidate and former president Donald Trump “smells victory,” and then just days later called him “pathetic Trump already trying to weasel his way out of debating Kamala Harris.”
“What we have now is chaos without context or perspective, hot takes that in many ways inflame the electorate rather than illuminate the electorate,” Stewart said of the current media climate. “We can’t change the speed at which events take place, but can we change the manner by which we either cheer that on or cover it?”
Presidential historian Goodwin added, “We can never go back in time.”
Daniels, who spends a lot of time in Washington, D.C., and engages in closed-door conversations, argued that part of the problem with the media landscape is there are too many voices, not all of them held to the same journalistic standards.
“There’s a fine line between analysis and kind of prognosticating and guessing,” Daniels said. “A lot of people are using the word ‘journalist’ that are not journalists.”
The “Daily Show” host then elaborated on the “convoluted mess” of our election systems.
“We are always at each other’s throats and never have time for makeup electoral sex in the country. Just fighting at all times,” Stewart said, nearly out of breath.
But Goodwin, the historian with the hindsight of generations before us, has not given up hope just yet.
“We created these problems. We can solve these problems. We can change things. We can have a political revolution,” she said. “We can make it so money is not in politics.”
Daniels agreed that this kind of shakeup may be possible if people, politicians in particular, just speak their minds. “People don’t always speak the things that they feel. Many people do want these changes. Many of them do want money out of politics,” the reporter noted.
At that, Stewart beamed as he told his guest hosts that they got him all riled up about the future of American politics.
“Because the elections are never ending, the money is unceasing. If we change the time, we change the money, we change the atmosphere,” he concluded. “We shorten the time we have to endure this nonsense.”
Watch the full podcast, above,
