On “The Daily Show” Monday night, host Jon Stewart offered an analysis of what went wrong for the Democrats with Kamala Harris‘ presidential campaign.
“If you remember, the last time we spoke, it was midnight on election night, and it seemed even at that moment very clear Donald Trump had won the election in a bit of a thumpening,” Stewart said, referring to the live “Daily Show” election special on Nov. 5. “Now, part of the disorientation of the Democrats losing the electoral vote, and the popular vote, and losing ground in the cities, and the areas around the cities, and the areas around those areas — I guess you call it ‘America’ — was that we had all been told by many of our prognosticators that it was going to be close.”
Stewart added, “But in this coin-flip country, I was confident, because the Democrats had a secret weapon in a close election. Perhaps the most important weapon.” The host pointed out the $1 billion the Harris campaign raised during the presidential race, saying the money was “a war chest to be spent on data analytics, and polling, and consultants, and very clearly, texting.”
Stewart also noted how Vice President Harris’ campaign had a massive number of volunteers, many of whom went out canvassing voters’ homes multiple times.
“You know, if there’s one thing people love more than someone appearing randomly at their door once, it’s that same fucking person coming back two or three times to talk politics,” Stewart sarcastically remarked. “Even though everyone, from vacuum salesmen to Jehovah’s Witnesses, know that’s a losing strategy.”
Stewart admitted that he did give the Democratic Party “some shit for their strategies,” but said there was a “method to the Democrats’ madness.” The show then cut to clips of people saying that the political party wanted to “protect” and “defend” democracy.
“And I’m glad to say Democrats did protect democracy — just for the other side,” Stewart said. “Because when all is said and done, we had a free and fair election, in which the Democrats had been prepared for almost every scenario but one.”
“The Daily Show” played clips from various news outlets of people stating that the Harris campaign had many lawyers, county clerks and secretaries of state on hand.
“So it’s all lined up! What are we forgetting, people?” Stewart asked rhetorically. He later added, “Nobody brought the voters? Where are the fucking voters?”
Stewart noted that Harris and her running mate Tim Walz “didn’t do the woke thing” during their campaign. “They acted like Republicans for the last four months,” the host said. “They wore camo hats and went to Cheney family reunions. Do you know how dangerous it is to wear a hunting hat around Cheneys?”
He added, “Democrats were mostly running against an identity that was defined for them based on a couple of months of post-George Floyd, ‘defund the police,’ MeToo Instagram posts from four years ago. What happened was, the country felt like government wasn’t working for them, and that Democrats in particular were taking their hard-earned money and giving it to people who didn’t deserve it as much as them. And so the Democrats got shellacked.”
At the end of his monologue, Stewart assured his viewers that Donald Trump’s second term as president “isn’t forever.”
“I just want to please assure people, this isn’t forever,” Stewart said before pointing out that, in 1984, when Ronald Regan won, the only state the Democrats won was Minnesota. “Everyone thought, that’s the end of the Democrats. But eight years later, there was a Democrat back in office. We don’t know what’s going to happen in four years at all.”
