Jon Stewart shows late-night compliance cabal how political comedy is made

Jon Stewart quit late-night comedy six years ago, but the industry has continued to thrive. Not because of the large amount of raw talent, of course, but because of the candidacy to become president of Donald trumpDonald TrumpThe CEO who pushed the “Italygate” theory falsely claimed the VA mansion was his home: report Centrists gain a foothold in infrastructure talks; Cyberattacks at the center of Biden-Putin VA meeting set to cover gender-affirming surgery through PLUS department health care.

And the change in The Late Show with Stephane ColbertStephen Tyrone ColbertRita Moreno defends Lin-Manuel Miranda after ‘In the Heights’ cast criticism Jon Stewart: coronavirus ‘more than likely caused by science’ Colbert returns to theaters in front of studio audiences MORE, Tonight’s Show with Jimmy Fallon and ABC’s Jimmy kimmelJames (Jimmy) Christian KimmelCaitlyn Jenner Slams Jimmy Kimmel for Calling Her “Trump in a Wig” Stephen Colbert Brings His Late Night Fox News Show “Gutfeld!” Closes to the Top of the Leaderboard MORE Live !, with Seth Meyers on NBC and Stewart’s old “Daily Show” on Comedy Central ran deep: all became virtual extensions of CNN and MSNBC (the only difference being the studio audiences and massive writing teams. ) by attacking Trump, or Republicans, or both, while wooing Democrats or cable media figures from the aforementioned networks to replace actual celebrities as prominent guests.

It was deeply predictable night after night after night … something you could never say about Stewart during his nearly 20 years at the helm of “The Daily Show”.

Fast forward to 2021, and late night on broadcast networks and Comedy Central find themselves in the same situation as two-thirds of the big cable news: viewers are fleeing in droves. This is what happens when everything-Trump is myopic brought to the fore of every offer: you take JR Ewing out of “Dallas”, and there is no more “Dallas”. You take Trump off the stage, there’s no more cable news since June 2015, no more late-night “comedy” on CBS, NBC and ABC. This is the main (but not only) reason why CNN has lost nearly 70% of its audience since the start of the year, while MSNBC is down more than 40%.

On Monday night, Stewart returned as a guest for Colbert’s debut show with a studio audience in New York City. But disparaging Trump – something Colbert no doubt wanted to do for minutes – was not on Stewart’s mind.

Instead, he wanted to argue that the new coronavirus that has killed more than 600,000 Americans and nearly 3.8 million people worldwide originated from a laboratory in Wuhan. This kind of argument would even have been banned from being discussed by the politburo that is Facebook just a month ago. But here’s Stewart making the best case we’ve ever seen from someone not named Tom’s CottonTom Bryant CottonThe Hill’s Morning Report – After the high-stakes Biden-Poutin summit, what now? Court fines baker 0 for refusing to bake gender transition cake Nikki Haley warns Republicans about China: “If they take Taiwan, it’s over” MORE or Donald Trump.

“This is not a conspiracy,” Stewart said of the lab theory which has been called a reckless conspiracy theory by the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN and other news outlets ago. a year. “Oh my god, there’s a new respiratory coronavirus that’s going beyond Wuhan, China, what are we doing? Oh, you know who we might ask? Wuhan’s new respiratory coronavirus lab. The disease has the same name as the lab. It’s just a little too weird! “

“I will say this – and I honestly mean it – I think we owe science a great debt of gratitude,” he added. “Science has, in many ways, helped alleviate the suffering of this pandemic, which has more than likely been caused by science. ”

“There was an epidemic of chocolate goodness near Hershey, PA, what do you think happened? I don’t know, maybe a steam shovel did it with a bean. cocoa.

Colbert – who sees things only through a political prism of “bad Republicans” – answered thus. “How long have you worked for the senator? Ron johnsonRonald (Ron) Harold JohnsonCentrists gain a foothold in infrastructure talks; cyberattacks at center of Biden-Putin meeting GOP increasingly reluctant to call January 6 an insurgency 14 Republicans vote against making Juneteenth a federal holiday MORE? “he asked, referring to the Wisconsin Republican. Yeah, that’s very funny.

In a related story, Johnson was recently suspended by Google’s YouTube for sharing an observational study from medRxiv that concluded that hydroxychloroquine, along with zinc, could increase COVID-19 survival rates by nearly 200% when ‘it is given to ventilated patients in higher doses who have a severe condition with the virus.

“They decided that there was only one authorized medical point of view and that is the point of view dictated by government agencies,” Johnson replied in a statement. YouTube’s continued censorship of Covid proves they’ve amassed too much inexplicable power. Big tech and mainstream media think they’re smarter than doctors who have dedicated their lives to science and use their skills to save lives.”

YouTube’s arrogant censorship of Covid continues. How many lives will be lost as a result? How many lives could have been saved with the free exchange of medical ideas? This suppression of speech should concern all Americans. @FDRLST https://t.co/PbrGkwI5vj

– Senator Ron Johnson (@SenRonJohnson) June 11, 2021

Across the news spectrum the day after Stewart’s interview, Colbert made headlines that he hadn’t seen in a while for a guest interview. Reason: Stewart went against the grain. He didn’t care about the host’s perspective on the subject, or the reaction of the largely liberal audience. In other words, he did not comply with the group thinking that led all of the aforementioned news organizations to jump to the no-question conclusion that COVID-19 came from a wet market and not from the lab. which studies the gain of – function search.

What was a “crazy” conspiracy theory before the 2020 election is now mainstream. But it didn’t take a sitting president or senator to tell us about the Wuhan lab – or objective media to dig its origins in an effort to uncover the truth while helping us learn lessons to prevent a similar pandemic does not happen again. .

It took retired comedian Jon Stewart, who will hopefully retire soon.

Joe Concha is a media and political columnist for The Hill and a contributor to Fox News.