[USA] Presidential Debate Mega Thread
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Please post articles related to the debate here. New posts about the debate will be removed as duplicates.
Discussions are welcome and encouraged!
Jon Stewart's video just dropped on YouTube for where it's available geographically (where it's not just use a downloader it totally works)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtHn59wqdBc
He had one or two good bits in there, but man...I haven't watched him recently, and I think that he's a lot weaker in 2024 than he was during his first time around.
Like, I remember him doing a beautiful video montage a few times that had people "debating" their past selves, where they made inconsistent statements. I feel like that really added to the discussion. He could make a point and do so humorously.
He got the accolades he did for improving the political discussion from just a comedy show.
But most of this was pretty meh, IMHO.
That being said, I don't know who's writing for him these days. And his team didn't have a lot of lead time to cover the debate, so I can kind of understand there not being a lot of great material there. Maybe they'll have more-meaty stuff on the debate in a day or so.
These post-debate shows are live and immediately after the debates, so there is less prep time for writing and bringing up old statements.
His jokes were amazing. The only difference is that he's also started attacking Democrats since they're basically 2000 Republicans as well.
It's understandable that many Democrats don't enjoy Stewart making fun of right-wingers anymore.
No. These particular bits just weren't that funny.
The bit where he called Dick Cheney a war criminal and implied the Democrats should shun him if they had any standards was great.
I mean, you're entitled to your opinion as to his performance, but that definitely isn't what I found less-appealing. Like, he spent a lot of time with the vomiting clips that were pretty much zero-content in terms of what people he was talking about actually did. I think that the entire section complaining about Dick Cheney was...I mean, it wasn't highlighting anything that Cheney did in the endorsement that was actually unreasonable. Complaining about a Cheney endorsement of Harris seems pretty off-the-mark to me; if anything, I'd have imagined that he'd have rather had people endorse Harris. The Dershowitz thing was...okay, yeah, that might be a little like some of the stuff he used to do, as he was highlighting a statement that could be seen as kind of unreasonable and why, though Dershowitz is kind of not a very important figure.
The bits I liked the most were actually critiquing statements made during the debate that didn't hold up. I felt that he was pretty light on that compared to potential content, but I'll give him that he didn't have much time, and the bit at the end where I think that he made a pretty heartfelt statement which was not at all vintage Stewart but at least brought some kind of discussable insight to the table.
I don't want to have Stewart acting more-strongly partisan; in fact, he was prominently complaining about people doing so in the media at one point in the past, pointing out that stuff like that Tucker Carlson's show really didn't warrant being considered news.
What I really liked in the past was him pointing out incorrect statements and inconsistent positions, but doing so in an appealing-to-watch format; most people aren't likely going to just watch someone just do a string of fact-checking in political statements being made during the past couple days, and he would present it in a format that people could enjoy.
I'd be fine with him hitting both Republican and Democratic politicians about the same amount, would prefer it if anything, though I've got no idea whether that's as commercially-viable.
I also don't think that his trademark long pauses, facial expressions, and doodling stuff were as funny as in the past though...eh, that was always filler content anyway. I mean, that wasn't what I was going to watch the show for. But I do remember chuckling before when he got the timing spot-on and had a delayed grin or something, and I didn't do that this time.