Stephen A. Smith riled up Jon Stewart so much Monday night that by the end of their conversation The Daily Show host was “talking much faster than I’ve ever talked before in my entire life.”
“I’m flipping things around and I’m moving my hands and I’m doing this,” Stewart said waving his hands around and mocking himself as he prepared to answer Smith’s declaration that Trump’s supporters “have somebody speaking their language” while “the Democratic party looks very, very fragmented.”
In Smith’s words, “The left blew this election more so than him winning it.”
The ESPN host-turned-political commentator explained his position like this: “You call yourself a progressive party and you’re standing up at the State of the Union clapping and chanting four more years for a man that was going to be 82 once the inauguration date took place. ‘Four more years’? And America looked at you and said, ‘Have you lost your ever loving mind?’ That’s what the hell happened. It’s very simple. It ain’t that damn complicated!”
Smith, who has teased a possible run for political office, concluded that “the progressive left, the extreme left, really ruined the election for the Democrats” and “because that happened, it positioned” Trump “to get away with a lot of things.”
Stewart was clearly activated by that take, insisting the progressive left “didn’t choose Joe Biden” and don’t have the power in that party.“
“Chuck Schumer is out there writing eight strongly worded questions to Donald Trump,” he joked. “The progressives are the ones going, ‘People in this country want Medicare for all. Do something.’ They’re the ones that have a principled agenda that they are going to put forth, that all the Democrats have run from under the guise of ‘We have to be moderate.’”
Smith wasn’t necessarily convinced. “That’s a great argument and I don’t disagree.”
Stewart jokingly declared victory, getting up from his seat: “We’re done here!”
But Smith dug his heels in on his earlier point. “The messenger matters,” he said, bringing up the advanced ages of Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.
“Trump is 78! He can barely get up the stairs at the airport,” Stewart interjected.
Still, Smith argued, “The GOP is the one that lives on their traditional, old school ways, not necessarily wanting things to change: ‘We want free market capitalism. We want closed borders. We want strong national.’ This is what they say and their message is resolute and the same, and the same, and the same. Even though their tactics obviously vary, when you look at the left, there always seems to be something new. At least in the eyes of a lot of people, the Democratic party looks very, very fragmented.”
“You got to know what works and what doesn’t, and fight fire with fire. You got to know how to win it,” he said. Trump “has enough venom, enough hostility, enough disgust with the nation’s capital,” that his supporters believe “he’s not one of them. He’s one of us,” Smith concluded, “That’s why he’s popular.”
Stewart opted not to argue Smith down any further on that point. “You’re saying, ‘He’s got the touch. He’s the charismatic demagogue that can do that,’” he said, notably adding the caveat, “in your mind.”
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