BenTheGoodAg said:
I think in general, we lump too many people into groups way too often. It's ok to have an original thought that doesn't align with a political party.
This has been the main issue over the past eight years.
Social media reaching its apex form (for worse) + Trump winning the presidency = a line forged in the sand like we'd never seen before.
Whatever one thinks about his policies/accomplishments, Trump was/is such a vile, detestable person -
especially to those on the left - that to be seen on social media, or in life in general, as endorsing/excusing him in any way obviously made for a hyper sensitive, hyper partisan political climate. Which, for the left, suddenly meant not being able to critique/joke about their own team in any way, or risk appearing as endorsing Trump and everything he represented. Which was amplified via social media and had the potential to result in ostracism/cancellation from their peers. Throw in MeToo, Covid, and BLM - all while Trump was president - and it was the perfect, once-in-a-century storm that caused each side to dig in on their respective ideologies to unprecedented extremes, often resulting in performative insanity.
All that said, in the wake of Covid, and all the misinformation we've learned there, along with Biden's age/increasingly-impossible-to-ignore issues, I've noticed the fever finally start to break on the left here in the last six months or so. The sentiment of course remains that Trump is a dangerous POS, but I'm at least finally starting to see the left, both on the news and where I live (among friends, colleagues, etc), realize that their sh*t stinks too. I even see it on CNN now, and have noticed more digs at Biden on things like SNL as well.
All of this is to say that I think Stewart is the perfect voice (entertainment-wise) to try and get us through the next eight months, one who can at least bring us together in our attempts to grapple with the fact that BOTH sides/candidates suck. I don't know what happens in November, as four more years of Biden feels like further fiscal decay, while four more years of Trump feels like further moral decay (and will instantly erase any progress the left makes between now and then in diagnosing its own problems). I just keep hoping that somehow, someway, in the next eight months a third road miraculously presents itself.
