Jon Stewart Still Thinks Trump's Fascism Is A Big Joke
We're well past the laugh track stage.
Donald Trump is a lawless authoritarian. This isn’t new. He was a lawless authoritarian during his first term, which only ended after his attempted coup failed. Still, Jon Stewart expressed surprise on Monday’s The Daily Show over Trump’s continued authoritarianism, specifically his eagerness to send people he doesn’t like to Salvadoran prison camps.
“I gotta tell you,” Stewart admitted. “I did not think [Trump] would get this authoritarian this fast. I really didn’t … Who could’ve known? Maybe if somebody out there had yelled at me on Bluesky about this, I would have known.” (Watch below.)
Stewart’s Bluesky remark likely refers to backlash he’d received for a segment criticizing Democrats for too quickly describing Trump’s obvious fascist actions as “fascist.” By that point, Trump had already appointed a Legion of Doom Cabinet of the Damned.
“This is the cycle we find ourselves in,” Stewart said at full tut-tut. “First law of Trumpodynamics: Every action is met with a very not equal overreaction.”
First place, it’s impossible to overreact to Trump. It’s like saying you could over-applaud after a Megan Hilty performance. When America’s obituary is finally written, the headline will read, “We Should’ve Overreacted.”
Also, what Stewart dismissed as “overreaction” was Democrats calling out Trump’s illegal purge of inspectors general — the people responsible for objective reviews of government programs for fraud and waste. This was, of course, the first step in Trump dismantling the existing systems that might hold him accountable before letting Elon Musk gut the federal government.
When Trump pardoned his January 6 droogs, Rachel Maddow called this a move straight out of a “textbook authoritarian takeover 101” playbook. Stewart thought she’d gone too far: “Should [Trump] have let some of those terrible people out? No! Is it an abuse of pardon power? I don’t fucking know. But that is his constitutional power.”
Stewart has famously stated that he’s a comedian not a political expert who people should take seriously. Yet, he’s not just making a joke here. He’s challenging Maddow’s specific area of expertise. She never said Trump’s pardons weren’t within his constitutional powers. She pointed out that selectively enforcing the law — persecuting his political enemies while freeing those who attacked the Capitol in his name — is something authoritarians do. They start out stretching the limits of their power, pushing the boundaries of “guidelines” and “norms,” and when there’s no true resistance, they break actual laws and laugh in your face. It’s usually wise to speak up before the “point and laugh” stage of fascism.
Yet, Stewart warned that liberal “overreactions” to Trump was “throwing off our ability to know when shit is actually getting real.” This segment aired on January 27, 2025 not 2017. That shit actually got real on November 5, 2024. The shit was real when the Supreme Court granted a convicted felon immunity for any future crimes committed while in office.
Trump’s second campaign, even more so than his first, prominently featured what Oxford professor Roger Griffin called the three major components of fascism — the rebirth myth, populist ultra-nationalism, and the myth of decadence. Griffin describes fascism as elite-led but populist “armed party” politics that opposes socialism and liberalism and promises “radical politics” to rescue the nation from “decadence.” That’s Trumpism and the MAGA movement.
Many very serious thinkers objected to calling Trump a “fascist” until he either officially declared his major in fascism or passed his fascism bar exams. They worried that liberals would fall into the Boy Who Cried Wolf trap, expect that boy never genuinely believed there was a wolf and just wanted to frighten his community for a cheap laugh. That boy was a creep. If the boy was a diligent wolf spotter and simply had a few false sightings out of an abundance of caution, his village would’ve listened to him. There is nothing wrong with calling fascism early and often when the signs are legitimately there.
Conversely, Republicans have called Democrats “socialists” and “communists” until they cried “comrade!” It’s almost entirely a lie, as mainstream Democratic politics is not just center-left, it’s aggressively institutional. This is not a party with any interest in overthrowing capitalism or instituting any major societal changes that haven’t been focus-group tested. (That’s not so bad, as long as the other party is equally sane.) However, the smears worked. Meanwhile, people like Stewart have been so cautious in how they label Trump that far too many Americans viewed him more as inspiration for the latest Saturday Night Live cold open than an existential threat to democracy.
The problem is that Stewart still doesn’t treat America’s downhill bobsled run into fascism with the seriousness it deserves. He even took time out of Monday’s segment for more “Trump is fat” jokes. Responding to Trump’s health report that claims he’s 6-foot-3 and weighs 224 pounds, Stewart said, “No. I’m going to say no to either of those numbers. I don’t want to be that guy, but he has a front butt. I mean, we all get there. It’s fine. You can have it. But what’s with, ‘He is forged by Hephaestus?'”
I’m pretty sure that Trump has lied about his vital statistics because he’s a liar who lies about everything. However, out of all his lies, that is simply one of them. A lot of people lie about their weight who also don’t lie about why they sent an innocent man to die in a Salvadoran torture prison. I stress that Trump’s a fascist, which is worse than a vain celebrity with an outdated headshot. I suppose there is an Emperor’s New Clothes quality to White House officials making facially absurd statements about Trump’s physical vitality, except in this version all the naked people are fascists. (Watch below.)
Stewart closed his segment with a jab about how Trump’s limited intelligence prevents him from achieving true authoritarianism. I thought this misguided theory closed out of town after Trump sicced a violent mob on the Capitol.
“So Trump’s got it all, authoritarian-wise: the looks, the attitude, the relentless dissent-crushing — all the ingredients to be a top-tier authoritarian,” Stewart said. “All he needs now is to bring it home with his ruthless competence.”
Where did Stewart get the idea that authoritarianism requires “ruthless competence”? I don’t think Trump is a comic book supervillain like Doctor Doom, but few real-life despots are. Hitler was largely a buffoon, but he did a lot of damage before his evil regime collapsed. Kim Jong Un is considered an “incompetent child,” but that doesn’t make North Korea any less of a totalitarian dictatorship.
The Daily Show audience laughed at clips showing Trump backing off (sort of) on his insane tariffs, as the economy races toward a recession, but we shouldn’t find his ego-driven stupidity reassuring. Trump’s disordered thinking and the overall chaos he unleashes are what makes him so dangerous, and while Stewart’s viewers laugh, Kilmar Ábrego García rots in a foreign prison, if he’s even still alive.
The point of "warning signs of fascism" is that it is too late to act when people are being rounded up in cattle cars. Trump and the MAGA movement checked off all the Umberto Eco warning signs of fascism a long time ago and day to day things are only getting worse. Jon Stewart (and the full on Vichy Bill Maher) will be seen by history as people who were on the wrong side of history when they could have made a difference.
I am not entirely sure why (I have my guesses), but murderous dictators seem in fact generally NOT to be terribly bright. The fact that Drumpf is a complete idiot who could probably maim himself with plastic cutlery is no comfort. In prison, tortured or dead, you are still in prison, tortured, or dead, even if the guy who ordered it pushes when the door says pull.