Be not afraid of The Daily Show playing the hits

Jon Stewart returned to his desk tonight ready to talk about the fifth most important news story of the day: The so-called cancelation of Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker. Butker recently gave one of those classy commencement speeches in which he touched on the “deadly sin” of LGBTQ+ Pride, encouraged female graduates to consider homemaking their duty, and engaged in some light antisemitism. But the content of his speech isn’t what inspired Stewart’s segment. It’s how conservative media reacted to it, which was to say that the left was coming for Butker. That they might already have him. That they might come for you next.

Yeah, fearmongering about cancel culture is all the rage these days, but Stewart argues that cancel culture mostly exists on the right. It’s a tool to sell airport books with titles like Triggered, Canceled, and Wake Up, Wokes! You’re Broke, You Joke, And Your Love Life’s DOA. What the likes of Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham are reacting to and monetizing is outrage. This isn’t anything new. We’re far too deep into the latest “pivot to video” not to know that’s how social media has operated for more than a decade.

Nevertheless, Stewart believes that Jerry Seinfeld caught more shit for releasing a Pop-Tart movie than Butker, which is a little rich considering Seinfeld is actually getting shit for complaining about “PC crap” from “the extreme left” ruining comedy. And what’s the deal with that? Is it only fake cancel culture outrage when Fox News does it? But we digress. The only actual cancel culture, Stewart says, comes from former President Donald Trump because any time a conservative dares criticize him, their professional lives suffer.

The whole argument gives Stewart a chance to do what he does best: disect the hypocrisy of Fox News. Watching Stewart pick apart Hannity’s performance is like watching Slash play the guitar solo to “November Rain.” It’s simply what the man does best. So, while saying “conservative media is hypocritical” is like calling water “wet,” when Stewart cuts to Representative Elise Stefanik tying herself into a knot like she’s Olga from Suspiria to defend a Trump gaffe, it just hits different.

“On the right, you can say whatever the fuck you want about gay people and trans people, from TikTok to Patreon,” Stewart says. “You can decry DEI on podcasts to, I don’t know, the governor’s office of Flordia, and chances are, not only will you be fine, you’ll get a raise. But if you dare speak one iota against Donald Trump, be, yes, afraid.”