You can count me among those who were skeptical when some guy named Jon Stewart took over The Daily Show back in 1999. I had quite enjoyed Craig Kilborn's take on the show, which was a pretty broad comedy show that spent a lot of time mocking people's dumber behavior. And when Stewart took over, I drifted in and out for a while as he found his voice, more or less enjoying the show but realizing it wasn't quite what it had been when I started watching it. But sometime not long after 9/11, I found myself watching The Daily Show and realizing that it had become essential viewing for me, and that's a habit that I kept until Jon Stewart's final broadcast last week, not missing an episode in more than 12 years. It's hard to overstate how much Jon Stewart influenced me politically; he took a vague interest and fanned it, diving into policies, political figures, platforms, and so much more, managing somehow to both inform and constantly entertain. But more than that, he was reassuring in a way that no traditional piece of journalism could be. As the Bush presidency got more and more nauseating, or as elections became more and more of a circus, Stewart's rage, satire, and commentary hit home with me, reminding me that I wasn't alone in my frustration with the process and the outcomes. He was a reminder that you weren't alone in your anger and your disgust, and as he got more and more famous, the fact that he was allowed to say the things so many of us thought was a relief, a sense that someone was in our corner. More than anything else, Jon Stewart was a comforting figure to have in politics: part conscience, part watchdog, part commentator, part clown, and he could take nearly any event and make it palatable and understandable, or at least mollify your outrage and help you cope. And no matter how strident he became, you knew that he was a man who constantly spoke from the heart, who always spoke his mind and believed in the things he said. (It's the reason that the Rally to Restore Sanity spoke so much to me; as much as people complained that he shouldn't treat the sides fairly, it spoke to Stewart's essential sense of fairness and refusal to give one side a pass for its behavior just because he agreed with them.) Now he's gone, and his successor starts soon. I have no doubt Trevor Noah will do a good job, and while the show will take a while to find its rhythm and its voice, I bet it'll be a must watch for me too. But it won't be Stewart, and it's hard not to think that television and public discourse will be so much lesser for his absence, no matter how much he richly deserves the break from it all.
- Josh Mauthe
- Josh Mauthe
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