EP86: Do You Know Jon Stewart's Secret? - Gracearchy with Jim Babka

Jon Stewart sounds different than all of the mainstream (mostly Democrat-leaning) commentators. In fact, they don't understand how he can criticize Joe Biden, even a tiny bit. Their sense of humor vanishes.

I happen to know one of Jon Stewart's biggest performance secrets.

Stewart understands something important about American politics. And I gave this insight a memorable name and wrote an entire article about it in 2021.

When you discover this insight, it'll be like putting on new glasses. You'll see politics not only differently, but also with far greater clarity.

The first step to being so insightful, is to listen to this 19-minute episode of Gracearchy with Jim Babka.

**How Jon Stewart Killed Crossfire **

Stewart returned to The Daily Show two Mondays ago. Last Monday, he comedically critiqued Tucker Carlson's Putin production decisions.

But that bit of satire was not their first rodeo.

In this episode of Gracearchy, I re-tell the story of how Jon Stewart pulled back the curtain and exposed the central contrivance of CNN's Crossfire. Stewart's guest appearance, in front of co-host Tucker Carlson, was like a time bomb. It blew the longstanding show off the air, not long after.

That appearance is so important, it has its own Wikipedia page and a YouTube version of it with 17 million views.

Just a couple of years after Stewart's Crossfire appearance, I became one of five writers on a group blog. Stewart's Crossfire performance helped inspire a memetic idea that became the conclusion of all my blog posts. And it helped lead me to the secret shared in this episode. So...

You'll hear the Crossfire story, my story, plus one other Jon Stewart bonus story in this episode. And before we're through...

I'll explain where I still differ with Stewart. In fact, you'll hear how to "grace" - that is, we'll discuss grace as a verb.

LINKS

"Killing Crossfire" on YouTube
https://youtu.be/aFQFB5YpDZE

FACT-CHECK I (Jim) was wrong. It's extraordinary that there's a Wikipedia entry for this episode. And it indicates that cancellation took about three months, not three weeks. I stand corrected.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Stewart%27s_2004_appearance_on_Crossfire

The Conflict Machine Explains Our Politics
https://theexitnetwork.substack.com/p/the-conflict-machine-explains-our

TIMELINE

0:00 Theme
0:44 Jon Stewart's return
1:46 Shrieking by Trump Derangement crowd
3:31 Tucker's favorite politician
5:04 Equal opportunity critic
6:38 False moral equivalency
7:10 Jon Stewart's secret
11:22 Real solution, stop and grace
12:40 How Jon killed Crossfire
16:30 Hardball delenda est

Bill Protzmann is your moderator.

ZERO AGGRESSION PROJECT - https://zeroaggressionproject.org/ - is our sponsor. The views expressed are exclusively those of the participants, and not necessarily those of the board, staff, or supporters of the Zero Aggression Project.

Thank you to Randy Garbin for our amazing thumbnails: http://randygarbin.com/

We are grateful to Sergio at https://www.youtube.com/@KeysofMoonMusic for our intro theme.
► https://www.patreon.com/user?u=10500501
or
you can purchase his music on BandCamp:
► https://keysofmoon.bandcamp.com/
► If you have any questions please feel free to write to Sergio at: [email protected]

Be grace-full to each other.