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A real paradigm shift: comics become political leaders

Paul Colgan

by Paul Colgan

17 Sep 02:05pm

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Filed under: Comedy, Jon Stewart, Politics, Stephen Colbert, Tea Party, Us Politics

54 comments

Think we’ve got a new paradigm? Get this: two comedians are positioning themselves as the voices of reason in American politics.

Jon Stewart of the Daily Show announcing his October rally

Jon Stewart of The Daily Show and his Comedy Central colleague Stephen Colbert have just announced they will hold rallies at the end of October in Washington D.C. calling for a return to common sense in debate in the US.

This is in response to last month’s rally led by conservative commentator Glenn Beck calling for a restoration of “traditional values” to American life. That rally, held on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, was well-attended by members of the Tea Party movement, a loose anti-taxation, anti-establishment grassroots movement which has just managed to get some of its members installed as Republican candidates for the US Senate.

The shift of the Tea Party movement from a fringe group to a movement that can build giant rallies and then get their preferred candidates to stand as Republicans has US conservatives, including former George W. Bush strategist Karl Rove, increasingly uneasy about the direction of the party, and its electability.

But on the other side of the ledger it should be equally thought-provoking for America’s small-l liberals and progressives that a couple of comedians are now at the vanguard of a fightback movement against the continuing political purchase of the Tea Party.

If you’ve been paying even cursory attention to what’s been going on in the US lately this might not all come a huge surprise, but take a step back and think about how this situation would be replicated here. The Australian equivalent would be, say, broadcaster Alan Jones leading a march to Parliament House, and then Hamish & Andy staging a sit-in in response.

Here is an excerpt from Stewart’s announcement:

We’re looking for the people who think shouting is annoying, counterproductive, and terrible for your throat; who feel that the loudest voices shouldn’t be the only ones that get heard; and who believe that the only time it’s appropriate to draw a Hitler mustache on someone is when that person is actually Hitler. Or Charlie Chaplin in certain roles.

Are you one of those people? Excellent. Then we’d like you to join us in Washington, DC on October 30—a date of no significance whatsoever—at the Daily Show’s “Rally to Restore Sanity.” Ours is a rally for the people who’ve been too busy to go to rallies, who actually have lives and families and jobs (or are looking for jobs)—not so much the Silent Majority as the Busy Majority. If we had to sum up the political view of our participants in a single sentence… we couldn’t. That’s sort of the point.

You can see Colbert’s announcement here.

But if it feels like the political tectonic plates have been shifting a bit in Australia, take a minute to think about what’s happening for our friends in the US. As the Atlantic online just reported, their decision is “breaking the fourth wall and inserting themselves directly into the political debate in a way that might effect the cast of the November elections”.

Most commented

353"Gifting", "journey" and other words we hate
309Thomson didn't answer the question everyone is asking
246A big day for Thomson, who thus far is guilty of nothing...
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230Craig Thomson speaks. Meanwhile, in Australia...
224The most laughable, err, spoof since Einfeld
224Punch on: Open thread 17/05/2012

54 comments

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    • Zaf says:

      02:18pm | 17/09/10

      [But if it feels like the political tectonic plates have been shifting a bit in Australia, take a minute to think about what’s happening for our friends in the US. As the Atlantic online just reported, their decision is “breaking the fourth wall and inserting themselves directly into the political debate in a way that might effect the cast of the November elections”. ]

      That’s pretty much what has already happened in Australia, with The Australian/Daily Telegraph/etc.

      Yay! Another Aussie World First!  Suck on that, yanks!

      (Oh wait, Fox News…)

      Reply

    • Steely Dan says:

      02:48pm | 17/09/10

      Is ‘breaking the fourth wall’ really what the Atlantic meant to say? I thought Stewart and Colbert addressed the audience directly already…

      Did they mean to say that it was breaking down a wall of separation of powers - with the media as the ‘fourth estate’?  Or am I missing something?

    • mcmob says:

      02:19pm | 17/09/10

      Colbert for president! Seriously, he could be electable. His faux right-wing persona is so outrageous the Tea Partiers will flock to support him, along with all the liberals who are in on the joke.

      Although Jon Stewart (who is both a comic genius and a deadset legend) would probably be a better president, we all know a left-wing east coast Jew will never be elected to the White House.

      Colbert, on the other hand, is from South Carolina’s Republican heartland and in last night’s show said anyone considering masturbation should marry their hand first. I can see him sweeping all the red states in 2012 and restoring truthiness to Washington DC.

      Reply

    • MF says:

      02:27pm | 17/09/10

      I’m all for some truthiness :D

      Colbert for President indeed!

    • Richard says:

      02:27pm | 17/09/10

      There has been a continual misconception and misrepresentation of the Tea Party movement in America since it burst onto the scene unexpectedly in late 2008. At the core of this movement, what gave it its impetus in the first place,  was and is ‘Joe Six-Pack’s grassroots opposition to the enormous publicly funded bailout of wall-street banks for taking huge risks with their shareholder’s money and losing it all.

      That’s what this is about~ not God or rascism or anything else leftwingers try to characterise them with. Its about opposing the Government and Big Business Oligarchy that controls and manipulates all the markets in the world’s largerst economy, and I for one agree with them: the US government is out of control, its spending is unsustainable, and the banksters on Wall Street are nothing less than a cartel of criminals, ‘Financial Terrorists’ as Max Keiser likes to call them.

      The Tea Party needs to be supported in its efforts to restore sanity to fiscal policy in the US and end the Federal Reserve system of fiat inflation and wealth transfer to the elite, not satarised and sarcastically mocked by people who don’t understand the core message that motivates it.

      Reply

    • mcmob says:

      02:42pm | 17/09/10

      But Richard, can’t you see how big business and the Republican Party are hijacking this movement? Fox News has become the biggest corporate supporter of the Tea Party movement. Can you recognise the irony of a flagship division of the world’s most powerful media company pushing a movement that according to you “opposed the Government and Big Business Oligarchy that controls and manipulates all the markets in the world’s largest economy”? And while you are clearly capable of arguing with a degree of clarity the core beliefs of the initial Tea Partiers, I believe those distinctions are lost on those many, many Americans who see this movement as an excuse to rock up to rallies with signs comparing Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler, and T-shirts claiming the president can’t have been born in the country simply because he happens to be black.

    • KH says:

      03:41pm | 17/09/10

      Well, when Sarah Palin and ‘strategists’ for George W Bush are amongst the supporters, what else is there to do but mock it?  Clearly it doesn’t attract the highest calibre of people…..

    • Moseley says:

      03:53pm | 17/09/10

      The reason the banks needed to be bailed out was because Geore W Bush encouraged home loans to low-income families and then gave the backing of the governemnt of these home loans.

      This allowed all the cowboys to come into the housing finance market and give people money who never had a hope of paying it back. The companies knew they had no ultimate responsibility because the government would bail them out. They packaged these loans and sold them to the investment banks as CDOs. The banks knew the risk was there but also didn’t have to worry because the government would bail them out.

      Ironically, many of these people getting the loans support the Tea Party.

      They’ve made their bed, now they complain about the consequences.

      Funny that

    • Richard says:

      04:48pm | 17/09/10

      I will concede that Sarah Palin’s impression on me is of unmitigated stupidity, and Glen Beck’s of lunatic fanaticism, but I don’t agree that big business and the Republican party are ‘hi-jacking’ this movement.

      If anything, its the other way around: the Tea Party is hi-jacking the Republican party! There have been a number of Republican establishment-favoured candidates defeated in this year’s senate and house primaries but outsider grassroots supported Tea Party candidates.

      Its ironic that you accuse Rupert Murdoch of being the ‘evil’ supporter of the Tea Party (on a News Ltd website no less), because I read it the other way: I think most media organisation are trying to denigrate and play down the power of the Tea Party movement; but people power speaks loudly, and the internet allows them to bypass the traditional mass media broadcast monopoly on propaganda distribution.

      Too much power has been accumulated in hands of too few individuals, and thanks to the internet, the people are beginning to organise themselves to take it back. This is what true democracy is all about.

    • Nigel Catchlove says:

      05:13pm | 17/09/10

      Mosely,

      I realise that you probably blame George W. Bush for every malady suffered by mankind throughout history but a Democrat by the name of Bill Clinton should share the blame for this one.

      The The National Homeownership Strategy was a Clinton era document that stated: “For many potential homebuyers, the lack of cash available to accumulate the required downpayment and closing costs is the major impediment to purchasing a home. Other households do not have sufficient available income to to make the monthly payments on mortgages financed at market interest rates for standard loan terms.”

      The regulatory changes to the Community Reinvestment Act (1977) as amended 1989, ‘91, ‘92, encouraged banks to find ‘creative’ (Clinton’s word not mine) ways of financing loans - hence the birth of the no-doc loan that fueled the GFC.

    • Komet says:

      05:20pm | 17/09/10

      I think many of the Tea Party movement’s ideas are appealing. Small federal, non-interventionist government…something which goes back to the true ideals of conservatism.

      The problem, as mentioned, is the morons who are part of the Tea Party movement and the bigoted social issues which get pushed to the fore.

      From what I have witnessed, Tea Party folk either seem to be very pragmatic and intelligent or a few rugs down on the evolutionary ladder.

      Vote for truthiness.

    • Stuart says:

      05:23pm | 17/09/10

      @Richard

      The Tea Party is a movement that desperately needs to be satirised and mocked.  It is a movement that proclaims overly simplistic solutions to complex issues. 

      It is a movement who seems to draw support disproportionately from ignorant bigots and therefore is at the least associated with distasteful bigotry.  For example, the Tea Party movement is inextricably linked linked to the anti-Park 51 movement despite the fact that freedom of religion is a core tenant of the constitution - a document that the Tea Party loudly supports (but only when it supports their point of view).

      Moreover, the Tea Party, as a movement that supports a strict construction of the constitution, should embrace the mocking by the 4th Estate for it demonstrates freedom of speech.

      Finally, as mcmob suggests, the Tea Party has received inordinate support from Fox News one of the most powerful media forces in the USA - therefore I struggle to feel sympathy for the movement.

    • Hayek's_insights_would_have_saved_Rudd says:

      06:59pm | 17/09/10

      Richard, You can’t reason with drones who parrot the propaganda that they are fed about the tea party. These drones are economic illiterates who love the blanket of big brother.  These idiots call tea party extremists because they are calling for smaller taxes & govt and fiscal responsibility in an era where governments everywhere are going broke due to the welfare state. The funny thing is that Australia is heading there at an extraordinary pace both federally and at the state level.  My hope is that the Tea Party will turn the USA around and once again the US will lead the way to liberty and to prosperity.

    • Tony of Poorakistan says:

      01:49pm | 18/09/10

      Nigel

      thanks for clearing that up for Moseley; I nearly coughed my Weeties up at the mere thought that a Republican would give a rat’s arse whether the brothers in the lower class suburbs of LA could afford to buy their own houses.

      No, this was a classic mistake by a socialist idealogue in Bill Clinton and it was a double mistake in that he (i) assumed they’d pay what they owed when they could and (ii) that the big end of town would not try to find a way to screw a profit out of it when they were literally ordered to provide loans to people outside their normal lending criteria.

      Personally, I think they should ALL have been penalised. The mortagees for not paying loans that were all but free and the rapacious crooks-in-suits on Wall St, who used their previously rock-solid reputations (and AA+ credit ratings) to re-package these junk loans and on-sell them, KNOWING that they would fail. The boards of every bank associated with this should be prosecuted.

    • Stephen Putnam says:

      10:13am | 19/09/10

      The tea party mobs are, to use Professor Hobsbawm’s expression, “primitive rebels”: they feel things to be wrong for reasons they can’t articulate. To pretend they have no connection with christian fundamentalism and red neck racism flies in the face of reality. Any number of youtube videos shows them to be largely lower income whites, who bewildered by the hammer blows that have been dealt the US economy—three of the five largest financial institutions bankrupted the once all powerful car industry nationalised—are lashing out blindly in all directions. Many of them are now unemployed and as a result have no health insurance, yet they rail against the Obama health bill and can be seen at these rallies carrying placards depicting Obama as Hitler and chanting “Weee don’t want no sochilized medceene”.
      It is difficult to escape the conclusion that they want liberation but not if a black man delivers it.

    • fairsfair says:

      02:29pm | 17/09/10

      That Colbert is one funny man and I often watch thinking that Australians might take more of an interest in politics if we had something of a similar vein. But then I remember the subject matter and comedic talent on offer and realise that it just can’t be done. Behind their humour they do discuss real issues in a manner that actually gets the general public talking.

      I believe that the public’s shift toward fringe dwelling parties is purely due to the fact that they are tired of all the shouting, selective action and childish antics of the current major parties. That and the focussing on irrelevant issues. This act might be shooting oneself in the foot to a degree but that is out only option in 2010. We have painted outselves into a corner. In 1710 we would have just shot up parliament house and hung a few politicians….

      Reply

    • acotrel says:

      07:49am | 18/09/10

      ‘The Tea Party is a movement that desperately needs to be satirised and mocked.  It is a movement that proclaims overly simplistic solutions to complex issues.’

      Like Bob Katter, and tariff protection?

    • Leslie says:

      02:30pm | 17/09/10

      Father Coughlin would be proud, if he hadn’t died 30 years ago.

      Reply

    • James N says:

      02:30pm | 17/09/10

      I love this. I interpret this rally mostly as a means to demonstrate that the Tea Party or the Glenn Beck Rally are about as meaningful as two comedians doing it.

      Reply

    • andrew k says:

      02:54pm | 17/09/10

      Don’t forget that Glenn Beck himself is a comedian.  He’s described himself as such and even done a stand-up tour, but he and his fans are so thick they’ve now convinced themselves he’s the cracker MLK.

    • Brian says:

      02:53pm | 17/09/10

      When does a grassroots movement funded by conservative billionaires not become grassroots?

      Reply

    • Austin 3:16 says:

      05:55pm | 17/09/10

      When it’s astroturf

    • Zeta says:

      02:54pm | 17/09/10

      Mark Twain was a satirist first and a political commentator second. And who wouldn’t have wanted Mark Twain to be President? Jon Stewart is funny, but that shouldn’t preclude him from being a political leader. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if political leaders had a sense of humour?

      Reply

    • Sam Tansey says:

      03:26pm | 17/09/10

      I think your giving Hamish and Andy far too much credit.

      Vote 1 Sean Micallef.

      Reply

    • Bill says:

      04:01pm | 17/09/10

      Sean certainly could do an Australian Daily Show, but who but the ABC or SBS would run it. Unfortunately, it would probably be a “career decision” for Sean as well.

    • Janelle says:

      09:07am | 20/09/10

      Agreed….. I don’t think that Hamish and Andy are quite in the same League as Stewart and Colbert. 

      VOTE 1 Sean Micallef for PM
      VOTE 1 Stephen Colbert for President
      VOTE 1 Jon Stewart for President of CNN - these rallies are all about changing the conversation between the media and the public.  This is the real ‘paradigm’ shift!

    • nosthow says:

      03:36pm | 17/09/10

      And dont forget the shrill Sarah Palin Colgo - in my book she is a comediene of top status.

      Reply

    • Marshall says:

      03:37pm | 17/09/10

      Paul Cogan - John Stewart and Stephen Colbert equivalent to Hamish and Andy? Really? Aside from being comedians, Stewart and Colbert have been overtly political in disposition for years now. Hamish and Andy? Not so much.

      Reply

    • hot tub poltical machine says:

      03:39pm | 17/09/10

      Comedians have been doing journalist job - (courageous and insightful comment on public matters) for at least a decade now.

      Reply

    • Bobster says:

      04:10pm | 17/09/10

      I’d say they’ve been doing it for well over 40 years - Lenny Bruce, George Carlin, Bill Hicks and now Bill Maher, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

    • hot tub political machine says:

      05:28pm | 17/09/10

      Your probably right Bobster, but I guess i’ve found comedy to be the most overtly political comment in Australia more recently - I probably was just too myopic to notice before then.

    • iansand says:

      03:46pm | 17/09/10

      The Australian equivalent would not be Alan Jones.  It would be the Chaser team.

      Reply

    • Schmavo says:

      04:01pm | 17/09/10

      What a shame our TV networks don’t have the balls to produce this sort of stuff in Oz. Gotta play it safe, can’t risk offending anyone.

      Reply

    • Peter says:

      04:32pm | 17/09/10

      Actually watching Glenn Beck right now. He knows the anwers to everything that guy. I’m still waiting for him to write that tax policy he talks about that can fit on one page.

      Nothing beats Bill O’Reilly’s tirade on a tax he has to pay on a yacht if he bought it in Florida and took it to New York. I’ve never seen a millionaire cry poor before..

      Ok, back to Glenn Beck’s and his impending doom… I’m not sure what this guy is on about, is it total anarchy? or something else? He is certainly whipping up emotions over there…

      Reply

    • Greg Drake says:

      04:45pm | 17/09/10

      A natural extension - haven’t you noticed that the “Daily Show” & “The Colbert Report” is the news and current affairs component on ABC2….....The demographic for ABC2 already knows that comedy is the reality so send in the clowns.

      Reply

    • Eric says:

      04:59pm | 17/09/10

      —-> My comment would go here <—-

      if it were not censored

      Reply

    • Ryan says:

      08:20am | 19/09/10

      Yes this is happening more and more on the punch Eric, I wonder if there is a potential backhand bieng prepared by the illigitimate Labor lying government for them to censor anyone who says somthing the supreme comrades don’t agree with.

    • Scarneck says:

      05:08pm | 17/09/10

      Nothing really surprises me any-more about the land of septic tanks. Stewart and Colbert are comedians and talk show hosts utmost and foremost, not sure how high on their agenda’s politics would be…this is nothing more than a publicity stunt, and good on them…. “get their preferred candidates to stand as Republicans”  is that like Bob Browns my preferred candidate but I want him to stand as a Liberal?....looks confused, is confused.

      Reply

    • Ripa says:

      06:17pm | 17/09/10

      Hey Paul, just how much research did you do on Becks rally? seriously?, have you even read what the Tea party stands for? and why it is gaining momentum ?

      Limited government, pro constitution, capitalism and free enterprise, personal responsibility?

      “A well attended rally”? what a slanted biased comment, how pathetic, how about estimates up to 1 million people attended this rally. The largest in recent history.

      Jon Stewart and all those lame comedians on comedy central wont get a hundred people attending, and if they do the biased media in the US will report that they had a billion people attend.
      You will find, if you even bothered to google the rally that people who attended Becks rally were, singles, families, children, black, white, hispanic, asian, arabic, people with jobs people who pay taxes.

      Do some real reporting, or eventually you will find yourself going the way of Newsweek, you are all a bunch of yes men.

      Reply

    • JP says:

      01:25am | 18/09/10

      The reddit campaign for the Restoring Truthiness Rally has resulted in $200000 being donated to charity (donorschoose.org). At the end of the day no matter how many people turn out to this thing, it’s given people a reason to act in a positive way. That can only be a good thing.

    • cbs says:

      08:22am | 18/09/10

      I believe the most accurate crowd estimate was 87,000.

    • stephen says:

      06:18pm | 17/09/10

      I wouldn’t write off Barak Obama so soon at the mid-term primaries.
      Irrespective of these chap’s endeavours, the President has major policy initiatives going in the Middle East, in domestic policy, and is re-shuffling non-performing staff.
      His best man is Robert Gates.
      They’ll sort it out.

      Reply

    • Kurisu Sonsaku says:

      09:22pm | 18/09/10

      “major policy initiatives”, Who?.... Barak Ogabe???...AAAAAHahahahahahah. The empty suit/community organiser and his faithful deputy ‘hair plugs’ Biden the king of weapons grade stupid.

      These clowns couldn’t sort socks.

    • stephen says:

      04:02pm | 19/09/10

      Sir, hair-plugs do not maketh the man.
      True.
      But there are many Republicans who trust Barack Obama.
      Don’t forget (and this may reek of indescretion) that The President is a Black Man. Jazz man ; Jazz.
      It’s all about timing.

    • Swami Swamp says:

      06:46pm | 17/09/10

      Well may you say the end is nigh, because nothing is going to save our sanity now,paradigms to the left ,right and centre,political correctness merging from the extremes into one big bang, capitalism becoming the domain of two major companies who own virtually everything in the world….so long it,s bin, good to know ya.

      Reply

    • Eric says:

      06:55pm | 17/09/10

      Disappointing, Colgo, disappointing.

      Another example of how the ‘mainstream’ media are becoming less relevant every day.

      Reply

    • Eric says:

      07:22am | 18/09/10

      ... and on the topic of drawing Hitler moustaches on people who aren’t actually Hitler:

      “Protesters with Nazi signs were caught on film returning to Rep. Debbie Halvorson‘s office this week after protesting in front of Americans for Prosperity offices in Chicago.

      “[Democratic] Rep. Debbie Halvorson‘s office organize[d] a protest on September 15, outside an Americans for Prosperity Event, featuring images of her opponent Adam Kinzinger and other prominent conservative figures including Glenn Beck as Nazis.”

      http://bit.ly/9WC1sg

    • Daniel says:

      09:13pm | 17/09/10

      What about the Tea party? Im sure they will look after the AMerican workers.

      Reply

    • Sven Gali says:

      09:44pm | 17/09/10

      Australia was years ahead of the curve on this one.

      Anyone remember One Nation ?

      Hitchens nailed it with “The Waterworld of white self-pity.”

      http://www.slate.com/id/2265515/

      Reply

    • ChrisG says:

      11:33pm | 17/09/10

      Paul, thanks for reminding me how good Stewart and Colbert can be when it comes to satire and comedy holding people to account. I love Colbert’s line about ‘reason being separated from treason by only one letter’. One of my favourites from the Daily Show that gives humorous insight into Beck can be found at http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-may-12-2010/back-in-black—-glenn-beck-s-nazi-tourette-s . That insight shows why, when the Tea Party holds Beck up as their standard bearer, we should look past their talk about about small Government and see the extremist poison in the movement’s veins

      Reply

    • Democrat says:

      05:03pm | 18/09/10

      There is nothing new in this action of Stewart and Colbert.  The Murdoch controlled Fox News and their supposed ‘journalists’ in the US have been expounding extreme right wing views for years.  The Glenn Beck’s have now been joined by Sarah Palin as paid members of the Murdoch establishment. Political partisans masquerading as journalists and commentators.  Add the likes of Rush Limbaugh and one can see that democracy is threatened because the ‘free’ press have become so partisan that independent journalism has ceased to exist.  The Murdoch press here is on the same path.  The Australian and the Telegraph would make any independent journailst wonder what had happened to their profession. But whether it be those papers or those paid to write in the Punch money speaks and he who pays the piper calls the tune.  It is a very conservative tune we are hearing.

      Reply

    • papachango says:

      01:32pm | 20/09/10

      mate you’ve got MSNBC, ABC, CNN, The New York Times etc etc all leaning to the left. So Fox leans to the right? Big deal - it’s called diversity.

    • papachango says:

      01:27pm | 20/09/10

      America’s “small-l liberals” as you call them, if they’re really liberal, would support the Tea Party movement. The might be opposed to some of the socially conservative aspects of it, but they would be 100% behind the main tea party theme of smaller, less interventionist government, lower taxes and less wasteful government spending. This is the very definition of liberalism - so the Tea Party is, in its truest sense, a liberal movement.

      I realise that what’s commonly called ‘liberal’ in the US is actually the exact opposite of this - socialists who favour big government, but it wouldn’t be the first time the Americans have totally re-defined a European concept. Because of them we now have to call ourselves ‘classical liberals’, just so people don’t think we’re in favour of forcible wealth redistribution.

      Yes there are a few religious conservative nuts infiltrating the Tea Party movement, but their influence is massively talked up by the leftwing media, desperate to paint the whole thing as a bunch of racist rednecks. Unfortunately for them they struggle to find any evidence of racism at the actual protests, and the bigot element is just a small lunatic fringe. It’s just a big grassroots movement of people who believe in less government - and for that I salute them. I hope they succeed in stopping the religious conservatives from hijacking the whole thing.

      Oh and as for Stewart and Colbert, though they’re lefties, I do think they’re hilarious.

      Reply
 
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