Jon Stewart was back at the newsdesk for Monday’s episode of The Daily Show, and he used his platform — and tiny handbooks — to call out Republicans and the right for their performative patriotism via Mediaite.
Beginning with Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) and her “objectively terrible” rebuttal to the State of the Union on Thursday, Stewart laced into several figures on the right for claiming ownership over American patriotism. Here’s how it started:
One: Who smiles when they say the line, “Steeped in the blood of patriots”? And number two, this is just one more entry in the Republican mythology that they are the inheritors of the American revolutionary tradition, that they somehow are more Americany than non-Republican Americans.
And here’s where it went after Stewart showed several examples of right-wingers professing their love for the Constitution:
Oh, yes, it’s an article of faith that Republicans love the Constitution. They give speeches in front of the Constitution. They cover their buses in the Constitution. They dress up like the people who wrote the Constitution. Do you, communists? With your unconstitutioned buses and zero-cornered hats? That’s why these patriots love Donald Trump, for he alone will restore the rule of law in our constitutional republic.
Cue several clips of former President Donald Trump proclaiming his desire to do several unconstitutional things, such as possess total immunity from crimes including the murder of his political rivals, ignore the First Amendment, and shoot protestors plus an incredibly colorful threat to journalists who won’t give up their sources, and maybe even abolish the Fifth Amendment and Americans’ rights to due process under the law.
Stewart: What the fuck are we doing? You know, I’m pretty sure that shooting a guy on suspicion of stealing a pair of khakis violates not only the Constitution, but the Ten Commandments and the Gap employee handbook. All right. I promise you, that is the end of the things in my jacket. Now, we’ve had our fun dancing around the former president’s rather eccentric interpretations of our country’s founding document. May I offer you something more explicit?
Trump (from video): I only want to be a dictator for one day.
Stewart: Just so you know. That is how it starts. I’m not saying anybody has to do the arm salute. Let’s just start with a few people doing the arm salute and we’ll see if the arm salute catches on. Ignoring the Bill of rights, tearing up the Constitution, pining for a brief stint as a dictator. Well, that settles it. When the good, patriotic, Constitution-loving, real Americans hear Trump’s disrespect and disdain for our sacred constitutional principles, they will be outraged.
Of course, there are plenty of Trump supporters who appear to be fine with having Trump as a dictator, and Stewart played a compilation of them. And this was how the segment ended:
This is it. The Thomas Nast cartoon. Patriots festooned in American flags, cosigning dictatorship. Remember “We the people”? You know, there’s more words after that, right? Smaller font, still binding. Look, if you want to love Trump, love him. Go to the rallies, buy the sneakers. You want to give him absolute power? You want him to be the leader über alles? You want him to have the right of kings? You do you.
But stop framing it as patriotism. Because the one thing you cannot say is that Donald Trump is following the tradition of the founders. He is advocating for complete and total presidential immunity. His words, not mine. That is monarchy shit, and it’s your right to support it. But just do me a favor for historical accuracy. Next time you want to dress up at the rallies, wear the right fucking colored coats. That’s what you are. And I just want to tell you. And I want you to know. We see you. We hear you.
