It’s been four days since Joe Biden delivered his rousing State of the Union address, and people are still talking about one thing: Alabama Sen. Katie Britt’s unhinged GOP response, which, according to Republican insiders, had members of her own party “losing it.”
On Monday, it was Jon Stewart’s turn to toss a few jabs Britt’s way for delivering what he described as an “objectively terrible” rebuttal to Biden’s speech. The Daily Show host was admittedly terrified by Britt’s insistence to those watching that the Republican party “sees you, we hear you, and we stand with you.”
“If you’re going to stand with me, could you stand a little bit further away?” Stewart asked. He also imagined one of her kids popping into the kitchen for a bowl of cereal in the midst of this menacing video and apologizing for not realizing “you were losing your fucking mind. I’ll come back when the Zannies kick in.”
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Stewart is well aware that Britt stole the show on Thursday night–and not in a good way. But he does feel that one key part of her batshit response has been largely overlooked; when Britt told all the parents and grandparents listening to “get into the arena,” encouraging them to “never forget: we are steeped in the blood of patriots who overthrew the most powerful empire in the world.”
“Two things,” said Stewart. “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 are somehow more American-y than non-Republican Americans.”
Stewart went on to show clips of a host of Republicans declaring themselves “real” Americans and the “real America,” which left The Daily Show host wondering, “what is it about the Republican party that makes it American-ier than the rest of us?” Sure, they like to bring up the Constitution a lot, but they also have a pretty liberal understanding of its words—like when Donald Trump says that it gives him the legal right to murder his political rivals in cold blood and not have to face any consequences.
“Remember ‘We the people’? You know there’s more words after that, right?” Stewart wanted to know. Which ultimately led him to the problem with Republicans like Trump and Britt and the people who blindly support the nonsense that comes out of their mouths.
“If you want to love Trump, love him,” said Stewart. “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… 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,” he concluded, flashing an illustration of several Redcoats.
