News Satire Roundup: August 25th

Sunday, August 25 – This was a rough episode for me, on cruises. I’m not a big cruise person, but I’ve done a few that were half vacation/half professional workshops. Now, of course, it doesn’t surprise me that cruise ships are terrible for the environment, workers are criminally underpaid, and companies do everything they can to maximize profits, but hearing about all of it in detail was pretty harrowing. “Highlights” included the list of maximum compensation workers can get for lost body parts (don’t tell your server how much his dick is worth,) Carnival still not staffing their pools with lifeguards despite multiple children drowning, and the maritime-law sidestepping that allows cruises to all but ignore sexual assaults and only report deaths that they deem “suspicious.” Also, I loved Hasan calling Norwegian Cruise Lines (headquarters in Miami, flying the Bahamian flag for “tax reasons”) the “Rachel Dolezal of cruise lines.”

I recently commented on how The Daily Show has had an impressive number of Democratic presidential candidates on as guests. And it’s not just because there’s such a plethora to start with! So far (working backwards,) Trevor has interviewed Bill de Blasio, Michael Bennet, Marriane Williamson, Andrew Yang, Tim Ryan, Eric Swalwell, Kirsten Gillibrand, Pete Buttigieg, Bernie Sanders, Jay Inslee, and Kamala Harris, and those are just the ones who appeared on the show after announcing their candidacy. There have also been appearances by Cory Booker, Julián Castro, and Amy Klobuchar in the past year, plus Trevor had Dr. Jill Biden on the show, in which she talked a little about her husband’s decision to run for president.

That’s eleven of the twenty-plus candidates, along with the spouse of another and three more who came on the show prior to announcing their runs. Again, this does in part just speak to the sheer volume of Democratic candidates in this bloated primary – plenty of the candidates who’ve appeared on the show have been those 1-and-2% pollers looking boost their numbers. But those aren’t the only ones who’ve come around. Of the ten candidates who qualified for the third debate, the only ones who Trevor hasn’t interviewed (yet?) are Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, and Beto O’Rourke. So the show has been attracting the heavy hitters as well as the long shots.

This makes me think back. Trevor took over the show in the fall of 2015, right in the thick of the 2016 that election cycle. Of course, that election had a plethora of Republican candidates and only a few Democrats, so it looked different than the situation now. And a few low-polling presidential candidates popped up – Chris Christie and Rand Paul for the Republicans, Martin O’Malley for the Democrats. Ben Carson appeared on the show sometime after withdrawing from the race, and Bill Clinton made an appearance shortly before the election. While Hillary Clinton eventually came on the show, it wasn’t until a year after the election.

That, to me, shows the clout and cred Trevor has reestablished for the show over the last four seasons. I think the revelance of The Daily Show under Trevor has pretty much always been recognized by Black people (so many interviews Trevor has with Black guests open on a mutual-admiration fest, with whatever Black artist/politician/entertainer/journalist/etc. he’s interviewing commending him on what he’s done with the show,) but it hasn’t always been recognized by all. Now, in this new election cycle, to see so many presidential hopefuls from a variety of polling ranges come on the show to talk to Trevor, it seems to demonstrate that people get it now, that The Daily Show still has something to say and is a worthwhile platform to spend time on.