“It’s been two weeks since the election. It’s been two months,” Stewart told the Daily show hearing Monday evening. “It’s been 15 years since the election.” But despite the gloominess of the news cycle since Trump’s re-election, Stewart urged Democrats to remain as engaged in the fight against Trump and as they were before the election, rather than patting themselves on the back for perceived victories. Stewart then moved to Democratic leadership as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Representative Dan Goldman, and representative Pramila Jayapal who looked for the silver lining in various media interviews, touting how Democrats flipped three House seats and “gained back almost all the ones we lost in 2022.”

“Almost does a lot of work in that sentence,” Stewart noted. He focused on the “carrying adverb” via a darkly comic analogy: “Parents, good news. We recovered almost all the children we lost on the school trip.

Stewart’s ultimate message to Democrats was clear: It’s time to start playing ball like the Republicans. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again,” Stewart said. “The Republicans are playing chess and the Democrats are in the nurse’s office because they stuck their balls on their thighs.” He called on Democrats to play by the rules while Republicans continue to exploit legislative loopholes. “That’s our government in a nutshell: The rules say, ‘We can stop it.’ The rift says, “Shit. » So what do you have left? The last refuge of losers: standards.”

He ended his missive with an indirect reference to the January 6 insurrection as an example of the other side not necessarily respecting established norms or rules. “You guys be the guys who figure out how to do things because (Republicans) don’t give a shit about your standards,” he said. “They will exploit any loophole, even if they have to go through clearly closed windows to do so. »