The world-saving humanity of Jon Stewart

In my secret brain world I used to think of myself—unironically—as a “spiritual guy.” This is hands down the most sad and ridiculous self-image you can secretly cherish. Because any legit spiritual path will disabuse you, and usually in a decidedly uncouth manner, of any self-image, never mind a real whopper like that one. But that’s what I believed about myself. And as a Spiritual Guy, one of the more insufferable things I did was to pretend that I didn’t hate anyone.

Way back in the day, when George W Bush (Dubya) and his cabal of cronies—Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz et al—were running the country, I would try to convince myself and others that the hot bile sizzling in my stomach wasn't pure hatred for these malignant goblins.

I would try to plaster a sublime Buddha-like expression onto my face whenever the topic of politics came up with my wife—who, by the way, is constitutionally unable to pretend to be anything she's not, like some freakish anti-Meryl Streep.

In my eyes, Cheney and Rumsfeld seemed to have had their very facial features twisted by their black souls. Deep down, I believed that satan's diarrhea ran through their veins. I found it virtually impossible not to imagine them wearing hooded robes, sitting in a red pentagram painted on the floor, and feasting on babies. What else could these gargoyles possibly do in their spare time? They were, in my eyes, incarnations of sulphurous, pus-weeping evil. And this was a problem. Because I'd read spiritual books. Way more spiritual books than anyone should read. So I knew that these were not the perceptions of a spiritual guy. There should be all sorts of beatific compassion and shit like that.

Back then, I watched a lot of late-night comedians and they also seemed to loathe Dubya and his administration of ghouls. Samantha Bee, Stephen Colbert, and others. Mostly I watched them on Comedy Central, which was having its moment. All of these comedians talked about Dubya et al with withering derision, self-righteous contempt, and acerbic snark that would strip the paint off of bicycles. They all seemed to view the Bush administration with the same disdain that I pretended so hard not to feel.

But there was one late-night talk show comedian who was somehow unlike all the others. He too made bitingly sarcastic jokes about Dubya and his administration. But it felt unlike all the other late-night comedians when he did it. I could never figure out why it felt so different. I would squint hard into the TV, as if I was trying to blow it up with telekinesis, like in Scanners, one of the finest exploding-heads-movies of all time.

Then, finally, one night, it hit me. This guy, this one late night talk show host, never seemed to feel hatred. Not toward Dubya and his crew of depraved mushroom people. Not toward anyone. This was a baffling realization. It still is. That dude's name was Jon Stewart.

Now, in 2025, we have the orange abomination and his nightmare muppet show of co-conspirators, an insane clown posse that makes Dubya-and-friends look like King Arthur and the knights of the round table. And Jon Stewart is back, albeit only for one night a week. And still, he will not dehumanize the targets of his sarcasm. Not even Trump and his crew of sociopaths and cheesy B-movie villains. And this is still what sets Stewart far apart from his peers—John Oliver, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel, and even Trevor Noah. God knows it sets him light years apart from the slimey derision of Bill Maher. After thirty seconds of watching Maher, I am gripped by an irresistible compulsion to shower in scalding water while scrubbing my ears and eyes with steel wool.

Yes, Stewart flames the surreally shitty behaviors of Trump and his squadron of douchebags. But somehow, Stewart manages to be morally righteous without ever seeming self-righteous—and those are two very different things. He never comes off as sanctimonious or even superior. He wields biting humor but always with humanity.

One spiritual teacher, I desperately wish I could recall which, spoke about “warm anger.” Warm anger, this teacher said, was an anger which did not “curse” the wrongdoer, did not wish suffering upon him or her. Because to do that—even to a Hitler, Pol Pot, or Stalin—you have to disconnect from your own heart. You have to dissociate from your own essence of love. And that hurts you. It dims your own light. It makes you a less healing presence to the people around you, not to mention the trees and platypuses. So it actually harms the world at large. What do you think Star Wars was trying to teach us? Succumb to hatred and you'll cast yourself into the dark side of the Force and end up with a bald pale head that looks like it was chewed on by a Great Dane. But warm anger says, “as a fellow sentient being I love you, but you've got to straighten out your act, bitch! You are fucking up right now!”

Jesus evidently demonstrated this kind of anger toward the money changers (or I don't know, toward someone…not a big Bible guy... but I recall in Jesus Christ Superstar, gaunt white Jesus overturning tables and singing angrily in a terrifyingly and rebukingly high register). (Also, what exactly is a money changer, anyway? Are we talking about international currencies here? Did a bank used to just be a guy sitting at a card table in the desert?)

The God Realizer Shirdi Sai Baba could apparently get explosive in his rages at his devotees. The same is true of the legendary saint, Swami Nityananda. One of Nityananda's greatest devotees, Swami Muktananda, said that Nityananda's fury served his—Muktananda’s—awakening much more than did Nityananda's expressions of tenderness. The spiritual traditions are full of versions of this warm anger. That is, anger that never had anything to do with hatred.

Hatred doesn't only cut us off from our own heart. It also armors us against all sorts of other emotions. Hatred—along with cynicism, sardonic attitudes, and irony—hardens us against deeper, more vulnerable emotions. But Stewart manages to show us his genuine heartbreak at the behavior of his fellow human beings, even amidst the jokes. It’s a heartbreak that saturates his voice, his face, his body language.

And there's another quality in there, too, along with all the raw heartbreak. It’s humility. Stewart never seems to be saying, “Why do you ‘Bad Others’ behave in such horrible ways, unlike Pure Virtuous me?” Rather he always seems to be saying, “Why do we humans behave in such horrible ways?” This refusal to hate, demonize, dehumanize or assume a position of superiority can't be faked (trust me on this).

Stewart would probably recoil at what I'm about to say, but these qualities of his are the qualities that we've traditionally associated with great men and women. They are the qualities of people like the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Malala Yousafzai, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Amanda Gorman,Gandhi, and many others. They are the qualities that put Stewart in an entirely different class than any of the other late night comedians or really humorous sociopolitical commentators of any species.

And that is why we desperately need him right now. We need his morality, his humanity, his humility, his open heart, and yes, his humor, and we need it badly. Even if it's just one night per week.