Jon Stewart thinks that implementing “proper fascism” in the United States is going to be an uphill battle for Donald Trump.
On the host’s Weekly Show, he argued that one simple issue will always pose a problem.
“In the same way that it’s hard to do a national strike in America—because of federalism and there’s 50 states, and there’s all kinds of different rules—it’s also very hard to do proper fascism in America for the very same reasons.” For that reason, “this is alien” to America.
Stewart said he’s “optimistic” that the country’s basic logistics could serve as a refuge. “We’re not an easy place to control,” he added.
That said, the Trump administration’s partnership with the country’s largest tech companies on its agenda is worth watching very closely.
Stewart said of MAGA-friendly billionaires like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, “They’re unaccountable to politics. They’re unaccountable to consumers. They’re only accountable to their own, sort of weird, utopian fantasies, which feels dystopian to everybody else.”
The Financial Times reports that since cozying up to Trump in his second term, tech billionaires have seen their wealth skyrocket.
Musk, who pumped $250 million into Trump’s presidential campaign, is estimated to have earned about $234 billion more in returns since Trump was elected. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ net worth has risen by roughly $15 billion, and Zuckerberg has added about $1.9 billion in wealth.
The Daily Beast reported Tuesday that Zuckerberg’s Meta is censoring “ICE List,” a Facebook group that names ICE and border patrol agents.
Later in the episode, when a fan asked Stewart, “At what point does a billionaire become a super villain?” the host had more scathing takes on Trump’s rich buddies.
“I think it’s when they mistake their ability to make money for their ability to design the world,” he said. “It’s the kind of hubris that occurs, where even Icarus is like, ‘Hmm, too high.’ Every one of these f---ing guys, what’s so interesting to me, is how bored they are with everything. They all want to go somewhere else.”
“They wanna go to Mars, they want you to live in the Metaverse. This world is being experienced by these billionaires at its highest level—this is as good as you can do. And they’re not satisfied with it,” he continued. “I want to go up to every f---ing one of them and just whisper in their ear, ‘Death will be victorious.’”
