I'm not a constricted character, but I'm a fan of the film. I'm not a fan of the film, but I'm a fan of the film. I'm a fan of the film, and I'm a fan of the film. I'm a fan of the film, and I'm a fan of the film.
So, I'm not a fan of the film. I'm a fan of the film. You did work for Daily Show for a while back in the late 90s, right? Yeah, well, I was intern over there at a really interesting time, actually, because Craig Kilborn was the first host of the Daily Show, who was a guy that came over from Sports Center on ESPN, who I really like.
And he had just left, and John Stewart had just taken over. So, it was an interesting time because their senses of humor were very different. There was a lot of turnover with the writers because their styles were very different. And the Daily Show wasn't what it eventually became at that point.
It was just catching on. It was just at the beginnings of that. But it was great to be here. But it is fair to call John Stewart a populist for the left, isn't it?
Yeah, absolutely. And that's exactly my point. That's a great point. So, there are populists on the left, the guy like John Stewart, he's giving you the exact populism of the left.
But if you were to say, to the average leftist, oh my God, that person's a populist, they would go, oh, that means they're somehow right-wing. So, you're making a great point and an important distinction there. But I had a couple of questions with John, and I'll tell you this. You'll appreciate this as a comic.
I was young, you know, I was just out of college, I guess. And I was at a party and I went up to him. And again, he wasn't the John Stewart we all know now, but was certainly a celebrity and I was on TV show. And I said, hey, John, you know, I'm an intern here.
My name's Dave. I'm on the standup. I said, is there one bit of advice you could give me? Which now, in retrospect, that's a comic that sounds like the stupidest and most corny thing you could ever say to a comedian.
But without pausing, without even thinking, he said two words. Don't stop. And interestingly, really that has so always resonated with me because what he's saying there is, yeah, it's going to suck. It's going to suck.
You're going to watch great comics. You know, disappear. You're going to watch guys that suck get to the top. You're going to have to perform at shitty clubs.
You're going to have to starve at times. You're going to have to stand out on the street and hand out tickets and all these horrible things. But if you want it, you just can't stop. And that always stuck with me.
And there were times, as I'm sure you felt, where I just didn't want to do it anymore. And I couldn't believe that the struggles of it and all that stuff. And that just always stuck with me. Like, don't stop if I ask this guy who's now the basically the voice of American comedy, what his advice was, and then I don't take it.
Well, then what kind of person am I? So he did stick with me in a good way. No, I think he's right because I've been at this for long now. And by now, it seems that one is in a way, unsoppable.
You are your own little show and it just goes on. You don't want to do it. What are your other skills? By now, I've burned every bridge.
There is to burn in Sweden. So I think I will have I have no choice, basically. Usually when it comes to, you know, the kids, they say YOLO, you only live once. Well, I think it is basically it's the terrors of my past and the bleakness of my future that keep me centered in the now.
I hear you. Yeah. So, but I think what you said about populism is interesting because I think what happened in Europe, at least after the Second World War was that the right wing because Nazis on the European political scale is basically a right wing phenomenon. I know that on your political scale, there are left wing phenomenon beyond communism, but in Europe, they're generally seen as a right wing thing.
And I think after the Second World War, the political right wing parties of Europe had to deal with their Nazi and fascist heritage. They had to throw them out, the crazies, basically. But the left didn't have to do that with their communists and the revolutionaries and the radicals. So they just kept on going.
And when the Berlin Wall crash in 1989, one would think that the socialist or socialist democratic parties of Europe would come to their senses and, you know, try to get their crazies at arm's length, so to speak. But they didn't. And I think that is a big reason why we're in this mess today. I think that's a great it's a great point.
And I can give you the American version of that, which is happening right now. And I'll give you the exact moment when I realized it. So there was a moment during the campaign. You may have seen this when Bernie Sanders was given a speech outdoors and the Black Lives Matter people just grabbed the mic and they started screaming in the mic.
And he just stood there and took it. He just tried to stop them. He didn't his people didn't stop them. They had absolutely no right to do this.
Everyone was there to hear Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders, the farthest left progressive, basically socialist politician we have in America. By the way, who's been in the Senate for 30 years and I think has one piece of legislation in his name, but you know, everyone thinks he's the one that's going to bridge the divide. Well, that'll get fun.
But that example to me was so obvious that the monster, you're right, they didn't take care of their monsters. So what happened was Bernie knew intuitively and his people knew if Bernie gets up there and shows some balls and does what's right and says, you know what, people are here to talk to me or hear me speak. But you know what, at the end of this, we'll do a Q&A and I'll let you vent your feelings and we can have a discussion after or maybe a meeting. If Bernie had had balls and principles and done what's right, he could have put a little bit of a stop to that to that monster.
But instead, he just stood there because he didn't want the same tactics that the left has used for so long of calling everyone to race this big at home of all these llama fo, blah, blah, blah. He didn't want that turned on him. So he knew if he grabs that mic and does what's right, does what's right, that the left, the people that are further left than him will turn on him and he will now be an old white guy who's grabbing a microphone from black people. This is a crazy proposition, but it goes to exactly what you're saying.
They never clean up their own side because it's made up of destroying people and they know the second they try to do that. And this is what I've done, which is why everyone that hates me is on the left. So I'm gay, married, I'm pro-choice, I'm against the death penalty, I'm for social safety net and for single payer health care, I'm for legalizing weed. I get no hate hate.
I'm an atheist. I'm an atheist. I get no hate from people on the right. If anything, I get emails every day from Christian conservatives saying, you know what, I disagree with you on a lot of stuff, but it's very refreshing hearing a decent liberal.
I get relentless hate now from people on the left. Take a look at my Twitter, it's a joy, really. So I do follow you. Yeah.
So that's my point is that because they didn't clean up what they should have, they've been left with this monster and I've been predicting it for at least a year, but mark my words, they will throw Bernie out one day. This thing is going to get worse and they will get rid of Bernie one day too. And by the way, they'll get rid of Elizabeth Warren and everyone else because this is a movement based on destruction and victimhood is their highest virtue and you can only play that victim card for so long. So bye-bye Bernie who made a million bucks last year and has three houses and drives a hundred thousand dollar car and all that stuff, which I don't pregrudge in any of that by the way.
But once that's out there really and he's going to slip up one day and he gave the mildest couple months ago, the mildest mildest defense of Israel and the left despises Israel now because it represents freedom in a terrible part of the world and they turned on him because of that. I saw an article in Salon about how Bernie doesn't accept intersectionality, he can't be a progressive. I mean, they will turn on him and I have to say I'll enjoy it when they do. But how did you get so bad in the United States?
Because when I started the constructive criticism in one of the earlier episodes, I said something along the lines of I used to think McCarthyism was bad. But lately I've been feeling maybe he had the right idea he was just a bit ahead of his time. So in Europe we never dealt with socialism but Americans you really dealt with socialism in a very harsh way. How come this is happening now?
How can this have spread so far through your system? Well I think it has a lot to do with what I was saying about hashtag resistance and the idea that these are these ideas, this oppression Olympics stuff, this intersectionality stuff, viewing everyone on their immutable characteristics. You know, they the left will scream everyone on the right to race system. They're the ones who constantly are looking at everyone's sexuality and race and color and all those things.
And whether you got to do it, you got to limp or not because then we have to judge you differently in all this nonsense. This stuff got so entrenched in Hollywood, in the media and all of this that it has become a monolith of a monster. And a great example of this to go back a few minutes to John Stewart. Watch ION Hercioli on Daily Show from a couple of years ago.
It is horrible. John, it is the single worst moment I've ever seen of John. He is so dismissive of ION and because she doesn't play the Identity Politics game and she goes in there and talks about the individual. She talks about radical Islam.
I'm sure I don't have to tell you or your audience the story about her. I mean, this is a woman who has lived through it and there are dead bodies to prove it and go undergoing female genital mutilation and all that. I will try to get her on the show actually. But I haven't.
I haven't. Hopefully you'll get her at some point. She's a wonderful and a true hero and a true feminist by the way and a true individualist who I would vote to be president in a second, although she technically she wasn't born in America, but what ever. But watch this interview and he's dicing up and playing the Identity Politics game.
Everything that people don't like about elite leftist liberals. And at the end, he basically says to her it ends by him saying, well, you're just trying to sell some books. I've never seen him that disrespectful or dishonest or smug to any other guest ever, including plenty of people on the right and Republicans and all that. But my point in this is that this is what's happened.
This is the guy who was thought of as the conscience of America for the last 10 years and all this stuff. And by the way, by me even telling this story, I'll get a certain amount of hate because you can't hear. You're not allowed to say anything about him. I respect him actually and I would love to have him on the show and I would try to unpack that whole situation.
But to your point, this thing became so monstrous that right now the left will look at someone like Linda Sarsour who is an Islamist and think that she's a feminist and they'll look at Ayah Herse Ali and the Southern Poverty Law Center will put him on an anti-Muslim extremist list. So everything's backwards and in a time when everything's backwards, if you bring a little sanity to the situation like you're trying to do like I'm trying to do like some other people trying to do, there's a price to pay for it.