The world-saving humanity of Jon Stewart

Is there anything more obnoxious than someone with a “spiritual” self-image? Someone who actually thinks of themselves, in their secret cloistered mind-world, as a “spiritual guy” (or gal)—despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary? And despite the fact that much of that evidence issues from their very own spouse and his or her rolling eyes, shaking head and exasperated sighs?

When this is happening—me parading around thinking I'm a spiritual saintly guy, with my little mala hanging unironically around my neck—one of the more insufferable things I do is trying to pretend I don't hate anyone.

Way back in the day, when George W Bush (Dubya) and his cabal of cronies—Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz—were running the country, I would go through the most tortuous psychological acrobatics, some real Cirque du Soleil shit, to try to convince myself and others that the hot bile sloshing around 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. Guileless, that's the word for what she is. Dickens or Balzac would say she was “artless,” and it would be a high compliment. As in, without artifice. And this gives her X-ray vision to see right through my flimsy and embarrassing spiritual pretensions.

I digress.

In my eyes, Cheney and Rumsfeld seemed to have had their very facial features warped, twisted and mangled 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 real 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.

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 the 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 different when he did it. For a long time, I couldn't figure out why it felt so different. I would squint hard into the TV, like I was trying to blow it up with telekinesis like in Scanners, one of the best awful movies featuring exploding heads of the 1970s.

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 shocking and 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 ire and sarcasm. Not even Trump and his crew of sleestacks. 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 excoriates the malignant actions, lies, and behaviors of Trump and his goon squad 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 cast him or her out of your heart. Because to do that—even to a Hitler, Pol Pot, or Stalin—is to disconnect from your own heart, to dissociate from your own essence of love. That hurts you; it shuts down your light. Therefore, it harms those around you and the world at large. Conversely, warm anger says, “as a fellow sentient being I love you, but you've got to straighten out your act! 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 loudly and angrily in a terrifyingly and rebukingly high register). (Also, what is a money changer, anyway?)

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 (and one of his greatest devotees, Swami Muktananda, said that Nityananda's fury served his—Muktananda’s—awakening much more than did Nityananda's expressions of tenderness). But to read about it, you get the distinct sense that all these sorts of examples in the spiritual traditions were some version of this warm anger. That is, it never had anything to do with hatred. That's a big deal. It might be the only deal.

Hatred doesn't only cut us off from our own heart and essence of love. 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 naked 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. These are the qualities of great souls. 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.