Jon Stewart’s election postmortem: Trump 'used our electoral system as it is designed'

Donald Trump's critics on both the left and the right were hoping that Election Night 2024 would bring a repudiation of the former president.

Instead, Trump's detractors — from Democratic strategist James Carville to author Mary Trump (his niece) to conservative attorney George Conway — were horrified when Trump enjoyed a decisive victory over Vice President Kamala Harris despite awaiting sentencing on 34 criminal charges and promising to rule like an autocrat if given a second term.

Comedian/late-night television host Jon Stewart weighed in as well, expressing shock that Trump is returning to the White House without engaging in the type of election denial that characterized his 2020 loss to now-President Joe Biden.

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On his podcast "The Weekly Show," Stewart explained, "Each one of those scenarios, it was, 'How is Donald Trump going to finagle his way back into the White House? How is he going to use undemocratic principles? What measure of intimidation and underhanded shenaniganery will this man use to worm his way back into the Oval Office?' And it turned out, he used our electoral system as it is designed."

Stewart compared Trump's 2024 victory to "vertigo" (the physical condition, not the 1958 Alfred Hitchcock film).

"I'd love to sit back and think about the autopsy and where you move from there, but I think I still feel as though I'm in that moment of vertigo to some extent," Stewart told "Weekly Show" listeners. "In the same way that I, when I decided to stop drinking I didn't do it while the room was still spinning. I didn't stop doing booze and drugs in that moment of lying on the floor facedown trying to wonder if I just move my hand here, will the room stop. And I think that’s a wise way of looking at it."

Stewart went on to say, "I think you have to be more clear-eyed, have your balance, and your feet underneath you before you can start really thinking about what it was that made what you think your worldview is, and the things that you were certain about, not certain."

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