Jon Stewart summarises the current state of the world in 20 minutes

"In America today, Donald Trump is the sun..."
 By 
Sam Haysom
 on 
A man in a suit sits behind a talk show desk, with an image of the American flag in the top-left.
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The world, as Jon Stewart describes it in his latest Daily Show monologue, is currently "a confusing, dark place."

In the 20-minute video above, the host unpacks recent events, from ICE's fatal shooting of 37-year-old woman Renee Good in Minneapolis to Trump's attack on Venezuela and threats to Greenland.

"In America today, Donald Trump is the sun — and if you revolve around him and worship him his warmth shines upon you," Stewart concludes. "You could shoot someone on 5th avenue and not lose his support, as long as it's done on his behalf. But if you do not support him – if you live in the darkness of what I guess we will refer to from now on as blue states, fearing the day he turns his wrath towards you – whether you're a single human woman on a side street somewhere in Minneapolis, or a sovereign nation that happens to have land an resources we, a larger sovereign nation, think we also might want.

"And so his people are making a bet: that adhering to a principle of forced compliance and coercion will give us a more stable and prosperous America than a principle of shared alliance and common interest. It's kind of a tough bet, because I read somewhere – I don't know where – that people have inalienable rights granted by a creator, not a king. So holding that coerced world together is going to be kind of a tall task."

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Sam Haysom

Sam Haysom is the Deputy UK Editor for Mashable. He covers entertainment and online culture, and writes horror fiction in his spare time.


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