Obama Immolated by the King of Satire to Win Back Youth Vote

The president is the first to participate in the popular “Daily Show” with Jon Stewart. He urges him on with questions and lightning jokes. And Saturday he would meet his fans for the rally “restore the sanity of America.”

From our correspondent Federico Rampini in New York: “Yes we can, but ….” It is one of the most famous slogans in the history of American politics, the one that drew Obama to victory in 2008. But by adding that “but …” suddenly it is tinged with skepticism and criticism. It’s Obama personally that does the counterpoint to himself, on the stage of the most famous talk show of political satire. He faces Jon Stewart, of Comedy Central’s team, on the “Daily Show.” Obama enters the arena for a very risky exercise: to use irony on himself to regain the votes of young people (the dominant audience of the “Daily Show”), without giving points to Republicans, five days before legislative elections.

“When we promised during the campaign ‘change you can believe in,’” said the president, for the first time on the set of Comedy Central since being elected, “it wasn’t ‘change you can believe in in 18 months.” He gives a lesson in realism, and reminds us that “this administration has inherited the worst crisis since the Great Depression.” The audience is friendly to him, as demonstrated by the endless applause that greets his entrance. But Stewart gives no discounts, urges him playing a widespread disappointment: “What have you done that we don’t know about?” When Obama responds, “We have done more than you believe,” the conductor impales him relentlessly. “Really? Are you planning a surprise party for us? Filled with jobs and healthcare!”

Obama risked, and perhaps didn’t gain much when he accepted the invitation of the fearful Stewart. He had no other choice. The latest poll from the New York Times and CBS, before the midterm elections, predicts a defeat of considerable size for his party. Catholics, independent voters, middle and lower classes — whole ranges of the electorate that gave crucial support to Obama in 2008 are now turning their backs on the Democrats. It is a blow to the hopes of the party to limit their losses Tuesday. The magnitude of consensus shift is tragic: For example, it’s the first time that the majority of women are willing to vote Republican since this kind of survey started in 1982. The economy dominates everything. High unemployment has been attributed in part to Obama’s economic policy. The right is winning because it is considered more capable of reducing the deficit. In going to the Daily Show, the president made a last attempt to mobilize young people, another constituency that was decisive for him in 2008. The risk is not that “his” people in their twenties will pass to the Republicans, but that they will remain at home. Legislative elections have traditionally had a lower participation than the presidential election. This time, absenteeism from the polls is likely to hit prevalently on the left.

For new generations, the Stewart-Obama meeting is an exciting happening; the anchorman flaying politicians alive, finally face to face with the president, a dream for many who are to vote for the first time. “Is this the emergence of Stewart as a political leader?” wonders the Washington Post. The suspicion is legitimate. For tomorrow, the TV host organized a demonstration in Washington with the slogan “restore the sanity of America” (with a counter-demonstration of his alter ego and faux rival Stephen Colbert who instead wants to “Promote Fear”). Is this just political satire brought to a sublime level? Is this a brilliant mockery against this election campaign dominated by partisanships and extremisms, screaming and visceral demagoguery as that of the tea party? Maybe so, but even the shrewd blog Politico.com does not mean that Stewart will become the “Glenn Beck of the left,” an allusion to the FOX anchorman who harangued the crowds of the tea party in Washington in August. It’s significant that it’s the same Stewart, with his popularity among young people, to try to “lower the tone, bring the confrontation on a civil level, with reasonable arguments.” While the movementist right dominates a gray-haired middle class, never sated with incendiary and warlike slogans, young people who finish college know that a job market with unemployment peaks of 15 percent for their generation awaits them, perhaps making them more realistic. But it’s not said this will spur them to vote on Tuesday.*

Editor’s Note: The quotations in this paragraph, accurately translated, could not be verified.