Jon Stewart explains how mass shootings became a political blame game

With our citizenry heavily armed and our government deciding it could tolerate any amount of death by gun violence, the U.S. has a relationship with firearms like no other. But in recent weeks, we’ve gone from the typical “thoughts and prayers” and sharing of that Onion article, to something a little more sadistic: Guessing the ideology of the shooters. In an effort to keep up with social media detectives, the news media attempts to sort through the slogans, memes, and manifestos of the shooters and ends up giving the shooters exactly what they want. In what is probably the best and most incisive Daily Show segment in weeks, Jon Stewart hands in his hypocrisy police badge and examines a new phenomenon that has become a daily debate.

As President Trump was sending in the troops to “War ravaged” Portland, there were five mass shootings this weekend. CNN reports that there have been 324 such events this year, and the terror of them has become so normalized that many of these shootings slip into the background noise of America’s final years. However, as Stewart explains, a shift has happened recently, replacing the mournful solemnity with a game of “was this one of yours?” Determining the slippery ideology of mass shooters has become the news’ go-to way of covering these events, filling air time with speculation from guys like Fox News’ Kurt the Cyber Guy, who is here to explain what Discord is. In essence, the shootings are used as ammo for polarization and political windfalls. However, while the rhetoric of political figures has been intensifying for years, the underlying problem has remained the same. What’s really changed is how it’s covered.