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Hey Jon Stewart, Jokes About Wearing Masks Aren’t Funny ('Punching Down')
Mother Jones ^ | December 29, 2025 | Julia Métraux

Posted on 12/30/2025 12:39:00 PM PST by nickcarraway

Over the weekend, Covid-cautious individuals shared clips on social media of Jon Stewart punching down on people who are masking, who are presumably doing so to protect themselves from Covid, the flu, and other infectious diseases that are spreading across the United States.

On the December 11 episode of the podcast The Weekly Show With Jon Stewart, guest Tim Miller of The Bulwark said there have to be at least two people at fellow guest Jon Favreau’s workplace wearing masks because it’s a progressive organization. Stewart responded, “There’s always two, and you always say, ‘Oh, are you sick?’ And they go, ‘Uh, I don’t want to talk about it.'”

First of all, asking people why they are masking is invasive behavior. No one randomly owes you information about their health, their loved one’s health, or, understandably, just wanting to avoid Covid, which is the only way to prevent Long Covid. As I’ve also previously reported, disabled people in New York’s Nassau County have reported being harassed after the county passed a mask ban. Cancer patients have also told their stories of being questioned about why they’re masking. Even before the start of the Covid pandemic, populations including cancer patients and organ transplant recipients have been encouraged to mask by healthcare professionals.

“Sad that Jon Stewart and friends have become just more white liberals who enjoy punching down at marginalized people who are just doing our best to survive,” Karistina Lafae, a disabled author and essayist, told me. “Those of us who have Long COVID, who have watched family and friends die of COVID, we are being mocked for taking common-sense precautions against illness and further disability.”

Research also shows that Long Covid is very much a working-class problem. A study looking at people in Spain found that workers who had close contact with colleagues at their job, did not mask, and took public transit to and from work are more likely to have Long Covid, thus also highlighting Covid as an occupational problem. The United States Census Bureau also reported in 2023 that Black and Latino adults were more likely to report experiencing Long Covid symptoms than white people.

Some people have also pointed out the hypocrisy of his work supporting 9/11 first responders and how he is talking about masking now. Epidemiologist Gabrielle A. Perry posted on BlueSky that Stewart has “some absolute fucking NERVE to be making fun of Long COVID survivors and people still masking” when “he’s seen UP CLOSE the government deny healthcare and resources for 9/11 survivors who breathed in toxic air and are suffering decades later.”

Justine Barron worked a few blocks from the World Trade Center in 2001. “On top of exposure that day, I was exposed for a year and developed extremely severe breathing and skin issues, as well as immune dysfunction,” Barron told me. Barron acquired Long Covid in 2020, and her doctors believe that her 9/11-related conditions made her more susceptible to developing Long Covid.

Barron is part of a 25-year World Trade Center Health Commission study, including hundreds of thousands of participants. “More recently, there have been questions related to Covid and Long Covid indicating that the commission is also aware of this connection,” Barron said. “My point is that you can’t be supportive of the 9/11 responders without also being supportive of Long Covid. Both environmental harms cause similar issues in people, and there are many of us that are double victims.”


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: comedy; covidstooges; jonstewart; juliamtraux; motherjones; punchingdown

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If we are told that comedy must just be "punching up" or anything else, it makes the opposite a lot funnier. People like Natasha Leggero make practically their whole act punching down.
1 posted on 12/30/2025 12:39:00 PM PST by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

It has already been proven that masks do NOT protect you from viruses. Anyone wearing them who is not a seriously ill person is a complete and utter fool.


2 posted on 12/30/2025 1:06:40 PM PST by packrat35 (“When discourse ends, violence begins.” – Charlie Kirk, and they killed him anyway)
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To: nickcarraway

Who?? Jonathan Leibowitz? Oh yeah. him


3 posted on 12/30/2025 1:11:17 PM PST by MarlonRando
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To: nickcarraway

Masks are racists, most are white.


4 posted on 12/30/2025 1:12:40 PM PST by MrBambaLaMamba (אני עומד לצד ישראל. The only good commie is one that's dead - Country Joe McDonald)
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To: nickcarraway

Four years ago it was perfectly okay to demonize anyone not wearing a mask, but now it is forbidden to make fun of idiots still wearing masks.


5 posted on 12/30/2025 1:29:00 PM PST by Bubba_Leroy (Our long national nightmare is over!)
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To: nickcarraway

I like to ask if they know masks don’t stop viruses?


6 posted on 12/30/2025 1:32:39 PM PST by bray (It's not racist to be racist against races the DNC hates.)
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To: packrat35

It has already been proven that masks do NOT protect you from viruses. Anyone wearing them who is not a seriously ill person is a complete and utter fool.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
And among people of discernment that has been common knowledge almost from the very beginning of that enormous (and deadly) hoax!


7 posted on 12/30/2025 1:46:54 PM PST by fortes fortuna juvat (TDS: Insanity triggered in 2016 when the MAGA King killed the Queen of the Lunatic Left.)
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To: nickcarraway

“Research also shows that Long Covid is very much a working-class problem.”
Oh, well, in THAT case...


8 posted on 12/30/2025 1:49:25 PM PST by misterdarcey
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To: misterdarcey

All that shows is that the crappier the doctors, the more likely they are to make bad diagnoses.


9 posted on 12/30/2025 2:22:47 PM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is opinion or satire. Or both.)
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To: nickcarraway

Read the container: “Does not protect against viruses”.


10 posted on 12/30/2025 2:43:24 PM PST by Mlheureux
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To: Bubba_Leroy

“...but now it is forbidden to make fun of idiots still wearing masks.”

I figure anyone who is still masking up is either legitimately at-risk, or is scared witless.

Unless they’re a legit threat (or major nuisance) to me or mine, I’m willing to cut them some slack.


11 posted on 12/30/2025 2:52:49 PM PST by PLMerite ("They say that we were Cold Warriors. Yes, and a bloody good show, too. 😁 " - Robert Conquest )
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To: fortes fortuna juvat

Remove the word almost and you have a more accurate statement.


12 posted on 12/30/2025 3:14:27 PM PST by GMThrust
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To: PLMerite

The Covid propaganda was very intense for a long time—and those with a poor immunity system (against propaganda) remain terrified.


13 posted on 12/30/2025 3:22:24 PM PST by cgbg ("Your identity is how power treats you.")
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To: nickcarraway

Masks. Do. Not. Work.

At least not for the purposes of controlling contagion. Very good, however, for virtue signaling.

Also, for covering the faces of persons engaged in clandestine or possibly unlawful activities, to confound the authorities.

Ultimately, no valid social benefit.


14 posted on 12/30/2025 4:51:47 PM PST by alloysteel (Coming in high, hot, blind, dead-stick, wheels up, outta gas, and the glide angle of a brick....)
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To: nickcarraway

Masks are the MAGA Hat of the Left.


15 posted on 12/30/2025 5:05:51 PM PST by Linda Tripp (America's Best Best Friend)
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