Lots of people care about politics, but most in this country think they have better things to do with their time than worry about what their elected leaders are doing.  After all, how are Americans supposed to get excited about politics when all they have is C-SPAN, the best non-prescription sleep aid on the market? We do have political pundits on CNN and other outlets, but we receive information in filtered soundbites washed out by glitzy graphics and animations.  And who can really get pumped up listening to Wolf Blitzer or Larry King for hours on end?

The problem is that making politics as much fun as an episode of Lost or American Idol or Jeopardy is an incredibly challenging assignment.  Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show and Steven Colbert’s Colbert Report have come closer with their brand of political edu-comedy than any other individuals of which I’m aware (please correct me if I’m way off), but they can only do so much.  Both raise extremely important political issues and do so in a hilarious way, which can be a double-edged sword.  This is problematic because even though important information is getting through, we tend to downplay the significance of the point because the host is already making us laugh about it.

Stewart and Colbert have a huge audience and could take advantage of their platform, mobilizing an entire generation of young people into activism.  Imagine if Stewart made cracks about something like NSA wiretapping and then said “…but really though. This is serious stuff.  You have no idea how easy it is to pick up the phone and tell your elected representatives that you’re not going to stand for this kind of thing in America.  Here’s the number.”

If this goes down, it’s a win-win for everybody.  The audience laughs, learns, and then has an opportunity to make change.  I’m just trying to figure why they haven’t thought of this themselves and, if they have, why their shows don’t empower viewers in that way.