I’m well aware that this won’t mean anything to anyone, but I can’t sleep after watching the last episode, so I’m sitting here venting and knowing fully that I will regret and feel embarrassed for doing so tomorrow.

I grew up with the Daily Show. What I mean by that is that when Stewart retired, I came to realize that I had spent my formative years – throughout my adolescence and into adulthood – receiving the news and information I craved from what I have always considered to be the most credible source on television. It almost feels crazy to say that, seeing as it’s a comedy show, not to be taken so seriously. But the Daily Show has consistently delivered more integrity in one segment than I’ve seen from the rest of mainstream television in my entire lifetime. For this I am extremely grateful, and, to be painfully honest, I don’t know that I would be the person I am today without the Daily Show.

After last night’s episode, however, I am disturbed. I am sad. I am frustrated. I am disappointed.

It feels crazy to say that, too. And, as I said, I’m sure I’m going to regret writing this, but here I am…unable to stop myself.

I haven’t voted in a long time. I know that makes me half a citizen to many, but I have for a long time felt that there is no real purpose. Furthermore, I am morally conflicted when I consider voting. Both sides represent the same interests, and their interests are not my interests. As I grew from adolescence into adulthood watching the Daily Show, more and more I realized that we, the people, don’t actually have a say. We don’t have a voice. We have a hell of a lot of hope, but we’re fighting an uphill battle against forces the likes of which we cannot begin to comprehend. What we vote for we rarely get, or it comes with immense baggage that may cause massive waste, harm and indeed death to many, many innocents. Year after year, we watch social progress come in drips and drabs. Inch by inch, we make social change through blood, sweat and tears, typically achieving and settling for far less than we set out to do. What is the point in voting in a system that cares more about the next election than maintaining the promises that got our leaders elected in the first place? And that’s assuming our leaders were actually even elected in the first place. What meaning is there in casting a vote when regardless of which candidate we vote for, some horrific agenda is pursued that we could have never imagined and can’t seem to prevent?

The status quo is maintained by an agreement in which I, or we, are not involved, before the process has begun. Winks and nods. Handshakes. Back doors. Closed sessions. Fundraisers. An unspoken understanding that there is something that must be kept from the masses that will be accomplished by our tax dollars and under our flag. A message is crafted to pander to the ignorant masses who gobble it up because it sounds so sweet. Those beautiful messages intoxicate us, because our reality is very different from those who make decisions in this country, and indeed around the world. Our reality is that we are starving for those things we have been promised for generations, and we’re so hopeful that someone will deliver that we rarely stop to really analyze the people behind the figurehead that delivers those messages. And when they don’t deliver, we shrug it off and slump back into the familiar state of acceptance that all politicians are liars. We are that broken. The system is that broken. We’re in the dark, and for a long time the Daily Show was the only beacon I could see.

I’ve spent my lifetime listening to the inane pandering that the political system shovels into the media which dutifully churns it out for our consumption, and I’ve watched time after time my fellow citizens swallow it greedily and chant and repeat the slogans of the supposedly different political parties. One of them is always right, and the other is always wrong. We separate ourselves into facile little factions as different as blue and red. We are given yet another reason to hate each other, to dismiss each other, to mock each other, to mistrust each other. We are divided, and we are conquered.

In 2009, I watched an interview with senator Sanders on your show, and I signed up for a Twitter account for the sole purpose of tweeting to tell the senator that if he ever chose to run for president, he’d have my vote. It was the only tweet I ever sent. I was shocked and elated when he decided to run this year, and I’ve followed this election from the beginning more closely than I’ve ever cared to do in my life. Something tells me I’m not the only one doing so.

It has been a frustrating sequence of events. I’ve watched Clinton laugh off very serious criticism while blatantly morphing her message to sound nearly identical to that of her opponent. I’ve watched her contradict herself time and time again. I’ve watched her outright lie. I’ve heard her call into question the integrity, ability and qualifications of a man who has made it his life’s work to support and defend the weakest, poorest, and most defenseless. I’ve watched the Clinton campaign puppeteer the Democratic establishment to suppress voters. I’ve watched the corporate media deride the Sanders campaign if and when they covered it at all. I’ve seen CNN opt to show empty podiums of Trump and Clinton waiting to air their speeches while Sanders was standing behind his, delivering his message to packed auditoriums.

I get it. Sanders isn’t infallible. I get it. He should be likewise criticized, scrutinized and called to account for the unanswered questions regarding his proposed policy. I get it. Not everyone is going to trust the man as I have chosen to do. I get it. I promise you, I get it.

However, rather than dismissing him entirely based on the minutia of his proposals, it seems more prudent to me to consider the fact that if he succeeded with a small fraction of what he would like to do for this country that we would see the greatest improvement in our society in generations. Call me whatever you want. Call me silly. Call me idealistic. But the man has more integrity and dignity in one errant hair on his head than any other candidate of my lifetime, and he has the record to prove it. I’d love to hear anyone refute that fact. And at least he has ideas. At very least he is saying something of value. At very, very least he has awakened the non-voter (who is in fact roughly half the population) to the possibility that all politicians aren’t created equal…that they needn’t all be dismissed as liars in the pockets of their donors and incapable of delivering anything for the benefit of their fellow man. He has already done more for the American voter than we seem to collectively realize.

I don’t hear anyone in the media mentioning Clinton’s scandalous past. I don’t hear any sincere mention of the fact that she is currently under investigation by the FBI, and that a refusal to indict her would be a dereliction of their duty and an outright exception to the law. Maybe that’s because I refuse to subject myself to the mind-destroying drivel that is Fox…I bet they’re spewing pure venom these days. But I digress. Like a true psychopath, she laughs off every accusation or criticism and then goes right back to talking in circles, her message devoid of any substance whatsoever. Well, I’m not laughing. But hey, Sanders has a Brooklyn accent and doesn’t give a damn what you think of his appearance. That, we can surely all chuckle about. I just wish that when we’re done chuckling that we could all acknowledge the severity of the situation, not the hype.

Rather than presenting your viewers with the absurd reality of the situation as the Daily Show has always done in the past, you chose to compare his campaign to that of the most repulsive, undignified, pathetic excuse for a political campaign this nation has ever known. You chose to compare him to an abrasive, obnoxious, narcissistic, fundamentally sick, sad little human being. You stated that Sanders continuing in the race is insane, seemingly without consideration of voter suppression, media neglect and misinformation. You appear to be blind to the fact that he’s an independent running as a Democrat, crushing in open primaries in which independents can vote, whereas Clinton is successful in closed primaries, where independents are not counted (though they represent a massive portion of the population that, like me, may have chosen not to vote or align themselves with one of the two corporate parties). You didn’t seem to care that just by being in this election in the first place, he forced Clinton and Trump to talk about things like income inequality, political corruption, student debt… I’ve even heard Trump talk about loving one another. You didn’t seem to want to acknowledge the fact that Sanders has and could continue to bring more people to the polls than anyone has in a very, very long time, and…what is truly unprecedented…they’d be doing so for the right reasons.

Worst of all, for me at least, you compared a man who has devoted his life to the betterment of the underclass to the orange-tinted embodiment of all that is wrong with America.

I never thought I’d say this, but I think you just lost me, Daily Show. You broke my heart. And I know it’s not your fault. You’re just a television show. You answer to the same type of corporation that pollutes our political system and pollutes our minds with confusion, lies and soulless distraction. And for that, you, the staff of the Daily Show, hold no blame. You’re merely a cog in the machine, and unfortunately, that now is too painfully obvious.

I’ll miss you, Daily Show. Thank you for the good times.

edit: formatting