Anyone who had the misfortune of not being drugged this morning has probably logged on to the internet by now and found that it is full of theories from a wide range of commentators, professional and amateur, about why Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential bid falls short and in what ways it fails. The Democratic Party can learn lessons from this failure going forward. Jon Stewart was broadcasting live while the results were announced. Daily Show‘s Election Night special, I’d like to remind us that all these attempts at premature diagnosis are a fool’s errand. “Here’s what we know: We don’t actually know anything,” he said. “We’re going to make all sorts of statements about what this country and the world is about, and the truth is, we won’t actually know shit.” Cut: a classic Daily Show In the clip package, Stewart brings together a number of false post-election talking points voiced by news pundits in years past to illustrate how impossible it is to predict how the next election will turn out. For example, after Hillary Clinton’s election defeat in 2016, a number of speakers suggested that Democrats would aim to find a younger candidate in 2020. Stewart points out that instead, they went with an even older candidate in 2020, with Joe Biden. Counterintuitively, “it turned out to be a winning message.”

So what does Stewart suggest we do instead of making predictions and diving into the void? “Work like crazy to move the world where we prefer it to be.” Easier said than done, but it’s worth noting.