How Jordan Klepper became the breakout star of the midterm elections

When Jordan Klepper was performing with his college improv group in Michigan, he was a huge fan of the Wu-Tang Clan, physical comedy and the hyperactive genius ofJim Carrey.

Now 43, he still waxes lyrical about Mr Carrey and has forged a career in comedy himself. But Mr Klepper’s current work has seen him interviewing election deniers, commenting nationally on American politics and becoming arguably one of the best-known voices of this year’s tempestuous midterms.

Most of Mr Klepper’s rising fame stems from his jaw-dropping work for The Daily Show, where his travels around the country talking to regular voters lets them essentially hang themselves with their own words. He has a knack for capturing absurdity by simply asking short and straightforward questions.

Doing the rounds of cable talk shows after the release of his recent special The Daily Show with Trevor Noah Presents: Jordan Klepper Fingers the Midterms – America Unfollows Democracy, a confident Mr Klepper takes on a nearly professorial role as he explains what it was like to hear firsthand some of the more extreme conspiracies spouted by right-wing acolytes who look like everybody’s mom.

“Indeed, it’s once again up to ‘The Daily Show’ and its fellow late night brethren to expose the truth about how democracy is dangerously close to losing its grip in this country, and how concerned we truly should be,” wrote Varietywhen the outlet exclusively revealed the air date weeks before America Unfollows Democracy was released.

Mr Klepper’s new special talks to voters in Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania, but he’s been hitting the pavement for much longer, and further, than that. On January 6, a Covid-masked Mr Klepper was in Washington DC, amongst the rioters as they prepared to storm the Capitol. Some of his most famous moments stem from that chaotic day.

Who else could find a hands-free segway-riding MAGA supporter racing across the grass and run alongside him, asking “Is this the last stand?” “They say it is,” responds the Trump fan, nicknamed “Segway Stonewall Jackson” by Mr Klepper in the voiceover.

But a Segway was just one of many bizarre accessories encountered by Mr Klepper as he approached insurrectionists; another was carrying a pitchfork.

The pitchfork, says the flag-waving protester in a clip, was an “iconic representation of what people over time have done in this country,” calling it “farm equipment” and insisting he’s not in D.C. for violence. Without a beat, Mr Klepper retorts: “I gotta tell you, from the movies I’ve seen, the hordes of people with pitchforks are usually the bad guys.”

Hilariously, but alarmingly, another interviewee unwittingly undermines his own point when urging Americans to read the Constitution and extolling its importance. When asked if he’d read the whole Constitution himself, the man repeatedly tells Mr Klepper he has not.

Mr Klepper could hardly keep a straight face.

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell isn’t much more articulate when the comedian interviews him at a pro-Trump rally (or, rather, a “free speech rally,” according to Lindell). The MAGA moneyman gives meandering and contradicting answers before huffing as he leaves: “You guys are horrible.”

Mr Klepper’s most recent special indicates that many GOP attitudes have not mellowed since former president Donald Trump left office. Interviewees flat-out refuse to even consider watching or process information that does not fit their narrative.

One older woman, clutching an American flag, tells Mr Klepper that January 6 was “the most beautiful thing I ever saw,” consisting of “thousands, maybe a million people gathered so quiet ... it was a peaceful rally.”

When Mr Klepper points out that members of law enforcement were attacked by rioters, she stares at him blankly.

“They were?” she asks, before admitting she had not actually watched full live coverage of the events at the Capitol. “I turned it off, because it wasn’t true. It wasn’t an accurate depiction of what was going on that day.”

It’s that denial of reality -- or, really, the refusal to even consider it -- that is the most dangerous, Mr Klepper says.

“The adults in the room are acting like children, and so I think you can craft your own reality,” he told CNN on Monday, before adding that he was “surprised” at “how many people aren’t accepting what’s going to happen in the next election.”

He adds that people told him, “‘Well, I’m not going to believe it if I don’t like it ... if I don’t get what I want, I don’t have to accept it.’ So a lot of people are going to be happy [on Election Day] because they won’t lose - because that’s what they choose to accept.”

Despite his current influential platform on The Daily Show, Mr Klepper’s interest in and talent for comedy far predates his interest in politics.

Mr Klepper’s comic timing could be genetic as his mother’s cousin just so happens to be the comedian and actor Tim Allen, of Home Improvement fame.

While Mr Allen is well-known now for being one of the most vocal conservatives in Hollywood and an avid Trump supporter, Mr Klepper’s career has been catapulted by slyly skewering people with those same beliefs. But, The Daily Show contributor jokes, he wouldn’t have been born without Mr Allen.

“I owe him my life, I guess you could say,” Klepper said of Allen in a 2014 interview with local Michigan outlet MLive.

The right-wing funnyman was the college roommate of Mr Klepper’s father, Mark, and Mr Allen introduced Mark to his cousin, Betse. The pair went on to get married and welcome son Jordan in 1979 and daughter Caycee several years later.

The family lived in Kalamazoo, where Mark Klepper worked as a brick salesman and Betse “held a bunch of different jobs,” he told NPR in 2018, when his mother was then working for the public school system.

In high school, the future comedian played tennis and was “a math and science nerd,” he told NPR. He was also a mock trial witness.

As mentioned, Mr Klepper loved Jim Carrey as a teenager but really began to immerse himself in comedy while attending Kalamazoo College, where he performed with a troupe called Monkapult. His college comedy education helped broaden his horizons and world view, he says, as well as showing him that he could make it into a career.

“I started doing improv, and when you are creating things out of nothing, if you are an idiot, that shows,” Mr Klepper told NPR. “And so immediately, it made me want to know more about politics, want to know more about history because that would be a part of the things that I am quite - that I’m improvising, that I’m commenting on.”

After college, Klepper left Kalamazoo for Chicago, where he taught improv for years at famed organisations Second City and iO, formerly the Improv Olympics, both essentially training grounds for future comedy royalty.

Mr Klepper not only toured nationally with Second City but also met his wife, fellow comedian Laura Grey, through the group. The couple moved from Chicago to New York as their careers went from strength to strength; they somehow found time to make a comedy web series about being engaged and to actually get married, tying the knot in Benton Harbor on Lake Michigan in September 2013.

The following year, Mr Klepper joined The Daily Show, which really made him a household name and a recognizable face. Standing 6’4 with a prominent forehead, Mr Klepper is hard to miss. He then started branching out to other projects.

In 2017, Comedy Central aired his hour-long special, a spoof documentary called Jordan Klepper Solves Guns. The same year, he began hosting the network’s The Opposition, playing a conspiracy theory-embracing right-wing character. It aired from September 2017 until June 2018 in the slot afterThe Daily Show.

To say the political climate was in turmoil at that time would be an understatement, but Mr Klepper’s skill set perfectly placed him to investigate and expose what was happening in America through comedy.

“I understand people want to be a part of a movement, they want community ... You go to a lot of these events, and you have politicians who give them a sense of meaning,” Mr Klepper told CNN on Monday. “They tell them they’re a patriot, they tell them to fight. They follow those marching orders, and they’re around like-minded people. I understand that; I empathize with wanting to be a part of those things. But I think it’s very scary, because it’s being manipulated by people who should know better. And so all I’m doing, when I’m going out there, is trying to get a lay of the land: What do you actually believe? What is sinking in?”

Fantasy and lies seem to be sinking in the most, if the on-camera answers people give Mr Klepper are anything to go by. He emphasised on Monday that “facts move slow; BS moves a lot faster.”

“I’m constantly surprised by how far these narratives change and move,” he told CNN. “I go there ... expecting to talk about Roe v Wade, and within minutes, I’m talking to older women in Wisconsin who are talking about JFK Jr being alive and the vice president. And so that, as a comedian, it’s shocking and humourous, at times - but I think the exhaustion comes from just how quickly we move with our wishful thinking.”

There’s no question that most of Mr Klepper’s work focuses on the far-right, wading into QAnon territory and its ripple effects, but the comedian concedes that extremism is infecting both sides of the political spectrum.

“All of these fringes, we come from the same place,” Mr Klepper told NPR in 2018. “We’re anti people telling us what to do. There’s some gut feeling there. So I think wherever we can shine a light on the BS out the left, we try to do that, as well.”

He’s bolstered by unlikely appreciation he’s even received from the right. (He also, improbably, has a podcast with former Republican presidential candidate John Kasich.)

“I’ve had conservatives come up to me ... like, I don’t always agree with what you’re saying, but I can enjoy your show because I like an element of your character, and you’re able to attack some of these things through behavior and not through just anger, which to me is a step,” Mr Klepper told NPR after Jordan Klepper Solves Guns. “Like, if you’re able to see what I’m doing through that then hopefully you’re able to digest some of the things that we’re talking about.”

Four years later, as an incredulous Mr Klepper chats with MAGA voters, attitudes seem arguably worse as interviewees get lost on hard-to-follow, rambling tangents.

“I think these midterms are the most consequential midterms I’ve ever lived through,” Mr Klepper told The Hollywood Reporter last week. “Suddenly, you saw that 60 percent of Americans are going to have election deniers on the ballot. And we’re not only electing electors, we’re having an election about elections.”

He continued; “I’m really worried about what’s happening in these midterms, and I think the title is America Unfollows Democracy becaue I think we’re at a very dangerous precarious point right now.”

Mr Klepper is well aware of his role and influence during such a chaotic and, frankly, terrifying time. He’s in a unique position to explore the state of America and get people to talk since he’s well-informed, likeable and, perhaps most importantly, not actually a reporter.

“I do think, as a comedian, your job is to read the room,” Klepper told The Hollywood Reporter. “And the room is on fire right now. So that’s why I’m interacting with all the chaos that’s happening around us. As a human and as a citizen, you got to push back when you see bulls*** ... It’s a war on bulls***. I’m not a journalist. I’m an improv comedian who’s on The Daily Show. When I go out and talk to people, I take that very seriously. But I wear my biases on my sleeve.”

He said he hopes “to understand the logical fallacies and arguments that some of these people have” before adding: “If you can get past the bulls*** of validating your own opinions and get to somebody and trying to understand what they actually believe and what their BS is, I think that’s what I’m aiming for when I go out there.”