Two university professors are now blaming Hillary Clinton’s historic 2016 election loss to Donald Trump on former Daily Show host Jon Stewart.

In a paper titled “Did Jon Stewart elect Donald Trump? Evidence from television ratings data,” Ethan Porter of George Washington University and Thomas J. Wood of Ohio State University are not joking when they claim…

…we find a strong positive effect on Jon Stewart’s departure and Trump’s vote share. By our estimate, the transition at The Daily Show spurred a 1.1% increase in Trump’s county-level vote share. Further analysis suggests that the effect may be owed more to Stewart’s effects on mobilization, not his effects on attitudes.

In other words, had Jon Stewart not left the Daily Show just when America needed him most! — prior to the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton might very well be president today.

Oddly enough, though, as the New York Post’s Kyle Smith points out (he first reported on this), there is no explanation for why such an abysmally low-rated show, as Jon Stewart’s Daily Show always was, could make the difference in a presidential election where billions and billions of dollars were spent on anti-Trump advertising and get out the vote efforts, and where the establishment media worked as a multi-billion dollar super PAC to win the election for Hillary Clinton.

Thus far, Hillary has blamed her loss on sexism, Bernie Sanders, James Comey, Matt Lauer, ignorant voters, women who hate themselves, Russia, campaign finance regulations, hew own staff, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, the electoral college, and Anthony Weiner…

Good grief, she’s pathetic, but with enablers like Professors Wood and Porter, is it any wonder…?

Smith also shoots this stupid theory full of holes by accurately pointing out that it’s not like the political comedy zone was left empty after Stewart retired. There was still Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers, Saturday Night Live, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver and Stewart’s replacement, Trevor Noah, who held on to 70 percent of Stewart’s audience.

“Stewart may be gone,” Smith explains, “but Stewart-ism is bigger than ever.”

This paper, which once again proves college can make you stupid, is like claiming eating ice cream can make you a rapist. Yes, more rapes occur when more ice cream is sold, this is true, but that’s because more rapes occur and more ice cream is sold when the weather is warm.

Idiots.

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.