John Oliver gives one last pre-election reminder of Trump's murderously incompetent COVID response
Aux Features Clips
John Oliver and his Last Week Tonight team, sensing the all-or-nothing stakes of Tuesday’s election, went big on Sunday, with a longer-than-usual episode featuring not one, but two main stories. And since we’re all exhausted at this point, here’s a brief rundown of the second one. Attorney General Bill Barr is a lifelong ass-kiss to authority figures everywhere whose dream to put any elected president completely above the law was too extreme even for former boss George H.W. Bush, but who’s found an ideally empty vessel in, as Oliver puts it, “white nationalist with an authoritarian streak,’ Donald Trump. That’s terrifying, and you should watch Oliver’s singularly cogent and funny take on Barr below. Warning: Does contain bagpipe music.
But, for all his henchman’s toadying, Barr himself is not up for reelection tomorrow, while Donald Trump is. So let’s focus on Oliver’s main story, a comprehensive rundown of just how egregiously Trump has bungled, mangled, and deliberately throttled America’s response to the coronavirus. You know, that deadly airborne disease Trump is clearly bored with talking about at his packed-together hate rallies filled with followers believing their COVID-infected leader’s ever-implied message that masks are for pussies. Oliver lays out his usual, lockstep, three-point dissection of the Trump administration’s complete failure to respond to this health crisis at the start, but he hardly needs to be so meticulous. That since simply playing Trump’s statements about COVID-19 in chronological order (up to this very week where he accused frontline doctors of loving COVID because they get rich off of it?) serves to remind those wacky undecided voters out there, of the “massive fuckups you may have already forgotten.” (Did you remember that time Trump wanted to leave an infection-ravaged cruise ship filled with American citizens to die on the waves because he didn’t want the statistics and liked “the numbers where they are”?)
Now, again, we’re all so very tired, but watching Oliver dig deep into just how appallingly awful Trump’s been every step of the way when dealing with literally every detail of a governmental response to an infectious outbreak is enough to, well, make you sick. There are the usual lowlights, like Trump using a racial slur every time he mentions COVID, or how he told Bob Woodward, on February 7 of this benighted year, that he was fully aware that COVID was airborne and deadly and then did a presser that very day telling the country that this was “just like the flu.” And that day that Trump took three weeks to accept a meeting with HHS Secretary Alex Azar about the coronavirus, and then spent that meeting instead railing about flavored vaping products. There’s the time that Trump, the same day his CDC advised everyone to wear face masks for COVID protection, doing another press conference where he stressed you don’t have to if you don’t want to, and he’s totally not going to wear one. (Spoiler: Trump got COVID, as did seemingly everyone who works within spittle distance of him.)
But Oliver spared his most acid contempt for stuff we didn’t see. Like the raw footage shot during the Oval Office taping of a feel-good PR video about everything being fine, where we see Trump browbeating a visiting nurse who dared suggest medical professionals didn’t have enough protective gear to keep them from getting sick while treating the sick and dying. And the following moment when, after a Black doctor in attendance tries to get Trump to show one dram of human empathy for the PTSD dangers of medical workers who are having to put overflowing dead bodies into refrigerated trucks in hospital parking lots, Trump, barely listening, interrupts the man to hand out some shitty souvenir White House pens. There are jokes throughout, as is Oliver’s way, but, in response to that clip and the cliché that comedians are sure gonna miss having Trump to make fun of once he’s gone, Oliver spat, “Not really, this has been a fucking nightmare.”
76 Comments
I’d really like to think this (and other things like it) would help, but seriously – at this point, is anyone truly undecided? I mean, presumably someone in a coma for the last several years or some memory debilitating brain injury might honestly be “undecided”, but outside that?Trumpies won’t care, this is (fun but still) preaching to the choir.
There plenty of anti-Biden folks out there who think hes creepy or not liberal enough. Solid cases for both, but hopefully if those people still haven’t managed to realize what’s going on, things like this might push them over. At this point, not voting for Biden is on the same level as voting for Trump.
I just spoke to a friend who claimed to still be undecided, but I know he’s voting Trump. He’s got a strong contrarian streak and never wants to be seen as going along with any group.
Is he just looking for attention by trolling or something?
He likes to talk.
Is your friend a straight white male who does not work an essential customer-facing service job?
How’d you know?!?
I guess you’ve finally found the shy Trumpist that the non-shy Trumpists claim are everywhere.
It’s more about reminding people that they absolutely need to vote. A large part of the Republican strategy is just grinding down people’s belief in the election. They know their base always votes. They know the Democrat’s base is often fickle.
I have a friend who isn’t voting (at least as of our conversation last week) because “There are bad things about both candidates – and I’m too uninformed to fill out the rest of my ballot.” I tried to help him understand that I understood his position, and explain that maybe one candidate is less bad, but he seemed pretty unconcerned. I don’t know how much longer we will be friends.
Vote. All of you, if you haven’t already, just fucking vote. You don’t have anything better do. It could be the single most important thing you ever do. Just vote.
Yes. At this point, if Trump wins, there would be absolutely nothing false in telling a non-voter that “you have elected donald trump as your candidate”. I’m not a fan of with-us-or-against-us claims, but here, there’s a strong direct responsibility.
Even if you are in a safe state. The bigger the popular vote margin, the harder it will be for Trump to drag this through the courts.
I don’t hear or see it too much thankfully, but I know of one “I can’t possibly vote for Biden” liberal person who says it doesn’t matter because NY will go blue. Which is probably true, but even with a .001% chance it could not be means while I don’t love Biden it doesn’t matter I have to (well had to since I already have). I do know a person that changed their tub from “I can’t vote for Biden” to at least “I’m voting for Biden to get Trump out”.
Going to take time away from the Internet.In what could be the last gasps of hope in America, the coverage juat may be too much for me. Hopefully Wednesday morning will be better.I don’t know how y’all are handling it but I’m assuming Trump is going to win. At this point, assuming he wins and waking up to a loss is better than hoping for Biden and waking up to the opposite.
i think that more than for anything, the ecosystem, the rule of law, asylum rights, cultural progress against racism, anything, what i’m afraid for is youit’s people like you, the lot of youi’m scared of the psychic toll of trump re-election on good, decent, okay peoplei’m genuinely afraid of suicides, it may sound ridiculous when put into words like that, but, yes, of waves of suicides among the humans that i don’t know anything about, except that the world is better when they are the ones presentit’s my main anxiety, it is above the rest
I don’t know how y’all are handling it…Honestly, I’m kind of freaking the fuck out.Four years ago I was thinking “how could Hillary possibly lose… oh, that’s how.” Trump’s base is riled up right now and they scare me. Just look at what they did to the Biden campaign bus in Texas that was praised by Trump. It isn’t going to take much to nudge them over the edge. No matter the outcome tomorrow, shit’s going to be bad.
weirdly, the base doesn’t worry me that much. Yes they are stupid and dangerous and unstable and heavily armed AND on the verge of being severely disappointed, but even though I live in the middle of Trumpistan I tend to think of them as opportunists but ultimately chickenshits. (Plus, they could find out the hard way that just because someone identifies as “liberal” does not mean they’re “unarmed”; last week a Trump supporter harassed a guy putting up a Biden sign in his yard and the Biden guy shot at them with his shotgun!) Having said that, I do plan to keep an extremely low profile the next few days just in case.what worries me far more is the conservative/Republican governors and judges in states where the vote might be close who might decide to do things to blatantly suppress or invalidate votes solely and proudly in the name of getting Dear Leader re-elected (possibly in the name of “the best interests of the country” because they’re unilaterally deciding that his re-election IS in the country’s best interests). One final “make me!” tantrum by the cultists would not be a big surprise under the circumstances.
Sure, but his fanbase hasnt grown in the last few years. If anything, its shrunk. Seeing massive voter turnout already, especially in swing states, is very encouraging. Republicans cant and dont win elections when people actually show up and vote. Trump won in 2016 because of voter apathy and not caring. Most Americans see the dangers of having an unhinged, fascist leader for another 4 years that has done nothing good for this country and has no plan to pull us out of the pandemic or frankly, even care about it
I don’t know how y’all are handling it At this point, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that living in this country means being inexorably shackled to some of the proudly dumbest motherfuckers alive. I’m not changing that, best I can do is improve the slack on my particular chain.As far as that goes, I’m not too concerned about the immediate impact. I’m in MA, and we have that colonial “fuck around and find out” streak, as well as a robust state economy, so I feel pretty stable in general. Come what may, I’ll likely be fine.Looking ahead? I can’t help but think we’re fucked. Matter of time. Any country, empire, or kingdom has not lasted long past the point of widespread delusion and rejection of basic logic. We’re no different.
This is basically where I’m at as well, only substitute MN for MA. I truly don’t see much of a future for this nation. As you put it, the “widespread delusion and rejection of basic logic” is absolutely fatal. A society can get past a lot of things, but once the citizens can’t even recognize basic facts anymore, the damage is irreversible. Not being wealthy or in a STEM field, I don’t have much of an exit strategy either, so I guess I’ll be going down with the ship. Or at the barrel of some rich fuck’s gun thug and/or drone, as it were.
I’m hoping for an Electoral College tie, if only to watch the Constitution-mandated tie-breaking wrestle “…by leg or arm or digit true” afterward.
I don’t blame you. The media coverage is irresponsible to say the least, which is not surprising, given media corporations are mostly owned by greedy, selfish rich fucks who only care about profits and their damn tax cuts. That, combined with the fact that the stupidest 45% of the country will vote Republican no matter what, gives Trump a better chance of winning than polls may indicate.
I’m giving serious thought to registering as a Republican if Trump wins. Not changing my politics, just my registration. It would be proof that the Democrats can’t win unless they have a transcendent candidate, and such candidates don’t need help getting nominated. Meanwhile I could select the least heinous Republican.
Like you, I’ll be logging off for a good portion of today and all of tomorrow. People are treating tomorrow as the finish line, but it’s very likely we won’t know the true results for weeks. No matter who wins – and I hate to even think this way – I’m predicting violence. If Trump wins, his followers will feel invincible to do whatever they please. If he loses, they’ll rage against perceived losses. 2016 exposed the dark underbelly of America and even if Trump goes away, his voters won’t. We’ll have to reckon with them for years and years to come.
Given it will take days to count the votes and Trump will almost certainly take late mailed ballots to the Supreme Court, it will likely be going on long after Wednesday. Sorry…
Irrelevant sidenote: I am amused* by the reflection of/on John’s tie on/through the glass table.*It takes very little as there is so little to begin with these dark days.
You just blew my mind, man.
If you don’t know yet, you’ll never fucking know.
If you don’t know yet, you’re a fucking moron and shouldn’t be allowed to vote.I think one of the biggest reliefs I’ll have after Super Tuesday is that I won’t have to deal these dumbass political ads. I literally get either a text or a Robocall every 20 – 30 minutes, and Saturday? I had over TWENTY mailers in my mailbox.This shit is so wasteful and frivilous and, for what? Because a handful of people are too Goddamn stupid to know who they’re voting for? We need to ban this shit. I’m so sick of it.
FiveThirtyEight is giving Biden a 90% chance of winning today, which under normal circumstances would be encouraging. The issue with polls (and forecasting models) is that they don’t really account for the rampant Republican voter suppression we are seeing, or how courts packed with Federalist Society assholes will rule when Republicans start contesting close elections.In a sane, civilized country, an incompetent career criminal like Trump would not stand a chance. Alas, we like in America.
I can’t understand 538’s logic. The polls are much closer than that, and tightening. I hope they’re right, I’m just not seeing it
If we learned anything in four years is that polls don’t mean shit.
If you want to understand 538’s logic, they have some excellent videos on Youtube explaining it. Keep this in mind: Biden can lose Florida and Pennsylvania and still win. Trump can’t possibly win without them.
Also, the higher turnout trends are working against Trump’s chances and the one consistent narrative through all of this has been much higher turnout everywhere. I get that no one wants to count chickens (and 1 in 10 models still have Trump winning, those aren’t long odds by any stretch) but there are reasons to be more optimistic than 2016.
The higher, early voting turnouts definitely do not favor Trump. We know the majority of who is voting early because it’s a matter of public record (party affiliation not names), and it’s democrats.
It’s the electoral college state by state. The overall polls are meaningless. If the overall percentage of people mattered, we’d be on our fourth straight Democrat in the White House and wondering what Hillary Clinton would be doing with her second term.
The Economist has some pretty interesting models that are giving even better odds to Biden (~96%). I’ve kept an eye on theirs and 538’s because The Economist leans right-wing and uses slightly different metrics. I’m obviously still leery and shell-shocked from 2016, but if this helps anyone else feel a little more secure, check it out. https://projects.economist.com/us-2020-forecast/president
For the record Trump had a 30 percent chance last time. People slag polls a lot but FiveThirtyEight wasn’t off on the national poll and state polls were always within the margin of error. Look at 2018, the polls were a lot more accurate then 2016. I’m nervous as hell won’t lie, but I’m confident that we will prevail.
He also won by razor thin margins in several states — just 80,000 votes across three battleground states determined the election in 2016 — and 30% still means winning 3 in 10 times.I’ll be out of the golf course tomorrow, phone off, which should help with the nerves, but Biden’s poll lead nationally and in the battleground states is considerably larger than Clinton’s was, and remember, margin of error goes both ways. Turn out is key, and it looks like it’s going to be huge, which bodes well for Biden.
FiveThirtyEight
I stopped paying attention to Nate Silver years ago. You should too.
The issue with polls (and forecasting models) is that they don’t really account for the rampant Republican voter suppression we are seeing, or how courts packed with Federalist Society assholes will rule when Republicans start contesting close elections.
Polls also ignore the fact that people lie to pollsters, for a variety of reasons. Also, extrapolating 1000 responses to represent 300+ million is just stupid.
after a Black doctor in attendance tries to get Drumpf to show one dram of human empathy for the PTSD dangers of medical workers who are having to put overflowing dead bodies into refrigerated trucks in hospital parking lots, Drumpf, barely listening, interrupts the man to hand out some shitty souvenir White House pens. “Yeah, that’s a lot of deaths. <1 second pause to indicate regret> Who’s got the pens?” I know I’ve asked this like 10000 times the past 4 years, but: how could the cultiest of cult members look at this and not say, “you’re right, he really doesn’t give 2 fucks about this stuff.” Jesus what a sociopath he is.
Because if anything, its shown how truly uneducated a huge swath of our population is. Horrible education spending cuts over the last few years have created a huge populace of uneducated people who havent ever been taught to learn for themselves, so they attach themselves to anyone who is boisterous and who they think are powerful. Then, they believe anything they say because they dont know how to tell if they are telling the truth or not. Or, they are just as awful as he is and believe that they are better than everyone else
it’s the Isaac Asimov quote about “democracy convincing people that their ignorance is as good as my intelligence” come to life. The GOP knows how to keep their voters fat and happy (literally) by feeding them this bullshit constantly and in return all they ask is that the voters always vote against their self-interests to keep the super-wealthy where they are. The key for the Dems is to undo this knot slowly and carefully because even if by some miracle they win the presidency AND Congress, they’ll have 2 years at best to shave off just enough GOP voters to mitigate the typical mid-term losses. One thing I hope they try is subsidizing the retraining of fossil fuel workers towards renewable energy technologies. Hillary did this in a very ham-fisted way but coal miners NEED to be retrained how to fix windmills or install solar panels or anything to get them away from that bullshit.
My ex has a graduate degree from Harvard (his family did not come from money; I helped pay for that degree). He’s a completely-down-the-rabbit-hole Trump cultist who has a, to him, rational answer for every fact you confront him with. He’s also a full blown covert narcissist (Trump is an over narcissist). Birds of feather, you know. Sometimes education has nothing to do with it. TL;DR: there isn’t just one single reason people have chosen to become full-on Trump cultists.
Well that’s something education cannot fix. A personality disorder like narcissistic personality disorder, like what Trump has, its hard to undo. But mostly yeah its an education problem.
You are discounting the studied and documented lack of empathy in far right conservatives. Or do you know a lot of Nazis and white supremacists who possess it? Also for any hope of converting Trump’s die hard cultists, they have to be deprogrammed first because they do truly possess cult personalities.You are thinking too simplistically and that’s a mistake.
There is a cult like mentality and a bubble that repeats whatever you want to believe. Combine that with education deficits and its bad.
This is very true and goes for many other beliefs, ufo conspiracies, sectarian suicide cults, religious terrorism. The way the brain is wired, education and even intelligence doesn’t play a huge role. Coherent systems of thought, even based on unlikely or downright premises, can trap any sort of mind. And even acute critical minds, prone to question common sense (which isn’t a flaw), can endorse devastating double standards (why should i believe institutions, maybe everything is a lie, hey this cool youtuber who called me awesome is probably super reliable).
I think a large part of the problem is that ride-or-die Trump supporters will never see segments like this, and in the rare cases they do have been conditioned to disbelieve them.Trump has done a pretty stellar job of undercutting and devaluing the media in this country. Granted, media companies have not done themselves many favors in this regard and have been at lease somewhat complicit in their own denigration, but still. Trump has fostered this environment of belief that the only truth that can be trusted comes from him and his designated mouth-pieces and low-interest, low-education voters have now been fully conditioned to accept that.
how could the cultiest of cult members look at this and not say, “you’re right, he really doesn’t give 2 fucks about this stuff.”
You’re talking about the people who’d be first in line to chug the Kool-Aid & ask for seconds.
I know. It’s still hard to process to see adults that you thought you were rational look you in the eye and effectively say “no LIBTARD, up is in fact down, and once Trump gets re-elected left will be right, and then oh won’t your liberal tears taste so delicious!”…it’s hard to imagine that having a black president for 8 years could induce so much irrational anger.
adults that you thought you were rational
That’s the thing, most of them have never been rational. Look at how many evangelicals support Trump. Adults who believe in fairy tales are not rational people.
it’s hard to imagine that having a black president for 8 years could induce so much irrational anger.
I guess you’re new to the US.
LOL no, I was born and raised in the US. FYI, my introduction to the lunacy of the Trump supporter happened in 2015 with my beloved aunt, an evangelical who typically did not say “boo” to anyone, but at a family reunion she shocked us with her loud and proud and very unapologetic support of Trump because “finally someone would be president who understood them”. The racism of it all was pretty shocking, along with the fact that a normally reticent evangelical would so proudly and openly support a POS like Trump. I really haven’t talked to her or her daughter (another evangelical Trump supporter who also has a lesbian daughter) since and might not ever talk to them again, which bums me out a little, but not a huge amount because I try to exclude hypocritical pieces of shit from my life whenever possible.
Because they too don’t give a fuck about this stuff. They see him do that and think “he’s just like me”
At one point during the Trump and Coronavirus segment it really seemed like John Oliver was so filled with rage he was on the verge of tears. Pretty much sums up my feelings about him.
His rage and desperation felt very, very real.
On an up note, I was really touched when John talked about voting for the first time.I’ve been voting since 1972 and this time felt completely different. I was pretty emotional about it.
I’m keeping the pen I used for the rest of my life.
His rant when he mentioned staffers getting sick felt like it had way more bite then usual. That was pure rage and I completely relate.
At this point the story is no longer about Trump. The story is about people who would willingly cast a vote for this monster. These folks need to know they will not be tolerated by decent people.
They will be. De facto. They are half the population.Half the population of Earth, actually. There are worse (but less powerful) leaders than Trump all over the world, and where there isn’t, half the population votes for the next worst thing available.Unless you go full thanos, there’s no alternative to tolerating.Neutralizing, through institutions clumsily set up as “never again” safeguards after ww2, but tolerating.
Thanos is not a good comparison, he was advocating for an utterly random selection which would have swept up the good and bad alike and probably left us with a 50/50 split again.Then there was younger Thanos who saw how things worked for his older past self* and thought to hell with it, let’s get rid of absolutely everyone and start over with people conditioned the right way to think.*“One of the major problems encountered in time travel is not that of becoming your own father or mother. There is no problem in becoming your own father or mother that a broad-minded and well-adjusted family can’t cope with. There is no problem with changing the course of history—the course of history does not change because it all fits together like a jigsaw. All the important changes have happened before the things they were supposed to change and it all sorts itself out in the end.
The major problem is simply one of grammar, and the main work to consult in this matter is Dr. Dan Streetmentioner’s Time Traveler’s Handbook of 1001 Tense Formations. It will tell you, for instance, how to describe something that was about to happen to you in the past before you avoided it by time-jumping forward two days in order to avoid it. The event will be descibed differently according to whether you are talking about it from the standpoint of your own natural time, from a time in the further future, or a time in the further past and is futher complicated by the possibility of conducting conversations while you are actually traveling from one time to another with the intention of becoming your own mother or father.
Most readers get as far as the Future Semiconditionally Modified Subinverted Plagal Past Subjunctive Intentional before giving up; and in fact in later aditions of the book all pages beyond this point have been left blank to save on printing costs.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy skips lightly over this tangle of academic abstraction, pausing only to note that the term “Future Perfect” has been abandoned since it was discovered not to be.”
― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/America today 320 million people, 70,000 new cases, 418 deaths. .005 deaths per casesWestern Europe (Spain, France, Britain, Italy) 220 million people, 111,000 cases 900 deathsBritain just announced a new lockdown.So what exactly has America not done right when Europe did everything you wanted and it made no difference?
So what exactly has America the West not done right when Europe the East did everything you wanted and it made no an enormous difference?The world is more than just white people.
Asian countries probably have immunity. They did the same thing we did
They tested at far higher rates, far more aggressively and strategically, from the get goThey acted far more quicklyTheir goal has been complete eradication (as opposed to “flattening the curve”)Several European countries re-opened borders to feed their tourism industries; Asian countries have kept their borders locked tightSchool shut downs and WFH have been more prevalent in Asia than EuropeThey did not do “the same thing we did.”
And the west is not Trump. They did everything you guys wanted, and it made no difference
The correct response was the response taken up by Asian countries. That is the response public health professionals and those who believe in a science based policy (“you guys”) wanted.
You are arguing with data and trying to hide beyond absurd racist statements. You said something incredibly stupid. Take the L.
Watch the very show being referenced in this article and you’ll know.If you still claim you don’t understand after that, then you are a liar, an idiot, and/or a troll.
Facts matter. I gave them, you name called
Yes, facts do matter and I gave you a clear path to get some. Use it or don’t. Educating you is not my job.And frankly, I don’t give a shit about pretending to be respectful to the willfully ignorant. Learn up or shut up or kindly fuck off.
Dear Troll,1. Western Europe is not a single country.2. In that respect, its interesting you deliberately left out Germany, Portugal, Ireland, Greece, Denmark, Norway, Finland, you know, other western European countries.3. Their case and death rate per capita is still much lower than ours.4. Who is the idiot that ungreyed this dumbfuck?
Australia and New Zealand in the house.Please stop talking. You’re embarrassing yourself.
I’m still surprised four years later that I didn’t take a friend of mine (same age, retired and only doing consulting work)(at that time, 41) up on his offer to set me up with any number of companies outside of the US. I didn’t have my passport at the time, so I was like, Eh, let’s see how this goes. I was wrong.He has a permanent visa in France, and yeah, it’s not so great in Europe right now, but it’s damned near better than the shitshow that is the United States of America. Leader of the free world? Fuck Trump. Fuck the GOP. Fuck all this because you can’t see beyond your pockets. Trump is a great businessman? Let’s think about this: If he was a smart businessman, he would have ramped up PPE as soon as COVID started hitting. Cause, ya know, money and economy. FUCK TRUMP