RNC 2020 & Kenosha: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

hi there welcome to the show still taking place in this blank void think of it like the moon in that it's frigid colorless and occasionally occupied by one very lonely malnourished man who's definitely urinated in his suit and we're actually going to dive straight in with our main story this week which unusually for us concerns the week that we've just had it's one of the rare times we're actually living up to our show's title unlike what should probably be called 28 minutes on the call tax or whatever the with john oliver and the reason we're doing that is that this has been one hell of a week so tonight we're going to talk about two things in particular the republican national convention and the horrific events in kenosha wisconsin where jacob blake was repeatedly shot in the back by police and a vigilante killed two people and we'll talk more about kenosha in a bit but let's start with the rnc an event to celebrate the stewardship of donald trump a tough sell at the best of times but something that felt particularly out of step this week considering we have a pandemic on the rampage and economic catastrophe unfolding and wildfires and hurricanes battering the country all of which made it a little jarring that the republicans opening argument seemed to essentially be this ladies and gentlemen leaders and fighters for freedom and liberty and the american dream the best is yet to come okay then that's kimberly guilfoyle bringing energy to the rnc that can really only be described as sorry i thought doves were going to shoot out of my hands and that very much set the tone for the week the main theme of the convention seemed to be telling lies in front of flags because it was four days of a full-throated denial of objective reality for one thing there was the misleading portrait they painted of trump's opponents if biden wins he'll be controlled by the environmental extremists we'd be one step closer to government-run health care finance pledged to defund the police and he's even talking about taking the wall down how about that honestly that sounds great unfortunately though biden has promised to do exactly none of those things biden is a radical environmentalist police defunding socialist in the same way that i am history's greatest zazu you can say i am all you want to and honestly i wish i were but the fact is it's not even close to being true and the lies told about biden were just the beginning here convention speakers also claimed that trump never called white supremacists very fine people which he did that he passed the veterans choice act which he didn't and that he's trying to protect patients with pre-existing conditions which he very much is not i'm honestly surprised a speaker didn't at one point claim that trump invented parakeets or that he stopped the murder hornets by sucking them straight out of the air and yet even in the midst of a blizzard of lies some still manage to stand out like white house economic advisor larry kudlow referring to the coronavirus with an odd choice of verb tense then came a once in 100 year pandemic it was awful health and economic impacts were tragic hardship and heartbreak were everywhere but presidential leadership came swiftly and effectively with an extraordinary rescue for health and safety to successfully fight the covet virus what are you doing you can't talk about the coronavirus in the past tense when it is in a very real sense still raging if you're a character in a saw movie you don't say that was a close one while the bear trap is still on your head but maybe the biggest gulf between the r c and objective reality concerned race because again and again rnc speakers were at pains to reassure viewers that racism in america is mostly a relic of the past and whatever remains can be easily overcome take nikki haley's speech in which she flatly insisted america is not a racist country and then told the inspirational story of how the confederate flag at her state's capital was taken down in 2015 after the massacre at mother emanuel church after that horrific tragedy we didn't turn against each other we came together black and white democrat and republican together we made the hard choices needed to heal and removed a divisive symbol peacefully and respectfully oh that's what happened is it that sounds nice just a few things there it's a peaceful story of unity and hope as long as you start that story immediately after a white supremacist killed nine people at a historic black church also haley's version of that story ignores the fact that the eventual removal of the confederate flag was jump-started by artists and activists bryn use and bass climbing the flagpole in front of the state house like she was on an anti-racist version of american ninja warrior and that she was then arrested and that the flag was then re-raised 45 minutes later haley also conveniently leaves out the part where the candidate she's endorsing has defended those who proudly fly the flag by saying it represents the south so haley turning what happened in south carolina into a smooth hopeful story of racial reconciliation it's a bit like if someone asked her what the film do the right thing is about and she said a brooklyn neighborhood comes together to help redecorate a pizza place i mean sure nikki i guess that's technically true but it feels like you're leaving out some pretty important parts there and a lot of the rnc's messaging on race seemed intended not so much to win over black voters as to reassure white people that they could vote republican without being racist the audience they were talking to was pretty clear even in small moments like this the american people know we don't have to choose between supporting law enforcement and standing with our african-american neighbors well hold on there mike who is the we in that sentence because it seems like you're making a distinction between we the american people and our african-american neighbors who i guess by extension are somehow a different group entirely but i guess that sentiment shouldn't really be surprising coming from mike pence a man who permanently looks like he should be living in ken's white flight dream house and all of this overt talk of racial harmony was very much in conflict with the steady diet of barely disguised racial panic that viewers were also being fed perhaps the most flagrant example of this came on monday night when the rnc chose to feature the saint louis couple who were charged with threatening black lives matter protesters at gunpoint last month and the message that they were there to send was pretty clear it seems as if the democrats no longer view the government's job as protecting honest citizens from criminals but rather protecting criminals from honest citizens they're not satisfied with spreading the chaos and violence into our communities they want to abolish the suburbs altogether by ending single-family home zoning this forestry zoning would bring crime lawlessness and low-quality apartments into now thriving suburban neighborhoods so make no mistake no matter where you live your family will not be safe in the radical democrats america wow okay first c-span you really didn't need to put up the banner that says they're personal injury attorneys i very much got that from the everything but much more importantly think about how incendiary that message is violence and criminals are coming to your community in the form of low quality apartments and you must defend yourself take it from us the couple who pointed guns at black lives matter protesters and rhetoric like that and the world view it encompasses has consequences which actually brings us to the second part of our story this week what happened in kenosha wisconsin where to reiterate jacob blake was shot seven times in the back by police with three of his children in the car and then in the protest that followed kyle rittenhouse a 17 year old who traveled there from out of state and was illegally carrying a weapon killed two people and look i don't know if he saw the mccloskey speak the night before he chose to drive to a city he didn't live in to defend property he didn't own what i do know is that he was an avid trump supporter even sitting front row at a rally back in january and trump and his media ecosystem have been delivering essentially the same message as the mccloskeys for years now just look at how quickly tucker carlson moved to try and explain away written house's actions as a natural response so are we really surprised that looting and arson accelerated to murder how shocked are we that 17 year olds with rifles decided they had to maintain order when no one else would well you don't seem to be shocked and that alone should actually be pretty shocking because let's be clear a 17 year old vigilante with a rifle cannot maintain order because a 17 year old vigilante with a rifle trying to maintain order is himself the definition of disorder except of course if you're a regular viewer of tucker carlson a show that exists to teach its viewers precisely three things property damage is violence homicide is order and pillows are for sale and the events in kenosha really hammer home the flagrant double standard baked into american society just look at the difference in how the police in kenosha responded to blake and how they responded to rittenhouse alleged gunman kyle rittenhouse walking away gun in tow as people screamed that he just shot protesters one law enforcement officer seeming to ask rittenhouse if anyone was hurt two incidents two videos with some asking why two different responses why two different responses i think the answer to that is pretty obvious it's the same reason why ahead of the shooting there was video of the police trying to enforce a curfew against protesters even as they offered water to written house and the militias saying and i quote we appreciate you guys we really do and if you're looking for a better visual illustration of the differences between being black and white in america i don't think you're going to find one except maybe forcing exactly who sits down and who stands up when cotton eye joe comes on at a wedding and that disparity in treatment continued even after the shootings just watch how the next day the kenosha police chief couldn't help but spread blame to the protesters who were shot at and killed everybody involved was out after the curfew i'm not going to make a great deal of that but the point is the curfews in place to protect had persons not been out involved in in violation of that perhaps the situation that that unfolded would not have happened okay first of all thanks so much for not making a great deal out of that the people who got murdered were up way past their government post bedtime and you were nice enough not to even mention it except to imply that maybe it was a reason they kinda had it coming and that is the kind of restraint that we've all now come to expect from the kenosha police department and you might think well hold on that's just one guy surely not all law enforcement there thinks that way although i will point out to you that the guy standing next to him is the kenosha sheriff who just two years ago gave a pretty striking press conference a group of five young black people had allegedly stolen some clothing from an outlet mall and had led police on a chase that ended in a minor car accident and in that press conference he expressed some views that are pretty explicit let's put them in jail let's let's stop them from truly at least some of these males going out and getting 10 other women pregnant and having small children let's put them away at some point we have to stop being politically correct sorry can i quickly uh interrupt you there because calling for american citizens to be stopped from having small children isn't politically incorrect so much as politically 1940s germany and he wasn't just idly saying that he'd really thought through a whole plan and i know it is deeply unpleasant but honestly it is worth listening to just how detailed his solution was if there's a threshold that they cross these people have to be warehoused no recreational time in the jails we put them away and maybe we got to do is build warehouses that after this generation is gone they've perished in these buildings we can turn them into something else maybe malls maybe maybe uh amazon will buy them as warehouses later but at some point we have to get rid of this group of people we have to lock them up i don't think i'm saying anything different than most people in society aren't thinking but they're afraid to say it and i'm just to the point that i'm i'm saying it okay if that is what most people in society are thinking then we are and this is true a terrible society and i honestly cannot believe that was an idea from a still employed sheriff and not a pitch from shark tank lights genocide edition good question there mark cuban the answer is these concentration camps could easily be converted into amazon warehouses looks like i've got a bidding war on my hands and look the events in kenosha would be infuriating at any time but it's somehow especially infuriating that they took place in the same week where the rnc was desperate to reassure the country that america isn't racist while simultaneously fear-mongering about violent crime threatening law-abiding citizens it was a disconnect that was pretty well summed up by nba coach doc rivers in an emotional post-game press conference on tuesday what stands out to me is um just just watching the republican revenge our convention and this they're spewing this fear right like all you hear donald trump and all of them talking about fear we're the ones getting killed we're the ones getting shot uh we're the ones that we're denied to live in certain communities um we've been hung we've been shot and all you do is keep hearing about fear it's it's amazing why we keep loving this country and this country does not love us back yeah exactly it's all exhaustingly depressing although in a week of incredible darkness there was actually a bright spot because shortly after doc rivers spoke there something genuinely extraordinary started to happen in his sport the milwaukee bucks had a playoff game but didn't take the court with rumors starting to fly around that they were about to refuse to play then wnba players who incidentally have led from the start on the black lives matter movement also refused to play after arriving at a scheduled game with church with seven bullet holes drawn on their back and eventually wildcat strikes spread throughout both leagues in an unprecedented and genuinely inspiring show of collective action and they did this without union approval so they were putting a lot on the line here their income and maybe even their careers which is what makes it so infuriating that when jared kushner was asked for his response to the strike this is what fell out of his mouth look i think that the nba players are very fortunate that they have the financial position where they're able to take a night off from work without uh having to to have the consequences to themselves financially so they have that luxury which is great okay first get jared you welcome to marwyn reject cause for start they're not taking a night off from work the emotional toll of being black in america combined with the pressure to perform at an elite level during a global pandemic is i'm guessing pretty taxing so by not playing they're not exactly taking a spa day and if nba players are too rich to take meaningful action then who exactly is in the right tax bracket to have their protest approved by america's most laminated prince because we have seen time and time again that wealth and fame absolutely do not protect you as a black athlete it didn't protect sterling brown from getting tased by the police after being stopped for a parking violation in milwaukee and it didn't protect tarbo cephalosia from having his leg broken by nypd officers in an incident that forced him to miss the 2015 playoffs and put his whole career in jeopardy and you might want to strap in jared because this probably isn't the last disruptive action like this that we're going to see going forward nor should it be because people are sick of waiting just listen to jacob blake's sister letitra wideman making that very clear i'm not sad i'm not sorry i'm angry and i'm tired i haven't cried one time i stopped crying years ago i am numb i have been watching police murder people that look like me for years i'm not sad i don't want your pity i want change right this can't be about pity it can't be about sympathy that is why there is no section in greeting card stores labeled centuries of oppression this isn't about what white people feel or say this has to be about creating real change in a system that has been built to be non-responsive because history has repeatedly shown us the system does not respond until it is forced to so it's easy for rnc speakers to insist that the only appropriate action is peaceful and unobtrusive but the fact is that's just not how it works thousands of people marched in the wake of george floyd's death and have continued marching even as media coverage has steadily drifted away meanwhile the mba has made a lot of symbolic gestures of support for the movement like painting black lives matter on the court and allowing players to wear a social justice message on their jerseys selected by the way from a list of 29 agreed-upon options but to underscore just how limiting that kind of pre-approved protest can be say her name was on the list but brianna taylor was not and i guess the only positive thing there is that if players wanted to protest that particular restriction the nba had a jersey ready made for them the problem with purely symbolic protest is that it's far too easy to co-opt and there might actually be no more visceral example of that than the fact that that kenosha sheriff and human warehousing innovator got positive attention earlier this year when he kneeled for nine minutes in solidarity with the black lives matter movement so is it any wonder the basketball players felt they had to escalate their protest by not just wearing a jersey but by striking and in doing so putting team owners money at jeopardy because real discomfort is the only thing that's going to bring about real change here and it's worth noting that already the strike has had some effect not only did it spread to other sports and other athletes but the nba players now have a promise from owners to convert as many of their arenas as possible into polling places this november which is great although it also brings us to the fact that simply voting this november is clearly not going to be nearly enough because as much as i or the rnc would like to believe that joe biden will be an agent of radical change there's just no reason to believe that to the extent that real change is possible through the ballot box this year it will only be if biden is elected alongside progressive candidates all the way down the ballot from the senate to state legislatures to city councils to sheriffs and even that will be very much a beginning and not an end none of this is easy but it has to begin and now because our current situation is completely unacceptable and the rnc this week actually ended up being a pretty good reminder that where we still might end up going is genuinely terrifying because if it showed us one thing this week it's the danger in continuing to be governed by an administration that encourages the ugliest forces in american society that lionizes threats of violence against peaceful protest that tells us there is no conflict between supporting law enforcement and our african-american neighbors and that insists that the best is yet to come which given everything that we've seen in the last four years is sounding less like a promise and more like a threat you

Channel: LastWeekTonight

Views: 8,625,852

Rating: 4.6388454 out of 5

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Id: rBu0BRTx2x8

Length: 20min 10sec (1210 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 30 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Pithius]

Rowan Atkinson was Zasu in 94'. John was right

[u/hmaster1332]

Man that sheriff's speech was disgusting. How can you say that and keep your job.

[u/sudevsen]

Jon Oliver going off the Just Vote bandwagon and embracing downballot voting. Pretty rare thing to.see on TV

[u/sudevsen]

"Honestly that sounds great but unfortunately Biden has promised to do NON of those things"

Ah yes,the unending suffering of American progressives

[u/Hb030187]

The Kushner quote is almost as bad as the Sherriff. How can a silver spoon baby whos accomplished nothing on his own, but rather from riding the coattails of his last name/in-laws last name say that?

Theres no way there's THAT big of a disconnect from reality

[u/Curtioso]

Mirror me

[u/brownhaircurlyhair]

RNC's strategy was "We're just going to say a bunch of shit and hope you don't Google it afterwards".

[u/unbelizeable1]

These comments are cracking me up. "I used to like Oliver before but now he's too political" What fuckin show were ya'll watching before? I think the problem you guys are having is he's now focused on issues you support.

[u/alfredhospital]

Mirror for us not in America.