“Trump will no longer be president,” said John Oliver at the beginning of the Last Week Tonight episode on Sunday night.
It was clear that Oliver was delighted when he showed footage of people across the country celebrating Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden. He referred to it as “Reverse 9-11” and said it was a combination of “complete euphoria” and “permanent disgust for Rudy Giuliani”.
At the end of a really tense and exhausting week, there was some measure of relief as the country – and the world – waited for the votes to be counted to finally end up with Biden as President-Elect and Kamala Harris as the first Black, South Asian and South Asian unveil elected vice president.
Oliver said it was all worth it because it ended that way – especially with an election held during a global pandemic that required patience. What was completely predictable, of course, was how Trump reacted as the count unfolded. Long before the results, Oliver said he had taken advantage of the fact that he was ahead in states and could claim victory.
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From there, Trump and his team did everything they could to undermine the election. After Michigan favored Biden, Trump tweeted: “We hereby claim the state of Michigan.” As many of us know, it doesn’t work that way. “Electing states is not the way we elect presidents,” said Oliver. “We use the electoral college, which is at least 3% less stupid.”
To support Trump’s plan to win the election, Giuliani came to Pennsylvania to try to stop the vote with a passionate speech at a press conference throwing wild allegations around with no evidence. Pennsylvania Governor John Fetterman likened Guliani’s press conference to a “bad House of Cards episode”.
“He’s right,” agreed Oliver. “It’s like House of Cards because it’s full of political intrigue, there’s a sexual predator pretending to be president, and it’s four seasons too long.”
To add to that, Trump’s camp was consistently inconsistent with Michigan supporters protesting to stop the count while Arizona supporters sang “Count the votes!”
Trump’s messy recipe for the election also included having many of his tweets flagged for controversial and misleading news about the election. Meanwhile, Giuliani tweeted an article voting at least 21,000 dead in Pennsylvania. There were also rumors that Trump ballots were marked with Sharpies, disqualifying them. None of this was true. Even Eric Trump took part by tweeting a fake video of ballot papers being burned in Virginia Beach – what the city called fake the day before his tweet.
Probably one of the most memorable moments of conspiracy theory from Trump’s camp at the Nevada registrar was during a press conference when a man in a T-shirt titled “BBQ, Beer and Freedom” interrupted the screams and claimed the “Biden Crime Family is stealing.” our freedom ”. His antics received little to no response.
To further exacerbate the conspiracy, Trump has filed several lawsuits in various states, many of which found no evidence in various cases. However, there is one issue that Trump relied on.
Oliver said, “One big complaint from Trump, he’s doing a lot right now – you will likely hear it for the rest of your life – is that the election is ineligible because Republican election observers have not been given access to ballot papers in Pennsylvania count.” “
Trump tweeted on Saturday: “Bad things have happened that our observers were not allowed to see.” Oliver points out that sticking to the type of accusation because you haven’t seen it is a difficult task.
“The embarrassing weakness of these fraud cases is starting to make sense when you see how desperately the Trump camp has tried to round them up,” he added. Trump has also gone so far as to set up a voter suppression hotline that people could call on votes and report irregularities.
Oliver also comments on how all of these pointless lawsuits are clearly going to cost a ton of money, which is why they’ve probably spent the past few days aggressively emailing supporters for money.
And just when you’re thinking it couldn’t get any disgusting, Oliver gives us more to chew on: “Perhaps the most pathetic part of the whole week was in the moments before this race was played on Saturday morning, Trump tweeted ‘I’ WON THIS VOTE MUCH! ‘”
In this “absolute year of a week”, Oliver clearly states: “The fact is that Trump lost this election – he lost.”
He continued, “All of the crap we got used to seeing work didn’t work this time.”
The Trump family will not stop drifting and lying. “Once he leaves the White House, it just won’t have the same effect,” said Oliver. “It won’t directly affect every American’s life, and that in itself is fantastic.”
At this point in the episode, Oliver said he wanted to over-analyze the election and the impact of the Biden presidency. Before doing so, he gave the audience 30 seconds to experience joy before delving into his overanalysis.
After the 30 seconds ran out (he had a coundown clock), Oliver said there are two important things to take away from this election. The good news is that there was a record turnout of over 74 million people who decided to kick Trump out of office. The less good news is that over 70 million people voted for him and says it all. “We have to expect that for the foreseeable future,” he said.
Oliver then edited a clip of Biden talking about Trump’s ugliness and division not being what America is. This is what Biden said at many of his rallies. Oliver said it was a nice feeling, but argued that the division of America by race, religion, gender, and origin was often what America is.
“We cannot and should not ignore the fact that millions voted for Trump,” he said. He added, “Even in the joy and relief at the end of this week, it’s worth remembering how scary it felt when it unfolded.” He was referring to the swarm of cars that practically attacked a Biden Harris bus in Texas, as well as protesters in Detroit demanding that they no longer count votes in a black-majority district.
“The last four years wasn’t just about one man, and it wasn’t just about the last four years, and even that one man is by no means going away,” he said before editing a clip on Fox News in which Trump, in essence, is the current and future leader of the Republican Party. If it isn’t, it will be someone else who is just as divisive.
Oliver said, “There is no easy answer to who we are,” referring to Biden’s speech. He notes the incredible historic election of Harris and the presidency of Barack Obama – two blacks who hold the highest offices in the world. At the same time, Trump was between them. “All of that together is what we are,” comments Oliver. “It’s important not to ignore this reality.”
He then unpacks record-breaking Indigenous and Latin American voters in Arizona, while black voters – especially black women – showed up in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia.
“There is likely to be a lot of talk by whites in the coming days and weeks about how the black and brown voters ‘saved’ us – which is just a little off the mark,” said Oliver. “They did not vote as a favor to whites, but rather as protection, to protect themselves and their communities from someone trying to actively harm them.”
Oliver calls Stacey Abrams and many black women in Georgia like Helen Butler, Nse Ufot, Deborah Scott, and Tamieka Atkins who have helped enroll hundreds of thousands of people over the past two years. Half of them were colored people and they helped mobilize them to take the polls.
Even before the presidential race was scheduled, Abrams was already tweeting details about the Georgia runoff election in January, making sure voters request their ballots because, as Oliver puts it, “knows what the fuck she’s doing.”
He continued, “And if Democrats are smart, which they are not always, they should listen to her and activists like her.”
“It will be a long way to get us out of the place that the last four years have put us in,” he said. “That’s why it could be so important to remember the moments of triumph this week achieved.”
He spoke about how Ritchie Torres won a seat in the US House of New York’s 14th Congressional District and became the first openly gay LGBTQ Afro-Latinx member of Congress. He put some gloss on Mondaire Jones, who also made history as one of the first black LGBTQ + members of Congress to win his election. He mentioned Cori Bush, who made history as the first black Congresswoman in Missouri history, and Sarah McBride, who was the first openly transgender person to be elected to a Senate seat.
He pointed to various victories across the country that showed progress: Florida raised the minimum wage and how every state with a marijuana initiative on the ballot approved it. Most notably, Oliver reiterated his enthusiasm for Trump’s loss, which no longer means Stephen Miller, Steven Mnuchin, Betsy DeVos and Mike Pence. He ended with “no more Jared Kushner,” which he seemed most excited about.
He ended the episode on a high note: “After what just happened, I think we all have the right to put on our masks, go outside, and party like octopuses to fuck ecstasy.”
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