The nearly 61 million people who voted for Hillary Clinton—and the many millions who didn't vote—are trying to make sense of how we ended up with a KKK-endorsed leader with little to no understanding of how government works. On Sunday, after five days of sleepless nights and self medication, John Oliver finally got his chance to weigh in on the situation.
"Donald Trump will be president, and respecting democracy means accepting that—although there is one sentiment that I would argue takes that a little too far," Oliver told his audience before showing clips of journalists and news anchors suggesting that we give Trump a chance.
Oliver warned against this normalization of Trump, then ran down the list of Trump's proposed plan of what he'll do in his first 100 days, which he said is like "the to-do list on Satan's refrigerator, which Satan no longer needs because hell has frozen over."
So, how did this happen?
While there are many factors that led to president-elect Donald Trump, Oliver chose to focus his first analysis on the media. It was a strange 18 months, going through the entire presidential election without Jon Stewart as the watchdog of the media. Yes, he returned a handful of times, once during the RNC to give a stunning critique of news coverage of Donald Trump, but for the most part remained silent. This extends from cable news' billions of dollars of free coverage, to outlets not taking the candidate seriously, to Facebook for enabling a cesspool of disinformation. It's a scary thought that distrust in the media is at an all-time low, and people are instead getting their news from fake sources that propagate lies. And it's even scarier that we have a president who not only harnesses and uses misinformation, but attempts to marginalize some of our most valued and institutionalized news outlets.
And finally, what do we do now?
"We're gonna need to stay here and fight, and not just politically in four years when he's up for reelection, but constantly—monitoring legislation as it moves through Congress and fucking voting when your legislators come up for reelection in two years. But that is still the barest minimum of what is going to be needed, because for the last eight years, we've had a president we can assume would generally stand up for the rights of all Americans, but that is going to change now. So we're going to have to actively stand up for one another. And it can't be just sounding off on the internet, or sharing think pieces or videos like this one that echo around your bubble. I'm talking about actual sacrifice to support people who are now under threat."
It's not going to be an easy four years. But, at very least, perhaps Trump being in power will mobilize people to actually become active participants in our political process. After dedicating nearly his entire show on the election, Oliver pointed toward a number of organizations in danger from Trump where people can donate: Planned Parenthood, the Center for Reproductive Rights, the National Resources Defense Council, the International Refugee Assistance Project, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, The Trevor Project, and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
