Tuesday, November 15, 2016

CRITICIZING JOHN OLIVER SO YOU DON'T HAVE TO.

Or rather, because nobody ever fucking does it.

This piece covers only the season 3 finale episode, "We Must Fight Trump, a Klan-Backed Misogynist Internet Troll" and then again, only a fraction of what was said on that episode, because there is just way too much bullshit to cover everything.

Since there is dishonesty and bias right there in the opening statement, let's start with that. The very first word is manipulative. What WE are they referring to? Are they implicitely admitting that this show is exclusively for people who voted against him? Or are they implying that even the 60 million Trump supporters should come to their senses and join "Us"? This US vs THEM framing is not a good indicator of the fairness of what is to come.

Klan-backed : Well first of all, who backed whom? Did Donald Trump endorse the KKK? Not even close. You can choose who you back, but you have no control whatsoever over who "backs you".The KKK has been reduced to marginality, even insignificance, for a long time. The fact that they choose to post a piece about Trump in their newspaper means nothing. And it's not even real "backing" as seen here http://www.snopes.com/…/02/kkk-newspaper-backs-donald-trump/ . And even more importantly, the Trump campaign completely disavowed the not-really-an-endorsement.

Misogynist : while there is some validity to the criticism, this word has become such an overused keyword that it barely means anything anymore.

Now on to the piece proper.

QUOTE : "It turns out, instead of showing our daughters that they could someday be president, America proved that no grandpa is too racist to become leader of the free world"
The american people very much showed that a woman could be elected president. Hillary was the Democratic party's candidate, she received over 60 million votes, won the popular vote, got tons of support from every possible angle. Any younger woman can look at what happened and conclude that a woman can become president if she does like Hillary but is just a little less corrupt, just a little less bad at campaigning, and knows how to work the actual rules of the college electorate just a little better.
The "racist" thing would warrant its own column. Let's just mention that he never said "All Mexicans are rapists" and maybe revisit the topic later. http://www.politifact.com/…/tim-kaine-falsely-says-trump-s…/

QUOTE : "Some of Trump's policies are alarming, including repealing and replacing Obamacare"
That could mean replacing it with something better. Obamacare is far from perfect. Nothing alarming about re-working a health system.
"building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and having Mexico pay for it"
The wall-building idea is gaining more and more traction worldwide as time goes on and nations realize that ILLEGAL immigration is actually a problem. Several countries in Europe already have or are planning walls. Norway, that haven for globalism and openness, is building one right now. https://www.lifezette.com/polize…/norway-builds-border-wall/ . And yes, that one is only 600 feet long and the US/Mexico border is thousands of miles long, but that's a question of feasability and not principle. If the principle is sound, the US have the means to build it.
"deporting all 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country"
That policy has since been changed to "work on deporting the 3 million immigrants that are in the US illegally and have commited felonies or worse". What would be more alarming than that would be sending the message that these people can do whatever they want. What is so wrong about wanting to enforce your country's laws?

QUOTE : "That leaves us with two devastating options: Either we just elected a president who didn’t mean a single word he said, or we elected one who did.”
Very weak false dichotomy fallacy. Reality is obviously not limited to those two options. Maybe they just elected a pretty normal president, who made thousands of statements, some of which were fully true, some partially true, and so on. Probably some of his promises will be completely fulfilled, others partially, others not. Trump is a very good campaigner and a master at persuasion; he obviously used simplified and colored language on countless occasions, like any normal human being does. Obama has left dozens of unfulfilled promises on the floor and is still considered a good president.

QUOTE : (about social media) "It’s best to avoid this new breed of “hyper-partisan, wildly distorted clickbait "
Very weak double fault fallacy. Traditional media has been losing the people's trust for ages and is at an all-time low mainly because it's heavily biased and dishonest.

In conclusion, the Last Week Tonight Show and its host and team of writers are about as fair and balanced as Fox News, with the added sucker-punch move of being able to hide behind the tired and clichéd "I'm just a comedian" when they are put in front of the weakness of their political discourse.
Additional criticism and analysis available here https://lorenzoae.wordpress.com/…/john-oliver-isnt-mad-max…/

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