For the season finale of Last Week Tonight, John Oliver took a broad look at the tactics of Donald Trump and his work as President of the United States.
Yes, we’re all deeply tired of talking about Donald Trump. In fact, said Oliver, “Trump’s presidency is like one of his handshakes — it pulls you in, whether you like it or not”. And it’s true that there is an exhausting number of embarrassing and downright frightening moments of his presidency. Yet, it’s vitally important that we pay attention. How we react to the techniques of a presidency like Trump’s could pave the way for the politics of many years to come.
To that end, how has the Trump presidency violated the norms that dictate how presidents engage with their citizens, and how those citizens engage with each other? After all, that’s in large part what makes all of this feel so utterly futile. It also doesn’t help that Trump’s words are nigh incomprehensible. Go ahead, read a verbatim transcript of one of his more off-the-cuff remarks (rather than a speech written by a staff member).
Oliver said that Trump’s speech patterns are as if he’s reading from a predictive text engine. “An iPhone would be a more coherent president of the United States”.
However, that’s not what Oliver was set to discuss. See, the true issue of Trump’s political legacy comes from three techniques that he employs to insulate himself from criticism and consequences.
(Warning: this clip contains some NSFW language and images, as is usual for Last Week Tonight)
“Fake news”
First, there’s technique number one: delegitimizing the media. Trump has said the phrase “fake news” so much that he’s occasionally claimed to have invented the term.
True, Trump is not the first politician to criticize the press, but that’s actually his second tactic: “whataboutism”. With this tack, Trump deflects attention by bringing up the actions and positions of others, especially opponents. You see, Hillary Clinton has not always had a good thing to say about the press, so he’s in the clear for questioning its very existence. Right?
For example, when he claimed that the “alt-left” was as guilty as the white supremacists that caused death and destruction in Charlottesville, North Carolina. The Soviet Union also employed this technique as a propaganda tool, drawing upon moral relativism and distraction to undermine opposing ideas.
However, this technique of distraction and misdirection doesn’t do much tangible good. According to Oliver, “It doesn’t actually solve a problem or win an argument. The point is to muddy the waters”.
This also brings us to Trump’s third technique for avoiding responsibility and changing the political discourse of our nation: trolling.
The point of trolling isn’t to win an argument so much as to get a rise out of an opponent. This means that Trump often does things with no real purpose other than engendering anger, like when he recently called Kim Jong-Un “short and fat”.
The problem with trolling
Trump’s supporters seem to take delight in his “trolling the media”. But why? “Who benefits from mass confusion from whether or not we’re going to war?” asked Oliver. Moreover, should you judge your success, political or otherwise, by how much fear and anger you’re creating? That’s hardly a good way to make friends on the elementary school playground, much less a halfway decent form of governing.
Oliver said that one of the most striking ways of determining the presence of trolling is to confront the troll themselves. That’s when they have to “put up or shut up”. For example, remember when Trump claimed that Obama had put surveillance devices into his spaces in Trump Tower? These were pretty bold claims that he repeatedly made online and from the safety of his Twitter app.
But when confronted about it by a reporter (as shown on this episode), he began to back away from those claims. He repeatedly said “you can figure it out yourself” and “I don’t stand by anything” when a reporter actually confronted him about the claims in person. He also said that Obama was “very nice to me with words”.
When that interview continued, he refused to confirm anything. “You can take it any way you want … You don’t have to ask me,” he said. Trump then abruptly ended the interview by walking to his desk and staring at some papers like he was actually working.
What makes this a problem
While these techniques aren’t novel, a president so blatantly doing it is new and potentially dangerous. Now, other politicians are unafraid to use these techniques, like Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Arizona). Rep. Gosar claimed that the violence in Charlottesville was a “false flag” operation funded by investor George Soros. When confronted by a CNN reporter, he claimed that it hasn’t been debunked, deflected attention and said that CNN was “fake news”.
If this becomes standard in political discourse, we’re in big trouble. Need more examples? Consider Roy Moore, the Senate candidate who’s accused of initiating a nonconsensual sexual encounter with a 14-year-old girl. Sean Hannity (of Fox News) deflected a conversation about Moore by asking about Bill Clinton’s sexual misconduct.
This isn’t to say that Clinton’s wrongdoings aren’t worthy of scrutiny, but neither is it entirely appropriate to use something like the Lewinsky scandal to distract from more immediate concerns. Roy Moore is still in the running to become an Alabama Senator, despite urging from fellow Republicans that he drop out of the race.
We need to train ourselves to identify these techniques. If we can’t, we won’t be able to hold honest, thoughtful, and morally upright conversations amongst ourselves, much less with politicians. Now, more than ever, we need to be able to identify the sometimes subtle, sometimes overwhelming stink of nonsense.
Important victories
Yeah, this is all pretty bleak. If the prospect of working towards political awareness makes you feel down, take heart from the small victories throughout 2017. Look at the staunch resistance to the Muslim ban or the repeated failures to repeal Obamacare. Trump, after all, has so far achieved few of his campaign promises.
The 2017 elections also showed that Trump-style tactics could lose races, such as Ed Gillespie’s loss in the Virginia gubernatorial race. Danica Roem’s victory in the Virginia state legislature against Virginia’s self-described “chief homophobe” Bob Marshall is also encouraging, given that Roem is the first openly transgender state legislator in the state.
Now, this is no excuse to rest on your laurels, earned or not. Says Oliver: “Tuesday’s results should not make you complacent” about the 2018 midterms. The marathon of the Trump presidency is still ongoing, but we can’t give up.
Yes, it’s ironic that Oliver is saying this when Last Week Tonight is on break until February. But, they’re not going away entirely. Since Trump is still watching Fox & Friends, which The New York Times somewhat unflatteringly called “the most powerful TV show in America”, Last Week Tonight has a way to stick around.
The return of the Catheter Cowboy
“Information goes right from that show into brain, which is terrible”. What’s not so terrible, however, is how Last Week Tonight’s Catheter Cowboy commercials will continue airing on that network.
The Catheter Cowboy will be on Fox in the DC area, hopefully educating our president about important things, like who’s in charge of the U.S. Virgin Islands and First Amendment rights. He’s also set to land some truth bombs. “Just because Jared Kushner is smarter than you doesn’t mean he’s smart,” the Catheter Cowboy gently reminds the President.
Next: John Oliver talks taxes and economic incentives on Last Week Tonight
Yes, we’re going to miss John Oliver and the entire Last Week Tonight team until their February return. But, have no fear, for they will indeed return. Take heart in knowing that Last Week Tonight has been renewed through 2020. That will at least take us to the end of this endlessly confounding presidency.