John Oliver and SNL don’t cause enough offense

I watched The Daily Show and The Colbert Report for years. I stopped watching when Stewart and Colbert retired. John Oliver used to report for the Daily Show. Although I’ve long since stopped watching the Daily Show, I still watch John Oliver, although he’s often a bit frustrating. He has what seems like the right attitude, the right politics, a whole lot of empathy, a huge audience, and a global platform. But he still sticks to the extremely narrow channel of approved opinion.

The election is over, so no-one has to watch pre-election coverage anymore. You don’t have to catch up on your homework. Just as a public service announcement: you’re also not obligated to watch the shirt-rending and finger-pointing of post-election coverage either. You’ve almost certainly got better things to do.

Still, the video below is a typical example of how partisan these supposedly non-partisan shows are. If put right to it, they’ll say that, of course, they’re partisan, but they very often try to project the image that they’re taking on craziness, stupidity, and injustice, regardless of where they find it. They just happen to find most of it in the camp of the enemy, instead of closer to home, where their muckraking might actually do some good. It’s honestly hard to tell how much is a fear of offending the censors and how much is ideological blindness.

Election Subversion 2024: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) by Last Week Tonight (YouTube)

The vehemence with which John Oliver campaigns against Trump isn’t surprising but it is more than a little disappointing that it stops there. Where’s the “where’s Kamala?” episode? Where’s the one that discusses how Trump’s opponent can’t get a coherent thought out for fear of saying something that hasn’t been pre-approved by whatever passes for the Democrat leadership? That the only other candidate against Trump who has a chance of winning is 100% for the Israeli genocide?

For that matter, where’s the episode on the Israeli genocide, John?

Or, if you can’t touch that third rail, while you’re railing against Republican misinformation, where’s the episode about the complete myth of Russiagate? A myth that Democrats continue to cite every time they need billions from their Russia-tanked donors? Where’s the episode about the utter myth of Russia as the implacable enemy that keeps us bound up in vicious, costly wars? Where’s the show on these incredibly damaging myths? You know … myths that lead to wars? No? Too busy making fun of Q-Anon?

No, John, you won’t report on that stuff—because you know who your masters are or you literally can’t even tell that you’re missing those topics because your ideological blinders are so comprehensive. You can get edgy about brutalities at home—and kudos for that, attacking corporate entities who don’t happen to be sponsors—but you don’t go after the big fish because you know you’d lose your show.

The first show that sawed at your own branch of sponsorship or patronage—or whatever the hell keeps that show on the air at Max) would never get on-air. I don’t even know whether you’re frustrated with your inability to report on “real” issues or if your on-air persona is who you actually are. As Chomsky said long ago, in an interview with mainstream media: “If you didn’t believe what you believe, then you wouldn’t have that job.”

As You’re Not Crazy. This Genocidal Dystopia Is Crazy by Caitlin Johnstone puts it:

“The ones who know a genocide is happening but avoid making too much noise about it because they want to make sure the Democrats win the election are wrong. The ones who know it’s a genocide but don’t respond to this reality with the appropriate level of urgency, forcefulness and focus are wrong.”

It’s an appalling dereliction of duty for anyone like Oliver. There’s no avoiding that conclusion.

Watching SNL is just like watching John Oliver: the most interesting part is figuring out who their sponsors are by the negative imprint left by who they don’t lampoon.

SNL, just like Oliver, is 100% in the tank for the Democrats, so they have zero interest in getting the other 50% of the nation. Like Oliver, they just outright call anyone who’d not voting Democrat idiots. Just flat-out. No interest in understanding or bridging the gap. They have only superciliousness to offer, served up by someone who’s so dumb that they actually believe that they’re the intellectually superior half of the conversation. It can get grating.

As an example of where SNL can be funny while ostensibly lampooning billionaires’ flouting of labor law, they just had a pretty funny skit about Amazon Prime Day.

Weekend Update: Monica a Happy Amazon Employee on Prime Day by SNL (YouTube)

They didn’t go as hard as they could have—not even close—but it’s hard to imagine that Amazon and Jeff Bezos are sponsors.

“Prime day is sort of like Hanukkah in that they said it would last one day, but I worked eight straight days. Yeah, I worked so much, I had to make up a whole new day of the week. Floozday. Yeah. That’s when you close your eyes on Friday and wake up behind the wheel on Tuesday.”

After she fell asleep and Che woke her up, she apologized for lashing out because, “I was just a little disoriented to wake up and not be driving.”