Summary
In an emotional monologue, John Oliver urged undecided and reluctant voters to support Kamala Harris, emphasizing her policies on Medicare, reproductive rights, and poverty reduction.
Addressing frustrations over the Biden administration’s Gaza policy, he acknowledged the struggle for many voters yet cited voices like Georgia State Rep. Ruwa Romman, who supports Harris despite reservations.
Oliver warned of the lasting consequences of a second Trump term, including potential Supreme Court shifts.
Oliver said voting for Harris would mean the world could laugh at this past week’s photo of an orange, gaping-mouthed Trump in a fluorescent vest and allow Americans to carry on with life without worrying about what he might do next.
Living in the US as a person who grew up in Western Europe must be most masochistic way of life possible.
Not really. A lot of people have this personal accountability mentality which supposes we all need to man up and deal with our own problems or suffer in silence. Which is all hypocritical and hardly ever do you find the people who espouse these views live up to them. Be it the self made millionaire trust fund baby who got a job at dad’s dealership after dropping out when he burned through all his college funds. The drowning in debt college grad who doesn’t work in the field they majored in because there wasn’t any attractive jobs. The self made man who came up from nothing but now is completely burnt out or swindling people to amass a fortune.
You show me an American who claims they don’t take hand outs and work harder then any one else could manage; and I’ll show you a self centered prick that got lucky once and sits on their ass the rest of the day consuming conservative media.
That’s my major point, though. By and large Americans are lazy self serving jerks who couldn’t stop consuming if they were only selling turds. They like to binge after they binge and no amount of alcohol or weed is enough to make them contented.
No we aren’t masochists. We are children who want loud orange man to make it so we can have more F150’s and we get to play beer pong every single day.
Wtf is this even? How does this address what the other commenter said? Did you just reply to a top comment for visibility?
At the end of that word salad he says something regarding masochism, so I think he actually meant to reply, but his reading comprehension left him hanging so he didn’t catch OP was talking about John Oliver (being the Western European living in the US).
(That, or they are just the fevered ramblings of a syphilitic brain. either way, your ‘wtf is this even’ applies)
The best way to live in the US is to work at an European company and be send out long term to the US branch, you get European paychecks with the European taxing system and have European health insurance. You can receive your pay to a bank that allows global withdrawal with a miniscule currency transfer fee, for everything else you can use a Visa or MasterCard. Sure, this only works for a couple of months to a couple of years max, but you don’t have to deal with so much US bullshit and when shit is about to hit the fan, the company is going to pull you out anyway.
Imperfection should not make the undecided voters give up on democracy, how can we have progressive policy when the people who want it don’t vote?
Exactly.
We cannot afford to fall victim to the Nirvana fallacy.
We must work within the system to change the system or we risk being excluded entirely.
Nirvana fallacy, also know as “perfect solution fallacy” is suggesting that no solution is better than an imperfect solution. If I can’t have nirvana, I don’t want anything.
I see it all the time in online arguments. “Oh, you advocate for housing the homeless? Well then why do you have empty rooms in your house? Just fill it with homeless people.” this is an example of the fallacy. It suggests that my solution, “house the homeless” should be discarded because it is not a perfect solution, which would be filling my house up with strangers. The goal is to make me say, “oh, I’m not willing to do that, so we should do nothing instead.”
I don’t think that’s an example. People housing others in their own homes isn’t an example of the perfect solution to homelessness. I don’t know if we have a name for that fallacy but it’s kind of a “put your money where your mouth is” fallacy. If you aren’t willing to give up a lot for the solution, you must not really believe it is a problem/solution.
People being against the ACA because it isn’t single payer health care is an example of the perfect solution fallacy. Or people being against a $15 minimum wage because it really should be $25 now.
it does have some qualities of Nirvana fallacy in that it implies my support for a policy is inadequate unless I provide a perfect, personal solution. but thanks for your response.
I thought it was touching where he discussed his worries about using his last opportunity to speak before the election, and that he could be left wondering if there was something else that he could have said to change the outcome if it ends up going bad. I imagine there has to be a good bit of pressure when you have such a large platform.
For a show that points out so many wrongs with our country, it’s easy to look at things negatively. But for now, at least, we are able to point out those wrongs and still have a hope we can do something about them. Not even 5 years a citizen, I imagine it could be scary as well that if a re-elected Trump goes for a type of “media reform,” Oliver is likely going to be high on the list of people to be looked at.
I hope tomorrow goes well for America. I’ve been disappointed the last few elections that the comedians have been more critical than the mainstream journalists, but right now, I’m glad we’ve had them if nothing else, motivating us to still be our best.
maybe he should tell kamala how important it is and to do everything possible to gain voters.
Either Trump will win, or Harris will win. Choose one to help.
Clearly, obviously, Harris stands a better chance of helping Palestinians than does Trump.
harris being better is a low bar and i can’t support the same system & people that genocided my ancestors out of existence in this country; especially after claiming to abhor it for decades once the trail of tears footnote/paragraph became standard in american history books.
i don’t want to be a party to re-legitimizing genocide as acceptable political collateral damage, so i’m voting third party in a solidly blue state and doing so ensures that my vote could never support trump in any way thanks to the same electoral college that gives trump a chance of winning; i’m using the system against itself and i hope others do the same.
Respectfully, what you wrote doesn’t change the binary choice at play:
Trump or Harris will become President no matter what you do.
You could at least help my daughter, my mother, my sister by ensuring the one who supports women’s rights gets elected? Who supports LGBTQ+? Who supports climate change initiatives? That’s even pretending Harris is equally bad on Gaza or that things couldn’t obviously get worse for Palestinians.
You could at least help my daughter, my mother, my sister by ensuring the one who supports women’s rights gets elected? Who supports LGBTQ+? Who supports climate change initiatives? That’s even pretending Harris is equally bad on Gaza or that things couldn’t obviously get worse for Palestinians.
every single one of my identities is targeted by project 2025 and i’m not afraid of it because i benefit from the experience of surviving the aids/hiv crisis in the 1980’s. like it is in gaza right now; my government also did little more than make public displays of support while they idly let people die by the thousands back then and that experience has taught me how to recognize that they’re doing it again. (it’s easy to recognize it this time around since it’s literally being done by mostly the same people).
mutual aid was the only thing that helped anyone back then and we’ll be going back to doing it again once we enact the few remaining parts of project 2025 that we haven’t yet enacted since 1981. your daughter, your mother, your sister, my mother & my husband will not be (and was not) helped by anything trump or harris or any genocider does unless it’s by accident and putting faith in them isn’t going to help matters since they’re clearly hellbent of repeating history.
I’m glad you’re willing to throw that all away, but you’re also throwing it away for my family, too… So thanks, I guess…?
And for what? To get Trump elected? You do understand mathematically you’re supporting Trump’s chances, correct?
Let’s also not forget that if Harris is complicit in genocide in Gaza, then you’re not voting for Harris means you condone and are complicit on Russia’s genocide in Ukraine.
Edit: Bernie Sanders says the choice is clear; to vote for Harris despite Gaza.
i live in a solidly blue state and i’m voting third party. i could never help trump even if i wanted to because of the same electoral college that’s helping him win; i’m using the system against itself, as you should do every chance you get.
my ancestors where genocided out of existence in this country so i’m 100% sure that they would agree with me that being party to the same system & people that have a history of repeatedly using genocide as acceptable political collateral damage is a bad idea and anything good that comes from it is an accident.
I hear this a lot but:
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I’d argue that driving up the support for Harris in the popular vote is critical. If Trump wins Electorally, it’s still rhetorically important to stifle the notion of a mandate by not letting him get 50%.
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Blue states have fallen in the past or can shift purple if the line isn’t held.
That said, I’m glad you’re not in a swing state at least.
Reminder that it was Biden who just recently issued a forceful formal apology to the indigenous people of America. GOP didn’t it. Trump mocked it by having a rally on their sacred grounds no less.
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There needs to be a proper primary system. This choosing the candidate months in advance of the convention by some sort of fiat, no discussion of policies that candidate endorses, then having an eleven month campaign is fucking ridiculous.
If nominees have to get up, espouse their willingness or not to commit genocide in the name of middle east oil interests, and then maybe pay a price for that by not being nominated, might have brought all this to a different end. The DNC’s certainty that they know what’s right for the people that support the Democrats is the reason Trump even got a first term, let alone why this race is a nailbiter.
Their fucking arrogance and complete lack of awareness outside the oligarchic bubble they inhabit needs to have some consequences if Harris doesn’t pull their pickles out of the garbage disposal and then perhaps lay back on the brown-child-murder-endorsement thing.
Now that Harris lost, it seems like people are agreeing with you.
Huh, imagine that.
Ugh. It’s always so cringe when late night hosts pull this kind of crap. They have literally become a mouthpiece for their corporate interests. That’s your entire job! You are a breathing advertisement for Hollywood and big media agencies!
And you expect me to see your actors tears and think, hmm…yeah, they are like real people!
Give me a break.
Isn’t john oliver a political satirist? Isn’t his whole thing politics?
Who would you have take the role of pleading with people to vote a certain way?
The coastguard, perhaps?
Hasn’t Jon Oliver on more than one occasion fired insults at the company that owns the network he’s on?
