Those of you who remember
my ‘Disruption Series’ in 2023 will remember that I regarded the strikes by the
WGA and SAG-AFTRA in the spring and summer of that year as bringing out by far
the worst aspects of the left in general and Hollywood in particular. Framed by
those on the picket lines as a battle of working stiffs verses corporate
oligarchs, what it was in reality was a group of privileged and spoiled rich
people trying to shakedown an industry that was increasingly financially shaky.
All of the worst aspects
of what I have come to expect from so many of the left were on full display: wealthy
people demanding more than their fair share from a part of the industry that
had no real money; further crippling an industry that was still shaky from the
lockdown in 2020. Shouting down voices of dissent, who argued that this was hurting
everybody. Refusing to think of the people who were suffering – the millions of
people whose income depended on Hollywood but didn’t have the benefit of a
union to lean on during a six month gap. Attacking viciously those few people
who tried to help those were suffering from the consequences as being scabs. The
certainty that their struggles were vital to the rest of the country, who by
and large only cared that their favorite shows weren’t airing and were willing to
blame everyone. And finally being forced to settle for not much more than the
original terms after months on the pickets lines.
Late night was among the
first to return and none of them went into detail about this. Unapologetically
Oliver used his first night back to say he was angry that it took the studio to
give a deal after five months “that they could have given on day f---ing one!”
That Hollywood had basically given that same deal on day 1 and the strikers had
rejected it was somehow left out of that discussion.
This was not the first
real sign of John Oliver’s leftist proclivities but over 2024 it became
increasingly clear that was where he was. His pieces over that year, while
still frequently funny, increasingly took on a strident and harsh tone towards
every target. And during what was his tenth year on the air, some of the other
flaws in Oliver’s programs were becoming clear.
For one while he continued
to follow up on stories he had before, he never chose to do so if improvements
or pleasant surprises came about. This was clear during a show he did in the
leadup to the India election. In what was his third show on the Indian leader
he went out of his way to illustrate how much worse things had gotten under the
past decade, the history of his tyranny and how much worse the human rights abuses
were becoming. But there was nothing in this piece about the opposition – lead by
Rajiv Gandhi – and its attempt to regain power. When the elections the
following week led to force Modi to lose a significant amount of his base and
form a coalition government for the first time since his administration, it was
viewed as a blow against him and a victory for democracy. But Oliver never did
a follow up piece the next week or ever.
Similarly before the parliamentary
elections in London that year, he devoted an entire show about the horrors of
the past fifteen years of Conservative rule and the five prime ministers who
had led England into ruin. But while he acknowledged Keir Starmer and Labor
were going to win a resounding victory – which they did – not only did he not
seem excited about, he went out of his way to show footage of voters who didn’t
seem that thrilled with it either. Indeed he seemed more excited about Conservatives
being swept out of power rather than any improvements Labor might be able to
bring. A new era in politics might well be beginning – and Oliver seems
uninterested in it.
By now it was very clear
that the kinds of shows Oliver was essentially basing Last Week Tonight on
were the kinds of deconstructionism that the far left is always thrilled to do
in its histories. His episodes showed how industries, parts of the government
and foreign countries had come to the state they were in, often by either
American or Western malfeasance, leaving the industry and society in a ruin
they were today. Then he began to make blanket statements on things the government
should do, knowing full well that in previous pieces he had made it clear the
government was powerless to change things. One frequently leaves the leftist
argument in a state of despair, and Oliver made a running gag about how
depressing the humor on his show could be. But he made no effort to change ten
years in; the only comedy he was inclined to give was nasty and unpleasant about
the evils of society.
Nowhere was this more
clear then the events in Gaza. The piece he did after the attacks on October 7th
were one of the most brilliant episodes of Last Week Tonight ever done
and would eventually win an Emmy and a Peabody. It explained in great detail
how the Palestinians were victims of Hamas and how Netanyahu had spent his
entire career using them as a boogeyman t hold on to the power and all of that
had gone haywire that year. He ended his piece with a plea for unity between
the two groups, saying clearly that the citizens of Gaza and Israel were both victims
of what happened.
But in 2024, he seemed to
have embrace so much of Hollywood’s argument on Palestinians being repressed.
This was astonishing considering the number of pieces Oliver had done on the
Middle East prior to this, including Iran, Saudi Arabia and Qatar over the past
years. He had occasionally been harsh on Israel during this period but by and
large he had made it clear that the other regimes in the region were far worse.
Now on almost a weekly basis, he chose to advocate for the people in Gaza,
demanding that Netanyahu – who he had previously explained had everything interest
in extending the conflict as possible for his political survial – should agree
to a ceasefire on humanitarian grounds. He insisted the Biden administration do
everything in its power to do so, as if he wasn’t already doing everything humanly
possible and as if he could somehow convince both sides to come to the table on
sheer force of will. And he increasingly took the sides of activists protesting
on college campuses without any explanation as to context – which given the
upcoming election should have been critical.
At one point when
defending the takeover of Columbia, he pointed out the long history of student
activism on that campus – including against Vietnam in 1968. Oliver had to know
that it was in large part due to those student protests that led to the divide
in the Democratic Party in Chicago in 1968. He also had to know that Nixon was
able to use this in order to win the Presidency that year and usher in Republican
rule for the next quarter of a century – something he’d referred to in so many previous
independent segments as being part of the conservative rise to power in the
first place. Oliver knew, better than anyone, that these kinds of protest could
have backlash on the party in power. But at no time during 2024 did he even
bring up the possibility that this could return Trump to the White House.
And to be very clear that
year he did a show about what the second term of Trump would be like, including
every detail of Project 2025. By this point, it’s worth remembering, he had
already lived through the first Trump administration and had reported on every
that had happened during his first term and what he would do in his second. Yet
even after that he still couldn’t bring himself to give a full-throated
endorsement of the Democrats then, or at any time during the year.
His summation, at the end
of the episode, was weak tea at best. He made it clear even if Trump lost the
GOP would probably rebrand it in 2028, implying that eventually the Republicans
would someday carry it out. And then he seemed to apologize to his audience for
realizing that they would have to vote Democrat not only this November but for
the foreseeable future. “I realize you wish we had a better alternative,” he
told them, “but this is the world we live in.”
It was once said that the GOP was the ‘Let Them Drown Party’ and the
Democrats were the ‘Status Quo Party’. Oliver seemed to still think that
staying afloat was somehow as bad as drowning.
Throughout the next
several months Oliver would essentially do shows that could just as easily have
been found on progressive websites or The Nation. In addition to Project
2024, he told the story of the forming of the Federalist Society and how it had
affected the Supreme Court and the potential horrors of mass deportations. He told
the story of how the GOP had set things in motion that if results when badly on
election night, it would be easier for the Republicans to steal the election.
But even in that piece he seemed just as certain as he had been in the leadup
to 2016 that Donald Trump would lose.
Throughout he had been
just as harsh on first Biden and only less so on Harris, continuing to rage
against Trump. He raised the reality of Robert Kennedy Junior as well as the
fact his candidacy was likely there to help trump. But just as with Jill Stein
and Gary Johnson in 2016, he made the same argument as before: he wasn’t for
any Democrat candidate but against Trump returning to the White House.
Absent at any point during
2024 – or even before – was the possibility of anything being wrong with Biden’s
mental capacity. After the debate, like everyone else in Hollywood, he was
perfectly willing to embrace the removal of the President after the primaries
in place of a candidate no one had voted for, with no concern of the
repercussions on what voters who had gone for Biden in 2020 might react. When
Harris took over the ticket that July – arguably the most shocking event in the
history of Democratic Presidential politics this century – he never talked
about it and went even harder on the evils of Trump and Vance. By and large his
campaign coverage was entirely about the horrors of Trump and had almost
nothing to do with the values of Harris until the week of the election.
Similarly while he went out of his way to argue how Republican candidates were
ridiculously unqualified for their office, he did nothing to advocate for
Democrats in key Senate races, even in Texas where Ted Cruz was running for
reelection. All of his election coverage dealt with the horrors of Republicans
and what would happen if these idiots regained power. This was effectively the
same speech late night across the board had been making for the past four years
– and in truth was little different from much of their attitude in the leadup
to 2016.
When Trump won the most
resounding electoral victory of any Republican since 2004, the entire world of
progressives went into shock. The same was true for late night. John Oliver
seemed in denial the week after. “I did three shows on inflation!” he shouted,
exasperated. “What more did you need?”
What happened to Oliver –
and indeed late night and Hollywood – is actually very simple to explain. Oliver,
based in New York and with an audience somewhere around 2 million people,
somehow got the impression that his audience was the entire country. How he thought this
could be possible when, like everyone else in Late Night he had gone out of his
way to excoriate not only Trump and the MAGA movement for over a decade –
making it clear his audience was above them – is impossible for the outsider to
comprehend. But it is in keeping with Oliver who, perhaps more than any other
late night host, was proud to be an elitist and clearly had little use for any
institution, including democracy.
Like so many in the
entertainment industry Oliver thought he was in a position of power; like almost
all leftists, he believed his point of view was superior and he was qualified
to lecture on it to a small audience. He had spent a decade railing against
everything that was wrong in the world, saying that there was nothing that
could be done to fix them, and refusing to show the real progress that was
happening to his viewers. He went out of his way to attack his own network
multiple times, particularly the various corporations that owned it “Punish me,
Business Daddy’ was a frequent cry. Because he never interviewed guests, he went
out of his way to attack every aspect of pop culture in a way that Seth Meyers
and Stephen Colbert never did, arguing that even though he was working in
Hollywood, he wasn’t part of the industry. This is not uncommon with so many on
the left who once they gain a position of authority in their given field go out
of their way to mock it for being beneath them.
By its nature this was always
going to have a limited audience and while Oliver’s might have been bigger than
most, it was still very narrow and it had little to do with the electorate, who
he was telling his own audience, had little real power to change things. Like
everyone else in Late Night Oliver spends an enormous amount of time attacking
Fox News and Newsmax but as I said before there’s no real difference between
his show and the kind of pundits that he has reviled over the years. Oliver seems
to have thought that because, like them, he had a camera pointed on him and a
viewing audience, he had the power to change and influence the electorate. That
this was not the case in 2016 – or indeed in so many cases in his career –
doesn’t seem to have registered with him in the leadup to 2024. They say that a
definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting
different results. No one in late night seems to have learned that lesson – and
the only thing they brought down may be their own industry.
In the epilogue to these
piece, I’m going to ask the question Oliver does at the end of every show – “So
what can we do now?” – but unlike him, I’m going to try and give a possible
answer.
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