John Oliver on the US election: ‘Despair doesn’t help anything’

“It has been a rough week,” said John Oliver on Sunday evening, days after the majority of American voters elected Donald Trump to a second term as president, “which is, to put it mildly, not what I was personally hoping would happen. And honestly, in Trump’s victory speech, he couldn’t seem to believe it either.”

Oliver played a clip from Trump’s characteristically rambling victory speech, in which he boasted: “We overcame obstacles that nobody thought possible, and it is now clear that we’ve achieved the most incredible political thing … Look what happened. Is this crazy?”

“Yeah, it is crazy,” Oliver answered. “It’s really fucking crazy. He’s basically one sentence away from saying, ‘I mean, you guys saw what I did, right? And you still voted for this. That doesn’t make any sense.’

“I know being a shambling verbal mess is part of Trump’s brand,” he added, “but it is still incredible to see an incoming president ad-lib a victory speech with the same energy as the best man who didn’t realize he had to give a toast.”

Oliver then looked into the blame game entertained by those disappointed by Kamala Harris’s loss. “People are pointing the finger in all directions, from Latino voters to young men to Joe Rogan,” he said. “You can basically play your own ‘wheel of blame’ and generally make sure it lands on whoever you were mad at in the first place. And I’ll be honest, I get the appeal. It is fun to blame people. Trump was literally just elected president again on a platform of doing exactly that.”

Oliver jokingly blamed the election on Katy Perry, citing her performance at Harris’s final rally on the eve of election day, where she covered Whitney Houston’s 1986 classic The Greatest Love of All.

“Why would you try to cover Whitney Houston?!” he exclaimed, referring to the rendition as a “drunk bachelorette karaoke night performance”.

Others have attributed Trump’s victory to inflation and frustration with the cost of living, even as macro indicators point to a strong economy. “It is not news that Trump’s overt white supremacy and misogyny appeal to many of his voters,” said Oliver. “It’s also not news that many like to hide that by claiming all they’re really worried about is the economy. But clearly for others, there is a willful denial going on about him. Because Trump lies so constantly, people have a sense that you can pick and choose what things he actually believes and create a version of him that suits you. And that can be the case even when his intentions are very clear.”

The host then looked ahead to Trump’s second term, starting with a chart of potential Trump administration appointees that “looks like a choose your fighter screen where the only thing they’re fighting is the arc of the moral universe. It looks like an advent calendar where every circle opens up to a tiny piece of literal shit. It looks like a game board for Guess Who? Oops, all assholes.

“If you are watching this right now and thinking, ‘You know what, I’m not actually ready for this either,’ I totally get it,” he said. “It is understandable not to want yet another guy in a suit doom-squawking at you. So if you are too angry, depressed or worried to watch the rest of this show, no problem. I have been in each of those places this week, and they are all a correct reaction because, look, we did a show like this after the election in 2016 when no one expected Trump to win.

“This time, though, his winning felt like a real possibility all year long, lots of people mobilized to stop it, but it happened anyway, which feels somehow worse,” he continued.

Trump will be sworn back into office on 20 January, and “that is very depressing”, said Oliver. “So what do the rest of us do next? Well, for the next few days, I’d say whatever you want. I am not gonna judge you for how you get through the next week.

“There is no right reaction right now,” he added. “Lots of us are grieving and grief has stages. We take different amounts of time for different people. The stage I’m currently locked in is anger. I am mad for trans people who’ve been threatened. I’m disgusted at the prospect of mass deportation. I’m furious at Biden for not dropping out earlier, and that the egos and inaction of two men older than credit cards themselves have led us to this point. I’m mad that women have to hear ‘your body, my choice’ from rightwing dipshits.

“I’m mad that Elon Musk is apparently sitting in on meetings with the president of Ukraine,” he continued. “I’m mad about the myriad of damage Trump will do that cannot easily be undone, like setting back efforts to fight climate change and appointing more supreme court justices. And I’m mad at the prospect of four more years of people saying, ‘So is your job like so much easier with Trump as president?’ No, it is not! No, it fucking isn’t! Fuck you so much!

“So whether you’re angry right now, or despairing, or Googling ‘new country no fascists how move’, do what you’ve gotta do. But try not to completely obliterate yourself in despair,” he concluded. “Despair doesn’t help anything. If anything, it makes things worse.” Oliver did not encourage false hope, but instead counting the small victories to avoid burning out – such as Delaware’s election of the first openly trans member to the US House, or the rollback of abortion bans in several states and indicators that “Democratic policies are still popular even in a year that their candidate wasn’t”.

“You might well be exhausted, confused, scared and running on fucking fumes right now,” he added. “Which is fucking understandable, but you might be surprised just how far you can still get even on fumes.”