The Bigotry of John Oliver: Exposing the Left Liberals' Hollow Method of Reasoning

Introduction

A disclaimer first, I used to be a fan of John Oliver and his show Last Week Tonight. This was when he was bashing Fox News Channel, Republicans, and other conservative opinions as part of his blanket bashing of 'right wing. I was frankly unaware of conservative opinions in the United States. As an immigrant, I had picked up the American political context from whatever limited exposure I had; which was primarily driven by left-liberal ideologues. And it was fun to watch continuously streamed videos of Jon Stewart where he will poke fun at Fox News with cleverly presented arguments. So my opinions were incomplete and unknowingly prejudiced.

However, a world cannot function on such broad and incomplete opinions. Was I left liberal who had a reckoning? I don't think I can say that, as I don't even know if I was or still am a left-liberal or right-wing. As personalities cannot be broad-brushed by placing them in a convenient basked of left, center, or right. 

For example, NYT, WaPo, and other American media organizations always begin their op-ed with 'Right-wing Hindu Nationalist government. Now if one were to ask is this really reporting or its intentionally leading the reader down the ideological path the editorial staff of these media organizations wants to propagate. If any neutral editor were to analyze the schemes related to the minority affairs ministry in the government of India then this demonizing of the current political dispensation will be useless but criticism based on reality and on a case-to-case basis, not a sweeping judgment.

Case 1: John Oliver on India's Citizenship Amendment Act, 2019

Now let's look at John Oliver's routine on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government's Citizenship Amendment Act. And I quote his Season 7 Episode 2, "Modi's government also introduced the Citizenship Amendment Bill, CAB, which granted citizenship to undocumented people if they were from any religious minority but Muslims." This is after he has already built up Narendra Modi as a Hindu nationalist and a right-wing. And then comes the lies and misleading narrative. The leading newspapers and Home Minister himself have clarified on such misconceptions numerous times but John Oliver & his team continue to propagate the lies. And subsequent arguments by him are based on a false foundation so discussing them individually is a futile exercise.

The strategy used here is demonize Modi, impose unsubstantiated craziness with   and then use a divisiveness to "cancel" any further discussion.

Case 2: John Oliver on Critical Race Theory

It's an equally controversial topic where there are misconceptions galore. I personally don't have an opinion as I'm not read well enough on this, so I do have homework here. But the surreptitious duplicity is evident in Season 9 Episode 1 when he covers this theory. And I quote,

"And what Rufo has been cleverly doing is cherry-picking the worst examples he can find of lessons in classrooms or training materials for teachers, and saying, “that is CRT.” The goal is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘Critical Race Theory.'

And the thing is, it fucking worked. Because whenever you hear “CRT” now, you are not hearing about the academic discipline. You’re hearing about a category so broad it encompasses both “the craziest thing in the newspaper” and also, crucially, “any conversation about race that someone does not want to have."

John Oliver gives enough leeway to CRT to ensure the true crux of the serious matter can be separated from all the noise surrounding it. He admits that just talking about CRT in a general sense broadly encompasses the truth and the lies. 

Conclusion

Everyone has a right to an opinion and this is enshrined in the flawed right to free speech; intentionally calling it flawed because so-called 'blasphemy' can easily trample such right by use of might and violence. The "toolkit" of left-liberal ideologues is quite simple and effective:

• Demonize the leading voices of opposition, using half-baked research that is driven by conspiracies and incomplete narratives
• Secondly, enwrap the entire opposition in a blanket of "crazy" using fringe examples

This is evident in the Modi episode. Firstly Narendra Modi was demonized for the Gujarat riots of 2002 with no mention of a trigger event or the fact Supreme Court of India didn't find any wrongdoing on Modi's part. And then enshrouding Citizenship Amendment Act in a blanket of crazy conspiracies with lazy research that didn't even delve into the fact that the current opposition party promulgated something similar way back in 2003! And that document is still available in the public domain here.

It's up to us to look at and analyze all sides before jumping to conclusions like John Oliver.