It’s always a little alarming when John Oliver announces that his main Last Week Tonight story will take up the whole episode. Traditionally translated as “There are gonna be jokes but you need to listen to this right now,” this sort of all-show topic serves as an alarm bell. And in Sunday’s main story about the tightening ties of the Republican Party and literal, no-excuses Nazis and white nationalists, Oliver hit the big red button with a thorough examination of just how cosy the GOP has become with the racist lunatic fringe.
For anyone thinking, “What else is new,” Oliver gets it. He mocked the suddenly-horrified old school Republican string-puller and waterboarding enthusiast Karl Rove’s public horror that his beloved “inclusive” Republican Party could ever be associated with open bigotry in their quest for power. (Barry Goldwater and the John Birch Society would like a word.) And Oliver came loaded with examples of naked Nazi rhetoric seeping into official GOP language, avowed white power types currently leading national races, and plenty of non-denial denials from Republican legislators caught wining and dining out-and-proud Nazis like podcaster Nick Fuentes.
You know, like Tucker Carlson, who hosted the “Jews are all psychopaths” edgelord at his antler-strewn podcast cabin lair, and Donald Trump, who hosted a private dinner with Fuentes. (Oliver notes that Trump’s explanation that Fuentes only came as guest of noted “Heil Hitler” rapper Kanye West isn’t the excuse he thinks it is.) Oliver went on to throw his spotlight on current Florida House candidate and Charlottesville marcher Marshall Rawson (shown hobnobbing with the swastika-sporting League of the South), Texas railroad commissioner candidate Bo French (who complained about too many brown people throwing hook ’em horns at a Texas Longhorns game), and ranter Stew Peters, whose unhinged attacks on Jews have seen his podcast visited by three sitting GOP lawmakers, Kari Lake, and FBI director Kash Patel (eight times).
As Oliver notes, the lure of young voters attached, sucker fish-style, to these bigoted loonies has seen “mainstream” Republicans take whatever the opposite of a moral stand is. J.D. Vance called all this “I love Hitler” talk just kid stuff, even though the quote in question was taken from a slur-filled group chat of 20 to 30 year old Young Republicans. Heritage Foundation head Kevin Roberts claimed he didn’t know Fuentes’ Nazi bent when he defended Carlson for platforming him by proclaiming he (boss of the most influential conservative think tank in the country) is more of a sports guy than a news guy. And current up-for-re-election Georgia Congressman Mike Collins won’t come out and condemn the overflow of white nationalist propaganda emanating from the basement of his own house (thanks to his daughter and son-in-law).
Oliver concluded his warning by reminding potential voters that the most pivotal election of our lifetime is coming up in just nine days (eight days as you read this), and that with the old GOP guard (as awful as they are) dying off, the time to nip this next generation of “white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and bigots” in their festering bud is right now.
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