John Oliver was left feeling a bit unsatisfied by last week’s “unconventional” virtual Democratic National Convention, which sought to position former Vice President Joe Biden as a humane counter to President Donald Trump and as a candidate willing to hear from the other side of the aisle.
“In terms of tone, the DNC spent the week steering hard toward the middle of the road, because while yes, there were brief appearances from stars like [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] and Stacey Abrams, a lot of time was given to Republicans like Meg Whitman, Colin Powell, and John Kasich, who delivered his remarks standing at a literal crossroads,” Oliver said on Sunday’s episode of Last Week Tonight. “And it’s hard to convince progressive voters you’re a forward-looking party when your convention feels like a Zoom cast reunion—except the show is the 2008 RNC.”
Biden’s history of bipartisan relationships, perhaps most famously his long friendship with John McCain, was frequently referenced during the convention—including in his nomination acceptance speech. “But while I will be a Democratic candidate, I will be an American president,” Biden said. “I will work as hard for those who didn’t support me as I will for those who did. That’s the job of a president. To represent all of us, not just our base or our party. This is not a partisan moment. This must be an American moment.”
While Oliver gave Biden’s speech kudos for “showcasing his warmth and empathy,” the host said out his words often contained a lack of substance and detail. “This will determine what America is going to look like for a long, long time,” Biden said at one point. “Character is on the ballot, compassion is on the ballot, decency, science, democracy. They’re all on the ballot.”
“Okay, now, normally, I’d point out that ‘compassion’ and ‘decency’ are not concrete policy agendas but considering ‘open authoritarianism’ is also on the ballot, sure, what the fuck, adequate versus evil—let’s go,” Oliver joked.
“I’m honestly not saying it’s a mistake for the DNC to spend four days pointing out that Joe Biden’s not Donald Trump. It’s a very attractive quality,” Oliver added. “But, spending so much of their convention underscoring Trump’s unfitness for office may have been redundant given that Trump spent the entire week basically making that case for them, by continuing to sow distrust of voting by mail, calling for a boycott of an American company [Goodyear] that employs over 60,000 workers, and refusing to disavow the QAnon conspiracy theory.”
To underscore his point, Oliver highlighted one of the virtual convention’s viral stars: the Rhode Island chef holding a plate of calamari. When asked by the Washington Post, about his political leanings, that chef, John Bordieri, said he didn’t know much about Biden and wasn’t sure which way he would vote in the November election.
“As much as the DNC’s platform of ‘Biden is not Trump’ should be an overwhelmingly successful strategy, the truth is Trump still has a very real chance at winning re-election,” Oliver noted. “And while your instinctive reaction might be, ‘How can anyone still be undecided?’ the sad fact is, lots of people still are. So I really hope the DNC strategy this week of wooing undecided voters with the star power of John Kasich and Meg Whitman pays off because if the Democrats just spent a week trying to appeal to conservatives who ultimately end up voting Republican then this will actually turn out to be a depressingly conventional convention.”
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