During last night’s Last Week Tonight, John Oliver dedicated the entire show to the hearings for Supreme Court nominee and “walking crushed beer can†Brett Kavanaugh. “Why? Why this particular asshole? Why is he the hill the conservatives are willing to die on?†Oliver asked, pointing out that while the Republicans’ goal with the nominee is obviously to overturn Roe v. Wade, they could work toward accomplishing that with literally any other nominee they choose.
“So it’s fine to appoint someone who has committed sexual assault to the Supreme Court as long as they will curtail abortion rights. It’s a stance that prioritizes human lives, as long as you think life begins at conception, stops right before a sexual assault, and then starts right back up again as soon as that assault is over,†Oliver says. “It feels like they’re doing this just to deliver a fuck you to Democrats, and even more directly, a fuck you to women. Because when this week began, the biggest fear for many was that the committee would not believe Christine Blasey Ford. But by the time the week ended, it seemed that something darker might have happened. Because it seemed their response was ‘Oh, we believe you, we just don’t care.’â€
If all of this sounds too incredibly depressing, Oliver points out at the end that only continued pressure has a small chance of stopping Kavanaugh’s nomination — but if that fails, Last Week Tonight already has a nonhuman creature picked out to join its all-animal Supreme Court should Kavanaugh make it through. It’s probably not a good enough joke to make everything in this segment feel less hopeless, but then again, that goes for most jokes about it.