At last, John Oliver dissects Trump’s dangerous kind of craziness (video)

I have to admit to a certain amount of hypocrisy about Donald Trump. For months, I have complained on social media that Trump receives far too much air time (which amounts to free publicity for his disingenuous racist views and thus for his presidential campaign) while regularly posting clips and articles about him on my blog.

It really is time for the media to recognise the crucial role they have played & continue to do so in the rise of @realDonaldTrump #c4news
— I Am Incorrigible (@ImIncorrigible) February 24, 2016

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not deluding myself that his appearances on my tiny corner of the internet amount to any meaningful publicity for his campaign but it says something about the way his virulent form of political self-promotion has infected political discourse that even in my house, Trump cannot be ignored.

That said what you’re about to see is the full-blown take-down of the Donald Trump myth that many of us have expected for the last nine months or so. John Oliver spends 22 minutes in the most fulsome critique of Trump you are likely to have seen, and it is both brilliant and terrifying. Oliver examined the reasons people say they support Trump and then set those reasons against the facts to damning effect.

“He tells it like it is“: “Does he? Because the website PolitiFact checked 77 of his statements, and rated 76 percent of them as varying degrees of false.”

“He is truly independent and not beholden to anyone“: “While it is true that he hasn’t taken corporate money, the implication that he has personally spent $20 to $25 million is a bit of a stretch, because what he’s actually done is loaned his own campaign $17.5 million and has just personally given just $250,000. And that’s important, because up until the convention he can pay himself back for the loan with campaign funds.”

“He’s tough“: “For a tough guy, he has incredibly thin skin. Back in 1988, Spy magazine called him a short-fingered vulgarian. And ever since, the editor Graydon Carter says he receives envelopes from Trump, always with a photo on which he circled his hand to highlight the length of his fingers, usually with a note reading, ‘See, not so short!'”

“His success“: “While yes, he has made more money than most of us will make in a lifetime, not only did he get a multimillion-dollar inheritance from his father, but he’s also lost a huge amount.” Oliver then played a clip of Trump’s daughter saying, “I remember once my father and I were walking down Fifth Avenue and there was a homeless person sitting right outside of Trump Tower. And I remember my father pointing to him and saying, ‘You know, that guy has $8 billion more than me.’ Because he was in such extreme debt at that point.”

Oliver also noted one other issue with Trump: He’s wildly inconsistent. “He’s been pro-choice and pro-life, for and against assault weapon bans, in favor of both bringing in Syrian refugees and deporting them out of the country.”

Or take Trump’s inconsistent statements on former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke‘s endorsement of Trump. To CNN, Trump said, “I don’t know anything about David Duke. Okay? I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists.”

Oliver was not having it, pointing to Trump’s past remarks to journalists: “Really? That’s your best answer there? Because you definitely know who he is — partly because you called him ‘a bigot’ and ‘a racist’ in the past.”

Vox.com John Oliver has the Donald Trump takedown America has been waiting for