HBO’s United Kingdom-born left-wing late-night host John Oliver is in full meltdown mode over the GOP’s push to confirm judge Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court ahead of the election, calling it “a fucking travesty.”
“Trump is about to replace a liberal icon with an extremely conservative justice, who’s been called ‘the female Antonin Scalia,’ and she could serve for a long time,” said Oliver in the latest episode of Last Week Tonight. “Amy Coney Barrett is only 48 — trust me, that is young for a Supreme Court justice. If, and almost certainly when Barrett is confirmed to the Supreme Court, the impact could be dire.”
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Oliver went on to claim that the system is “rigged,” but that Democrats might still be able to take power.
“Let’s say for the sake of argument Democrats do manage to sweep the upcoming election,” he said. “The biggest mistake will be to think that that has in itself fixed everything or, indeed, anything, because there is no point getting power unless you then willing to be bold enough to use it to make significant structural change.”
The Comedy Central alum then suggested that the Democrats abolish or bypass the Electoral College, expand the Supreme Court, make Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico states, and abolish the filibuster if they truly want to make change.
“The unavoidable truth here is that the system is already rigged,” said Oliver. “And it’s rigged in a way that has allowed a party without popular support to drastically reshape an entire branch of government for the foreseeable future by appealing almost exclusively to white voters in some of the least populous regions of the country. That is not a mandate and it’s not democracy, it’s a fucking travesty.”
“This has been a very dark week for a lot of people,” Oliver insisted. “The Supreme Court is about to lurch to the right for the foreseeable future. And if things seem hopeless right now it’s because, to be completely honest, they basically are.”
“This is a pivotal moment, and while we got here a little bit by bad luck and bad timing, we also got here through diligent effort by Republican leadership and, crucially, some very big systemic problems that just have to be addressed,” he added.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett was nominated by President Donald Trump on Saturday to fill the seat once belonging to the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The Senate is expected to bring the confirmation to a vote before the 2020 election, which has the Democrats in an uproar.
Oliver’s rants comes as high-ranking Democratic senators are attacking Judge Barrett over her religion and left-wing media pundits like Al Sharpton smearing Barrett because she adopted two children from Haiti.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, on Parler at @alana, and on Instagram.
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