"A Klan-backed misogynist internet troll is going to be delivering the next State Of The Union address. This is not normal. It is f---ed up."
Viewers had been waiting a near-week for John Oliver – the satirical heir apparent to the Daily Show's much-beloved Jon Stewart – to lay into last Wednesday's shock US election result, and, well, he didn't disappoint.
In a fiery, 20-odd minute attack on the season finale of Last Week Tonight (an episode that ended with Oliver leading an all-star 'f--- you' to 2016, a "truly horrible year"), the British host ripped into the prospect of Trump's America and the forces that allowed it to happen.
"We are faced with the same question as a guy that woke up the day after a Vegas bachelor party, deep in the desert, naked, tied to a cactus and a dead clown," he said.
"Namely, how the f--- did we get here, and what the f--- do we do now?".
Among Oliver's targets were the media's obnoxious voices of calm, those talking heads urging protesters to at least "give Donald Trump a chance", despite the alarming platform he swept into office on.
"Stop, stop! It sounds like you're reading a to-do list on Satan's refrigerator!", he screamed, interrupting a voiceover listing Trump's policies, from repealing Obamacare to deporting 11 million illegal immigrants (including children).
Much of the hopeful rhetoric in recent days has centred on Trump's apparent split personality: his sobered hunch at the White House with Obama ("Trump got sonned. He looked shook," as Dave Chappelle put it on SNL yesterday); his reasonable demeanour during last night's 60 Minutes interview, contrasting highly with the outrageous bloviator from the campaign trail.
"That leaves us with two devastating options," Oliver said.
"Either we just elected a president who didn't mean a single word he said, or we elected one who did. It's impossible to know which one.
"Trump is like a Magic 8 ball: every time you shake him, he gives you a different answer."
Laying into Trump's promise to "drain the swamp" – his term for clearing the White House of Washington insiders and corrupt politicos – Oliver took aim at the pres-elect's "horrifying" transition team, an ultra-conservative who's who that makes that viral sketch of Trump leading a super-villain convention seem comparatively tame.
There's Ken Blackwell, an Ohio politician who believes homosexuality is a choice; Myron Ebell, a climate change denier slated to head the Environmental Protection Agency; and Trump's Vice President Mike Pence, "who looks like he's from the 1950s, but thinks like he's from the 1650s," said Oliver.
Here's tonight's full show about President-Elect Trump and why we can't allow this to feel normal. https://t.co/SVYDj50GFu— Last Week Tonight (@LastWeekTonight) November 14, 2016
The host also saved a sharp jab for the media, asking how "a system that is supposed to catch a serial liar failed".
He singled out CNN's much-criticised decision to run Trump's campaign speeches in their entirety, and the social media echo chamber that promotes "microtargeted news" and "fake facts" that confirm our own biases.
"Weird conspiracy bullshit has always been bubbling under the surface, but Trump was the first candidate to harness and fully legitimise it," said Oliver.
Despite his incredulity, Oliver closed with a call to arms, a plea to angry Americans to forego their Canadian immigration plans and instead "stay and fight" and donate to those groups most threatened by Trump's America : Planned Parenthood for women's reproductive rights, The Trevor Project for LGBTI rights, the International Refugee Assistance Project, for example.
"For the last eight years, we had a president who we could generally assume would stand up for the rights of all Americans.
"But that is going to change now, so we have to actively stand up for one another," Oliver said.
"Keep reminding yourself: This is not normal."
