Trevor Noah of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” invited Tomi Lahren from “The Blaze” on Wednesday night’s episode.
The two have been the internet faces of two streams of ideology: the liberal and the conservative, respectively. With most of their political commentary shared widely on social media, these two personalities have been the founts from which most citizens get dialogues of today’s current issues.
discuss the political views she has been broadcasting over the course of the year. What ensued was a barrage of clear-cut questions from Noah and a spider’s web of explanation from Lahren.
Admittedly, both shows favor a certain flavor of politics.
For the past year, these two have differed on issues like the Black Lives Matter movement, Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling and the rampage that was Trump’s campaign. However, they both share a fact that their audiences have never met the others.
Here’s the boiled down conversation between the two.
In “Daily Show” fashion, Noah slipped an under-the-radar jab at one of Lahren’s common conceptions: that she is racist. “I’m in the Lion’s Den, Trevor,” Lahren said as she took her seat. Noah chews on it before replying, “Oh I’m not a lion at all. Is that like an African thing?”
“Before we get into it, I know who you are because my Facebook feed has you in it, but there are a lot of people who don’t, ” Noah said.
Noah then rolls a clip of one of Lahren’s segments in which she voices her first amendment rights, as she continues to point out when criticized for it, on the Black Lives Matter movement. “They’re not protesters, they’re cry-babies with nothing better to do than meander around the streets with their participation trophies and false sense of purpose,” Lahren said.
To begin the debate, Noah asks why Lahren is so angry. “I’m not angry,” Lahren said. “There things that need to be said, sometimes people need to be called on their shit.”
She continues saying that it’s time to accept reality from a fair and free election and that it’s time to move on. She ends the response with “it’s time to make America great again.”
Much of Lahren’s criticism revolves are the insistence that she is racist. Noah allowed her to defend herself. By this point during the interview, it’s apparent that Noah’s questions are going to remain straight and simple in order to allow Lahren the utmost freedom to answer as she desires.
Noah asks Lahren, “What is your biggest issue with Black Lives Matter?”
Lahren’s issue with the movement is their good intentions transformed into riots, looting and violent chants such as “fry them like bacon” and “hands up, don’t shoot.” To Lahren, the movement has become militant and is not protesting the right way.
Noah counters saying the actions of a few people does not represent the movement. “That’s not a Black Lives Matter phenomenon,” Noah said. “That’s what happens when there is a protest. People were rioting when teams won in Chicago.”
Lahren doesn’t see it that way, however. Her response was that because those individuals said they were doing it in the name of Black Lives Matter it was Black Lives Matter. “They subscribe to the movement,” Lahren said. “They say ‘we are the Black Lives Matter movement.’”
Noah bends Lahren’s “individual represents the whole” thinking away from Black Lives Matter and toward Donald Trump. “You’re the same person who argued on your show that just because Donald Trump has supporters from the KKK doesn’t mean he’s in the KKK.”
Leaving that aside, Lahren insists that she is only exercising her first amendment right to criticize Colin Kaepernick, who kneels during the national anthem, and his first amendment right, regardless if he’s black. “I don’t see color,” Lahren said.
“I wonder what you do at a traffic light,” said Noah. “There’s nothing wrong with seeing color, but how you treat that color that’s more important.”
After pulling through Lahren’s comment that the Black Lives Matter movement is the new KKK, Noah asks a final, straightforward question. If Kaepernick’s kneeling is a wrong way of protesting, what is the right way to protest as a black person in America?
The question comes simply. Up until this point, Lahren has criticized Kaepernick and the Black Lives Matter movement, but has failed to provide, as our high school counsellors called it, constructive criticism. That’s all Noah asks. If there are people getting shot in the street, either in jeans or uniform and we have these problems in our country, instead of scathing criticism, what can this group of people do to be heard?
“Why would you take out your perceived perception of oppression of black people out on the national anthem and our flag, a country that you live in, a country that you benefit from, a country that people of all races have died for… how do you then go and disrespect the flag and anthem of that country?”
After a grand speech on why the flag and the anthem should not be disrespected, Noah attempts to describe those symbols in another perspective, a perspective from someone who served alongside other soldiers in the same wars and did not receive any rights afterward (i.e. the thousands of African Americans, Native Americans, Chinese, Polish and even Irish soldiers).
Noah asks the question again. “How should a black person bring up their grievances?”
Lahren brings up the honor that the flag and anthem should be given, but does not give another option. Instead, Lahren throws some of the oppression on herself (the same oppression she said was perceived) into being a woman. “I don’t protest my country,” Lahren said. “I don’t protest because I’m not a victim.”
Because she is not a victim, because she is not being ignored by the government, has clean water, whose culture is not endangered, isn’t dying of hunger or diease, because she doesn’t feel terrified when a cop pulls her over and arrests her for a misdemeanor (on the flipside doesn’t feel terrified that she might put on a uniform as usual and get killed by association), she doesn’t protest.
Seems like a good spot to be in at the end of 2016.
