By Marcus Granderson
On Tuesday, November 15, the Institute of Politics had the distinct honor of welcoming comedian, political commentator, actor, and former host of The Nightly Show, Larry Wilmore, to the John F. Kennedy Forum. Wilmore was invited to the Forum to give the Theodore H. White Lecture on Press and Politics. However, his address to the packed Forum on a late Tuesday afternoon was not your normal lecture.
In the spirt of the unconventional 2016 election, Wilmore decided to do something unconventional himself. Rather than give the traditional lecture one would expect, Larry Wilmore decided to interview one of America’s most poignant, comedian-turned-political-critics instead. Larry Wilmore decided to interview himself. Check out the top five highlights from Larry Wilmore’s interview with Larry Wilmore below:
- Larry Wilmore: “Do you think it [the 2016 election] was a Trump win or a Hillary loss?”
Larry Wilmore: “It’s a little bit of both….When you look at what America likes to do…America is very superficial, by the way. We like new stuff. We like shiny stuff. Trump’s kind of the new candidate. Okay, that kind of makes sense. Now, let’s look at their messaging. I was not crazy about Hillary’s messaging. I understood Trump’s. I didn’t agree with Trump’s, ‘Make America Great Again,’ but people understood that; that connected. Like if you ask somebody, ‘Why are you voting for Trump?,’ [they will say], ‘Well, he’s going to make America great again.’ Okay. If you ask them why their voting for Hillary… ‘I’m with her?’… ‘Yeah, but what is she going to do?’…‘Stronger together?’…To me, I don’t think it connected the same way that ‘Make America Great Again’ [did]. Also, it felt like…Look, Hillary had a lot of passionate people following her, but it felt like the passion behind Donald Trump was more intense.”
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Larry Wilmore: “Do you think it didn’t quite resonate with people? You know, having the first women president?”
Larry Wilmore: “I think it did with a lot of people. But, you know, a lot people compare that to the black vote, but it is very different, because the black electorate… You know, we are 95%, 99% Democratic…I think the “gender electorate”, if you will (and to use a clumsy term), is a little more complex. You know, I think people vote more ideologically than they do on those lines, whether we believe that or not. I think people really do. People say, ‘Yeah but people voted for Obama because he was black.’ Yeah, but he was also a Democrat. If Obama was a Republican, or if it was Colin Powell, there’d be a lot of cognitive dissonance at the barbershops around the country; it would be on such clean lines. I think he’d still get a lot of support, but I don’t know if it would be as clean.”
- Larry Wilmore: “Did the Bernie Sanders candidacy help or hurt the Clinton campaign?”
Larry Wilmore: “First of all, I wish people would leave Bernie alone. Bernie Sanders did more to energize, and I think clarify, some of the positions that I think were very important positons to, probably, the future of the Democratic Party. I’m one of those people that believes these parties may splinter and fracture. The Democratic Party may become two parties. It may become the Progressive Party and the Liberal Party maybe. The Conservative [Republican] Party may become like the Conservative Party and the Centrist Party, or something like that…But the issues that Bernie Sanders brought up I thought were very important issues, and it kind of exposed a lot of the fissures in the Democratic Party. And I think it exposed a lot of the blind spots, more than anything else. And it’s interesting that some of those blind spots I think Trump took advantage of, especially in the area of the lost middle class and people feeling like the government wasn’t there for them at all….So, I don’t think he hurt the Clinton run. I think, if anything, he energized a lot of people who probably weren’t even excited.”
- Larry Wilmore: “Some say the media helped normalize Trump. Do you agree with that?”
Larry Wilmore: “Well, I’m not sure about “normalize.” But, certainty, there was a lot of sensationalizing of Trump. Yeah, a lot of that concerned me in the beginning. But, you know what, like I said, so much, I think, of this type of stuff is so superficial anyway. It probably got more people interested in the election…Look, the media did not elect Donald Trump. Let’s be clear about that. We should not be blaming the media for what just happened. What just happened was not, in my mind, a primarily negative thing. What happened was people were doing something they thought was positive…Some people voted against the other candidate… But I don’t think the negative vote voted Donald Trump in, like votes against Hillary. I really do think it was positive votes for Donald Trump that voted him in.”
- Larry Wilmore: “Larry, are you on the side of those that are hopeful with giving Donald Trump a chance or are you on the side of the protestors—people that are marching the streets?”
Larry Wilmore: “Let me put it like this: I understand why people are angry right now; [those] who feel not just that they lost, but that something is put in there that is unacceptable. And I think that’s a different emotion than something that is lost….And it was Donald Trump’s own words that did that… He’s the one who said he wanted to ban all Muslims. If you’re a Muslim, you feel like you’re being attacked. If you’re one of those people who he said he wanted to deport, you feel like there’s a target on you. If you’re a woman who had to make the tough choice in reproductive rights and he said he wants to put you in jail, you don’t take that kind of information lightly. I understand the anger that comes. And I have no problem with letting feelings get out and letting anger express itself. Anybody that’s been in marriage counseling knows that that’s important.”