Trevor Noah
In recent months, some school districts have announced plans to use the New York Times’s 1619 project curriculum, a spinoff of the special magazine issue to teach American history’s inextricable ties to the institution of slavery. But “there’s one US senator who is objecting in the strongest, but also possibly stupidest terms,” said Trevor Noah on Monday’s Daily Show.
That would be Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, who over the weekend appeared to agree with the founding fathers that slavery was a “necessary evil upon which the union was built”. Cotton also called to defund the planned 1619 curriculum, which he dismissed as “racially divisive”.
Sen. Tom Cotton thinks learning about slavery in America through The 1619 Project is too racially divisive. You know what’s really racially divisive? Slavery. pic.twitter.com/ZDKxqn7AZJ
— The Daily Show (@TheDailyShow) July 28, 2020
“Hold up, hold up,” Noah said. “So, Senator Cotton thinks this curriculum is racially divisive? This curriculum? Yo, you know what’s really racially divisive? Slavery.”
“This guy thinks racial division doesn’t exist until slavery gets taught in school,” Noah continued, noting that even if he chose to believe that Cotton was just quoting the founding fathers and not actually “defending slavery” – which is “just not something a US senator should do, even if his name is Cotton” – the senator was still speaking nonsense.
“If you dig deeper and you take Cotton at his word, he believes that the United States could not have become the country that it is without slavery,” Noah explained. “Well, that’s the same thing that the 1619 Project says, so why is he fighting them?”
If Cotton had that strong an opposition to a clear-eyed look at the legacy of slavery in America, Noah concluded, the Daily Show had just the solution: a faux-lesson plan called the “Tom Cotton Lesson Plan for Slavery – the only lesson plan that teaches slavery without mentioning race”.
Seth Meyers
With just 99 days until the presidential election, Trump’s poll numbers are flagging, said Seth Meyers on Late Night, perhaps attributable to the fact that “we’ve got an out-of-control pandemic, the worst unemployment in nearly a century, an epidemic of racist police brutality, and a looming eviction crisis. But don’t worry, the Trump administration will protect your cartoons and your toys.”
Meyers referred to comments last Friday by the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, who complained on behalf of the president about “cancel culture” and decried the cancellation of the children’s police cartoon Paw Patrol and Lego police sets.
“This is where the Trump administration and the Republican party are at: whining about cartoons and Legos while sending secret police to gas moms and vets and arguing that slavery was a ‘necessary evil’ – a sitting United States senator said that,” he continued, referencing Senator Tom Cotton’s apparent defense of the founding fathers’ view on slavery. “At least, I think Tom Cotton is a senator … he looks like the Confederate Slender man.”
“Seriously, these guys just keep coming up with winners,” Meyers added. “I mean, what’s next? Is Trump going to say something nice about an alleged sex trafficker and predator who was arrested by the FBI at a remote … oh yeah, right. They really think Americans care about Paw Patrol and Legos,” he said.
“I guess they think if you’re quarantining at home to avoid the deadly virus they failed to stop, you’ll need something to keep you entertained,” Meyers concluded, noting “the craziest part” is that neither Paw Patrol nor Lego police sets were, in fact, canceled – a point clarified by Paw Patrol’s official Twitter account.
“So, the Trump administration got factchecked by a children’s cartoon,” Meyers said, “and at this point, it’s not long before Arthur shows up to a protest with a sign that says ‘Fuck Trump.’”
Jimmy Fallon
And on the Tonight Show, Jimmy Fallon celebrated just double-digit days until the presidential election in November. ”That’s right, we are just 99 days away from election, and just 100 days away from President Trump declaring the results invalid,” he joked. “Yep, just 99 days or as one man put it,” he added, breaking out a Russian accent: ‘So much hacking, so little time.’”
“Trump thinks 99 days is plenty of time to get his campaign in shape. He’s like someone looking in the mirror in June, going, ‘I’ve still got time for swimsuit season.’ Ninety-nine days, that’s like an entire baseball season, plus 96 days.”
Speaking of baseball, despite an invitation from the Yankees, “Trump won’t be throwing out the first pitch, although thanks to his handling of the pandemic, he might be able to throw out the last pitch of the season – tomorrow,” Fallon joked. “I wish Trump didn’t cancel, mostly because I wanted to see him slowly walk down the pitcher’s mound.”
