Finding ideologues at a political convention isn’t exactly as difficult as hunting exotic animals, but Samantha Bee and her crew did pretty well for themselves at the Republican National Convention, as this clip from Full Frontal With Samantha Bee shows. After a brief recap of flamboyantly racist Republican Rep. Steve King’s most recent flamboyantly racist outburst and the thrilled applause with which the GOP greeted the latest acquittal in the mysterious death of Freddie Gray, Bee’s crew took to the convention floor to ask attendees about the Black Lives Matter movement.
The results were predictably unenthusiastic, but one section stands out in particular. Asked if they could even say the phrase Black Lives Matter, person after person—including a man dressed as Abraham Lincoln—replies, “All lives matter,” with a monotonous delivery that suggests North Korean brainwashing. It’s an “evil organization,” “bordering on domestic terrorism,” that “has no more place in our body politic than the KKK or the skinheads,” according to the attendees. (This checks out: Trump’s base of internet Nazis aren’t technically KKK members or, as far as we know, skinheads—though their anime avatars don’t give a definitive answer either way.) But a few of the attendees seem to be basically people of good faith—the man festooned with the most campaign buttons is willing to go so far as to agree with the statement “Black Lives Matter, Pending Research.” It’s a start.
