Hasan Minhaj Looks at the Trump Administration’s Assault on Civil Rights

If you’ve paid any attention to the Trump administration, you probably know the drill. Many (maybe even most) of his appointments seem dedicated to destroying the department they’re put in charge of. From Betsy DeVos at Education to any of the energy lobbyists who’ve headed up the Environmental Protection Agency, Trump isn’t even trying to hide that much of his cabinet basically exists to reinforce business or personal interests over what would be best for America. It’s a natural extension of the right-wing’s obsession with shuttering departments they don’t believe in—if you don’t have the power to make them go away, the least you can do is try to kill them from within.

On the latest episode of Patriot Act, which went up on Netflix yesterday, Hasan Minhaj looks at how that kind of willful neglect, when mixed with outright hostility, has impacted civil rights in America. No surprise: it’s not a particular uplifting or encouraging segment. Minhaj closely examines the official Republican policy of, as he puts it, “not doing shit” in relation to the protections and oversight enacted to level the playing field for traditionally disadvantaged populations, from the Justice Department’s abrupt about-face on voting laws, to how Heath and Human Services’ Civil Rights Director, Roger Severino, seems focused exclusively on limiting trans rights. It’s one of the many serious and dismaying issues that have arisen from the Trump administration that aren’t getting the attention they deserve because of all the other stressful and absurd nonsense they’re constantly trying to perpetrate upon the world. There’s also a pretty good Ryan Adams burn a few minutes in, too. Check it out below and find the whole episode on Netflix.