At Least The Roots Stood Up to Donald Trump on Fallon Last Night

Somebody had to.
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(Photo by: Mark Seliger/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

You've probably seen by now that Donald Trump was on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon last night. It was an embarrassing, fawning "interview" from Fallon. It felt like watching a dictator be "fun" on state-run TV. The whole thing was very "Look at Kim Jong-Un not kill that man for touching his hair!" and Fallon seemed more than happy to be a part of it. Now, I know you're no journalist, Jimmy, but is it asking too much for you to not lend your platform to enabling and normalizing a racist demagogue? Thankfully, not everyone involved with The Tonight Show was ready to fellate the melting candle that conned his way to a major party nomination.

When Trump came out, The Roots, who were conspicuously never shown during any of the Trump segments (neither while playing him on nor while playing the show off to commercial) made an inspired choice for his intro song, which you can see at the beginning of this video:

If you can't tell what it is, they're playing Erykah Badu's "20 Feet Tall." The specific lyrics of the section they played:

"Then you, you built a wall
A 20 foot wall, so I couldn't see
But if I get off my knees..."

Huh, that seems like a conspicuously incomplete phrase to me. I wonder how it finishes:

"Then you, you built a wall
A 20 foot wall, so I couldn't see
But if I get off my knees
I might recall I'm 20 feet tall."

Look, could I be reading too much into this? Sure. But one, we know The Roots have used these intro songs to make statements before. And two, on a night where Donald Trump got the most kid gloves treatment imaginable, it doesn't feel like an accident for The Roots to play a song that subtly reminds people both that this is a maniac who wants to build a wall on our southern border, and that if we want to we can overcome his bullshit. All we have to do is stand up.