This week on Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, the focus of the episode was on both the Indian elections and the Goldman Sachs scandal in Malaysia. The Indian election was the topic of discussion on volume two, episode one of the show and Minhaj chose to devote part of this episode to it because of Modi’s recent win for a five-year second term. This election is significant because India is the largest democracy in the world. Minhaj also displayed some viewers’ opinions on how he may have swayed the election towards the right wing, which he plays off as insane. He also detailed some of the changes in the lower house of parliament caused by the election- the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) now makes up 56% of the lower house and the Congress Party doesn’t even make up 10% of it. Although Minhaj reviewed what was happening in India quite well, I feel that he’s focusing a little too much on India with the show – he’s devoted three of his episodes to the country. Obviously, he’s from India, so he likely feels a personal connection to discussing the happenings in the nation, and he’s shown viewers how his family encourages him very strongly to make Indian politics in the show’s discussions. I don’t object to that, I just feel he could concentrate less on that particular country.
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After discussing India’s elections, Minhaj transitions to discussing the Goldman Sachs scandal in Malaysia that came about at the end of 2018. I found this topic to be less exciting than what is usually found on the show — it’s a little difficult to follow, and, in my opinion, not that interesting. He wasn’t able to make as many jokes as usual, though he did find room for some comical jabs at the people involved in the problem. This topic definitely needs to be discussed, as Goldman Sachs has been accused of price manipulation, insider trading, gender discrimination, and security fraud, all of which could send their bankers to jail. Additionally, Goldman Sachs never pleads guilty in cases made against them, and if they do that, in this case, it could seriously harm them. Most importantly, their actions are believed to be part of one of the most significant scandals in history. Dan Sparks, former partner and head of the mortgage departments actually stated in 2010, “Regret to me means something that you feel like you did wrong, and I don’t have that”. One of Minhaj’s funnier quotes was when he responded to that quote by saying, “American psycho with an overbite is talking about regret like it’s something they sell at Barney’s. He’s just like, regret. I don’t have that, where do I buy it?”. Clearly, the leaders of Goldman Sachs don’t seem to think they’ve done anything seriously wrong.
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I didn’t dislike this episode of Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj, but I found it less than entertaining compared with his other episodes. However, this could be because the show is not catered to teenagers and this topic is related to large-scale economics, which most young people find difficult to follow because of their lack of experience thus far. However, if someone were to find that area of discussion interesting, I would absolutely recommend they watch the episode. Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj is on Netflix and Youtube and is streamed every Sunday.
Featured Image via What’s on Netflix
