Last weekend, NBC’s Saturday Night Live provided us with their satirical take on Thursday’s two presidential town hall events and, once again, displayed that its producers are allowing their political biases to kill the show’s comedic potential.
Jim Carrey played Democratic nominee Joe Biden, and Alec Baldwin returned to play his increasingly unwatchable President Donald Trump.
Before continuing, there are a few obvious issues we should point out up front. SNL is now objectively unfunny and the quality of cast members is equally weak, with only a handful of players consistently demonstrating real comedic talent. Alec Baldwin’s impression of Donald Trump, meanwhile, may tickle the fancies of those who have already succumbed to Trump Derangement Syndrome, but for the rest of us, slapping on orange face paint, scrunching your face up, and waving your hands around does not a “master Trump impressionist” make.
However, there is a far deeper concern which often goes unnoticed. After first viewing the “Dueling Town Halls” skit — which, like every SNL joke, is about 9 minutes too long — it seems like SNL made fun of both candidates, offering some form of refreshing objectivity. Such supposed fairness rapidly disintegrates when we look through the forced laughter and compare the show’s handling of the two figures.
When Carrey’s Biden entered, they carefully poked fun by implying that he’s a little old and confused, that he panders to younger voters, and that the questions he faced were “softball questions from folks who are already voting for him.” Ultimately, the hardest jab thrown by the SNL writers against Biden was that he often evades direct questions regarding his vaunted “plans.”
Then SNL switched over to Baldwin’s apparent Donald Trump impression. Kate McKinnon, impersonating “moderator” Savannah Guthrie, described herself as a “surprise badass” before introducing Baldwin. The first jokes against Trump involved Baldwin saying “it’s great to be here, even though — woman,” that he has “always more-or-less condemned white supremacy,” and finally “if anyone’s against pedophiles, it’s me, the man who was close personal friends with one of the most famous pedophiles on earth. Rest in power, Jeffrey.” The same logic doesn’t apply to actual friends of Epstein like the Clintons, of course. Then McKinnon went on to ask about the Aryan Brotherhood and the KKK, to which SNL’s writers provided us with more lukewarm hilarity.
As the sketch continued, they poked fun momentarily at Biden for telling rambling stories, and then moved back to Trump to show that he hates Hispanics, won’t release his taxes because he doesn’t want to go to jail, and that a black woman agreeing with the president is some “spooky ass Jordan Peele nonsense.” They briefly cut back to Biden as he donned a red cardigan to mimic Mr. Rogers; then back to Trump being knocked out with a chair; and then back to Biden imitating Bob Ross.
Then came their final statements. Biden promised to have one scandal, and Trump asked Americans whether they were better off than they were four years ago, to which a lazy animation of the United States screamed “no” — ignoring the inconvenient fact that a recent poll showed that the majority of Americans say they are better off under Trump.
Feel free to take a moment to sew your sides together which have no doubt split, and let’s compare how the comedic geniuses at SNL presented the two candidates. Biden is a little old, a little confused, but ultimately loving and harmless. Trump is a sexist, white supremacist pedophile who hates Hispanics, has committed tax fraud, and whose black supporters are under the control of insidious white people. Notice a difference?
The immeasurable disparity between the two candidates’ treatment becomes even more shocking when we notice the multiple topics SNL decided to ignore. No jokes about Hunter Biden’s emails? No jokes about Biden saying overtly racist things? No jokes about his clear intention to pack the Supreme Court? How odd.
Unfortunately, comedy for the Left isn’t about making people laugh anymore. It’s about forcing through a political agenda beneath a facade of comedy. As Joe Biden often says, “it’s not a joke,” and certainly not a funny one.
Ian Haworth is host of The Ian Haworth Show and The Truth in 60 Seconds. Follow him on Twitter at @ighaworth.
The views expressed in this opinion piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.