"Saturday Night Live" has always been a staple in political commentary, as well as sharp-witted satire. From Tina Fey's classic line, "I can see Russia from my house," as Sarah Palin to Chevy Chase's impression of President Ford back in the '70s, "SNL" has been the pinnacle of political humor.
It seems, however, that the real life politicians are always three steps ahead of Lorne Michaels, basically writing their skits for them. You look at Hillary Clinton on "Facebook Live" before Ellen DeGeneres, claiming that she'd consider Beyonce as an option for vice president because she listened to "Lemonade" (which everyone should) and she liked it. Similarly, you have Donald Trump getting into a social media fight with the Pope. The Pope, guys. That's setting aside every other candidate, every commercial and every out-of-context quote that could be comedy gold.
I have for you seven of the most poignant examples, though, of when this year could have been straight out of a skit written by Amy Poehler, Andy Samberg or Donald Glover. It isn't my job to be preachy. I'm not here to imprint some crazy liberal agenda into your mind, so please read through, because both parties have made themselves look foolish.
1. When Sarah Palin endorsed Donald Trump for president.
This is number one, not only because it was actually made afterward into a skit starring Tina Fey as Sarah Palin, but because it was also the craziest display of the whole race so far.
Let's start with her address to the crowd.
She says, “Looking around at all of you, you hard-working Iowa families, you farm families and teachers and teamsters and cops and cooks, you rock ‘n’ rollers and holy rollers." Now, she does have just about everyone in Iowa covered in that statement, but it sounds like the ramblings of a doped up Dr. Seuss. I do have respect for Sarah Palin and her ability to not shy down from public speaking, but this was just too much. After hating on the "liberal agenda" for a hot second, she then refers to "the rest of us" as "right-wingin’, bitter-clingin’, proud clingers of our guns, our God, and our religions and our Constitution."
I don't think anyone at "Saturday Night Live" could have written a more quintessentially Sarah Palin speech if they tried.
2. Tomi Lahren as a whole.
To me, one of the most glaring instances of negligence that Tomi Lahren repeats is her ignorance of the Black Lives Matter movement. In reference to Jesse William's award for his humanitarian efforts at the Black Entertainment Television awards, Tomi Lahren said, “The BET definition of a humanitarian is someone who perpetuates a war on cops,” which is interesting. If you listen to his eloquently worded speech, he never once even alluded toward violence against the police, but that's beside the point. Her ignorance is reflective of Amy Poehler's Nancy Grace, where she solely bases arguments on illogical fallacies and ignoring truth.
3. Ted Cruz's "Making Machine Gun Bacon."
The image above was created by Ted Cruz and his team that accompanied the video of the same title. In an attempt to go viral, he thought it would be hip and cool to cook bacon with an AR-15 rifle. If you couldn't tell solely from the quality of the photo, the viral video had the failed attempts of a Lifetime original movie and the production quality of a late-night infomercial.
I kid you not, after attempting to make cooked bacon with his assault rifle, the video ends with Ted Cruz eating the cooked meat straight off the gun, saying, "Mmmm, machine-gun bacon," as if it were a totally casual and normal thing to do. Not only is it hilarious that it isn't technically a machine gun, it's completely insane that a man running for president of the United States would think this could ever be a good idea. Not the most radical idea presented by a conservative party member this election, but that's beside the point.
This insane display belongs in between live skits on a late Saturday, with the likes of "Mom Jeans," "The Love Toilet" and "Annuale." If you haven't seen them, watch them. They're great.
4. Hillary Clinton dancing to Silentó on national television.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so I'm just going to leave this right here. Her face, her suit, her arm, the song: nothing that I could ever write would be more satisfactory than watching the whole thing go down right here.
5. Jeb Bush asking his audience to "please clap."
Poor Jeb. He literally had to ask his audience to clap for him after a speech. The audience, not huge, sat emotionless as Jeb Bush spoke of the action that he would take as president. Now, I remind you, this is an audience that intentionally set out to listen to him speak and at the end, he still needed to ask for applause, like a priest that reminds the congregation when to stand.
I have to say, that I almost felt bad for him, because you could literally see the moment that he realized that his campaign was dead. Granted, it must be hard being the third Bush to run for president, but it still doesn't make it any better that his run was so short and so painful. The timid plea is one that would fit perfectly into an awkward cold open that "SNL" well known known for.
6. The slogan "Feel the Bern."
The slogan sounds like something you'd hear on a campy commercial for a Steven Seagal film. Similarly, it could be the tagline for the disgusting toenail fungus gremlins from the commercial for Lamisil. Don't get me wrong, I think that overall, Bernie Sanders was one of the only chances we had at some form of reform, but that's neither here nor there. I couldn't help but feel that there were countless other options for a campaign slogan that weren't burn-based puns surrounding his name.
I feel like the picture above truly captures the essence of the bizarre catchphrase. It echoes "The Bey-gency" or "The Fault In Our Stars 2: The Ebola In Our Everything."
7. Donald Trump.
Before I get immediate hate because "Donald Trump is a straight shooter with progressive ideas who is self-funded," sit down and watch this.
Now that John Oliver has single handily destroyed each one of those arguments for me, let's look at some of the most insane things that Donald Trump has been a part of in this political cycle.
Maybe it's his insane misogyny, his xenophobic views or the fact that he's willing and ready to construct a multi-billion dollar wall to do what an already basically illegal and extremely ineffective fence is already doing. That's right, friends and family, there's already a fence in existence that was significantly cheaper that doesn't "keep out" the "rapists" that Donald Trump so desperately wants to "keep out."
Let's dive a little deeper. Aside from the xenophobic views of the Mexican people as a whole, he's willing to commit heinous war crimes in order to "protect" us from terrorists. He has openly said that "we need to kill [terrorist's] families." Yes, in order for us to feel safer, we need to kill innocent civilians.
Many people argue that you shouldn't be basing opinions of politicians based on their words, but rather on their actions. Fine. Let's look at the time he mocked a disabled reporter on national television. Or when he openly denied knowing David Duke, and then later blamed his ear piece. Or finally, his open advocacy for violence at his rallies.
I'm sorry for my lengthy rant, especially because I promised to keep it equal, but you need to wake up, guys. This guy is terrifying. I'm not talking about him as a businessman or as an individual, because if I'm being honest, I don't think that he knows that he's being borderline evil. I think he's doing and saying anything possible to win the presidency because of his pride, something that "SNL" has mocked openly for years. The only difference is, unlike "SNL," this is real life, and it's going to boil down to Donald Trump and most likely one other candidate. Something to keep in mind.
So, on that happy note, keep watching the hilarity unfold in this campaign, as I can only assume it will only get more and more insane.
