Politicians appear on Saturday Night Live to show the public their human side. To show they can be self-effacing and funny and hip. To be accepted as celebrities are accepted. It's not about politics and it's completely about politics. Everyone is in on it. Everyone understands.
When it was announced that Donald Trump would be hosting SNL, there was an outcry of criticism not because of Trump's politics but because of what his critics see as a pattern of racism, to say nothing of a similar pattern of misogyny. It was just last summer that NBC severed its previous relationship with Trump, and addressed the issue head on:
At NBC, respect and dignity for all people are cornerstones of our values.
Due to the recent derogatory statements by Donald Trump regarding immigrants, NBCUniversal is ending its business relationship with Mr. Trump.
Univision had previously severed its relationship with Trump after he said the following:
When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.
Which raises the obvious question as to what Trump would know about good people. Back in June 2013, he already was revealing what kind of person he is.
But as explained by the Huffington Post:
The statistics that Fox pundit Bill O’Reilly cited appear to come from the 2012 New York City Enforcement Report compiled by the police department. The report says that of the 662 shooting suspects for which a race or ethnicity was known, 78.2 percent were black, while 18.9 percent were Hispanic and 2.4 percent were white.
Though national crime figures are far less skewed, Trump went on to tweet that the "overwhelming amount of violent crime in our major cities is committed by blacks and [H]ispanics" and invited his Twitter followers to discuss the “tough subject."
But The Donald wouldn’t be The Donald if he didn’t double down.
Of course, tough subjects might not be what Trump really wants to discuss:
In an episode early in Donald Trump’s career, his New York real estate company was sued by the federal government for discriminating against potential black renters. After a lengthy legal battle, it ultimately agreed to wide-ranging steps to offer rentals to nonwhites.
The little-remembered case provides crucial context for the current discussion centering on Trump and race. The celebrity businessman made news last month when he declared, “I have a great relationship with the blacks. I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks.”
He has recently come under fire for attacks on President Obama that critics have described as racially tinged. CBS anchor Bob Schieffer, for example, said Wednesday there is “an ugly strain of racism” in Trump’s recent (baseless) accusations that President Obama should not have been admitted to Columbia. Also yesterday, Trump told a black reporter, unprompted, “Look I know you are a big Obama fan.”
There also has been an ugly strain in Trump’s persistent belief in the consistently debunked racist lie that the country’s first African-American president was born in Africa rather than America.
But Saturday Night Live preferred that we forget all that. It wanted the ratings, basic human decency be damned. It even attempted to turn the outcry against Trump’s appearance into a joke:
Arguably the most exciting moment of the broadcast came during Mr. Trump’s brief monologue, when Larry David — on set to reprise his role as Senator Bernie Sanders — called out “You’re a racist!” from the wings. It was a clever move to co-opt the $5,000 bounty that protesters had offered to anyone willing to disrupt the live broadcast. But it was a clear setup; Mr. David delivered his lines half-smiling, and Mr. Trump’s prepared response (“As a businessman, I can fully respect that”) fell flat.
“Clever” is far too kind. It was, in fact, despicable. As Washington Post TV critic Hank Stuever wrote:
Once upon a time, not so long ago, there might have been a lesson to learn from Saturday’s boring and misspent episode — but that world no longer exists, certainly not where politics and TV intersect. Everything is turned upside down. Bring back the old America, I say, the one where our preeminent vehicle for topical satire would have ably skewered a hateful, nonsensical, vainglorious presidential candidate rather than invite him into the club and give him more of the empty-calorie media attention he seeks.
Having Trump host SNL is a tacit nod of approval — of his message, his antics and, yes, his campaign to be the Republican presidential nominee. Worst of all, it provided Trump with more dubious evidence of his own preeminence. Overnight ratings touted by NBC on Sunday morning showed a 6.6 household rating — the show’s best in nearly four years. (To extrapolate from the overnights, perhaps as many as 10 million viewers watched the episode live.)
Accusations that Donald Trump is a racist are no joke. But by allowing Trump to be its host, SNL producers made explicit that Trump's behavior and rhetoric are all okay. It's all within the social and political norm. SNL enabled Trump. It attempted to trivialize accusations of racism.
It is not okay.
Racism is not okay.
Trivializing a pattern of behavior that results in specific accusations of racism is not okay.
It is not funny.
Having an actor playfully heckle someone as a racist is not funny.
Racism is not funny.
Saturday Night Live is not funny.
By helping to legitimize what should never be legitimized, Saturday Night Live has delegitimized itself, both as relevant social commentary and as basic entertainment. It has forfeited the right to be considered an acceptable player in modern pop culture. By trivializing racism, it has trivialized and disgraced itself.