NBC must have amnesia. When Donald Trump first launched his campaign in June with a rant about Mexican immigrants being "rapists" and "drug dealers," NBC quickly
cut ties with his rancid views.
"Due to the recent derogatory statements by Donald Trump regarding immigrants, NBC Universal is ending its business relationship with Mr. Trump," NBC said in a statement, adding, "At NBC, respect and dignity for all people are cornerstones of our values."
So much for cornerstones. Now that the GOP base has wholeheartedly embraced Trump and he continues to
dominate the field, viewership is in the balance. And since Trump's a showman who
refuses to talk policy, NBC's
Saturday Night Live is the perfect fit. He gets tons of exposure to a younger audience that might not otherwise tune into his rallies and probably doesn't like the wonky side of politics anyway.
Which is exactly why NBC should put the kibosh on The Donald's appearance. All the network is doing is giving him a free pass on his racist rhetoric, not to mention the skillset that's required for someone to ably serve as the country's commander in chief. The latter failing, while regrettable, might be defensible for a program like SNL. But the former is having real-world effects on the immigrant community as the immigration group America's Voice noted in a Thursday press release charging that SNL was "mainstreaming racism" by having Trump host on Nov. 7. The group has been tracking instances where Trump's hate speech has had consequences.
Read about some of these consequences below the fold.
• According to Politico, a Trump supporter took over a microphone connected to loudspeakers at the Dallas rally and shouted, first in Spanish, then in English, “The Mexicans are the hairs of a--holes. Viva Donald Trump.”
• Two brothers terrorize a homeless Latino man with a metal pipe. When arrested and questioned, the brothers told the police “Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported.”
• At a Trump rally in Alabama, an audience member yells “White Power!” during the candidate’s speech. At the same rally, a Trump supporter “jokes” to AL.com about shooting and killing undocumented immigrants at the border for their vacation.
And that's certainly not the only evidence that Trump is unleashing a torrent of racist hate speech and bullying across the country. Tina Vasquez writes:
A couple of weeks ago, while I was running errands in my neighborhood, a stranger asked me if I was “illegal”. Around 10 minutes earlier another stranger asked me if I spoke English. Both were white and one of them even called me “senorita.” ... I’ve lived in Los Angeles for 29 of my 30 years. As a light-skinned, biracial Latina in one of the most diverse and Mexican-centric cities in the nation, I have never been asked the type of questions I’m now fielding from white people.
SNL has a great tradition of being an equal opportunity filleter of both Republican and Democratic politicians alike. But someone's got to cry foul when the jokes come at the cost of normalizing a purveyor of racism and even violence. That's exactly the conclusion that NBC originally came to in June.
Apparently, ratings Trump all.