The country is desperate for a laugh and President Trump is providing more than enough material. But without Alec Baldwin and Melissa McCarthy reprising their roles as the celebrity president and his irritable press secretary, the writers at Saturday Night Live fell short this week.
The comics rolled out a stale satire into a mockumentary trailer called Courage, Compassion, Country: The TBD Story. The edgy and original punchline? Republicans are idiots for not acting more like Democrats.
Trying to make up for low information with high production value, the digital short stitched news footage, dramatic music, and glossy shots into a two-minute skit. Called The Republican Movie, it was supposed to be a show stopper. Instead, it fell flat.
“It was a country in chaos. A nation divided. Led by a president by unchecked power,” a standard-issue movie trailer voice says at the opening of the skit. “Until one Republican decided enough was enough. A patriot who put country over party. Who finally stood up for his nation’s founding values. A man by the name of … TBD.”
And that’s the joke. Nobody in the Grand Old Party is prepared to stand up to Trump on what SNL sees as a racist immigration order, supposed abuse of executive authority, and apparent anti-Semitism. Hilarious, right?
A chorus of liberal critics certainly thought so. All of them filed nearly identical stories. Rolling Stone found it funny that SNL mocked “cowardly conservatives.” The Daily Beast observed that “SNL trolls spineless Republicans.” And Entertainment Weekly reported that “SNL stings Republicans who won’t stand up against Trump.” But the real story was that the funnymen at SNL missed the mark completely.
Saturday morning the president offered up a comedic gift, tweeting that Obama had snuck into Trump tower and bugged his golden telephone. Still unsubstantiated, it was perfect fodder for ridicule. Other than a brief mention during the Weekend Update segment, though, SNL skipped it. With more than a dozen hours’ notice, they just couldn’t come up with a decent joke.
What about the Republicans they pilloried for refusing to stand up to the White House? On the Sunday talk show circuit, even White House-ally Sen. Tom Cotton wouldn’t defend the claim. On Fox News, the Arkansas senator said he’s seen “no evidence of the allegations we’ve seen in the media.” At least three other GOP senators echoed that line and called for more information about the claim. It’s hardly the first group of senators to make trouble for Trump either.
Either the writers at SNL missed or didn’t care about the controversy over Obamacare. For the last two months, conservatives have jeopardized Trump’s chances of overturning Obama’s marquee healthcare law. Last week, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky literally wandered the halls of Congress trying to find a copy of the current repeal bill. But the biggest story in Congress right now didn’t get a mention.
Instead of riffing on the news, the SNL writers are building their jokes off of a liberal narrative. If truth in kidding makes jokes funny, then SNL’s Republican Movie misses the mark.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
