There are many things to dread about the 2024 election. The primary reason is that fully 70% of the public agrees it does not want a race between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. But another problem with the 2024 race seems likely to be the absence of good comedy.
Sure, there are opportunities to poke fun at Biden’s doddering age and increasing incoherence. But comedians have been pulling their punches on Biden’s age for more than three years. Trump has plenty of foibles and idiosyncrasies, but so many comedians have become so hysterically anti-Trump that they are more likely to denounce him than find a humorous angle.
For decades, Saturday Night Live was on the cutting edge of efforts to mock candidates and officeholders. In 1976, the nation laughed at Dan Ackroyd’s portrayal of Gerald Ford complaining during a debate that he did not think there would be math. Then there was 2000, when a histrionic Darrell Hammond imitated Al Gore’s sing-song delivery and pompous debate lecturing of George W. Bush. Perhaps most devastating of all was Tina Fey’s pitch-perfect Sarah Palin impersonation in 2008, which was so good many people came to believe the real Palin said, “I can see Russia from my house.”
In these and many more cases over almost 40 years, Saturday Night Live was a great place for political humor. Not anymore. Not only can SNL not get Biden right, but it could not even do a serviceable job on the most widely watched congressional hearing in history. When Rep. Elise Stefanik eviscerated three sanctimonious university presidents over their inability to manage antisemitism on their campuses, SNL’s take was leaden and unfunny — more like damage control.
This laughless turn stands in stark contrast to the more politically balanced and more comedically imaginative SNL of the 1980s and 1990s. Back then, SNL skewered both Democratic and Republican presidents. Dana Carvey’s iconic, fumbling, stammering George H.W. Bush impersonation was so funny that Bush brought Carvey to the White House to cheer up a depressed staff after Bush lost his 1992 reelection effort. Carvey cracked up the staff by explaining how he imitated Bush — a combination of Mr. Rogers and John Wayne. The staff, notwithstanding their impending unemployment, cheered.
The man who sent Bush to the unemployment lines was Bill Clinton, who was portrayed on SNL by Phil Hartman as brilliant and gluttonous, jogging for show so that he could get to McDonald’s where he would snag bites of Happy Meals from customers amazed by his policy knowledge. After many Democrats circled the wagons and defended Clinton after the Monica Lewinsky scandal, SNL kept up the mockery. There’s even a compilation video: “Saturday Night Live: Best of the Clinton Scandal.” Clinton may have been a Democrat, and favored by the majority of SNL staff, but they were still able to mock a moment that was made for comedy.
One reason that SNL may have been more ecumenical in its humor in those days was the proliferation of cast members in the 1980s and 1990s who, if not conservative, were at least potentially open to conservative ideas. Joe Piscopo was a standout performer who was on the show from 1980 to 1984. He actually portrayed Jimmy Carter in his first SNL appearance and noted that he had long been a “political junkie.” Piscopo eventually found his way to talk radio in 2014, where his skills have earned him a following. His Piscopo in the Morning became a top 50 radio show. While Piscopo noted that he had “been a Democrat my entire life,” he eventually grew “embarrassed to say those words.”
Dennis Miller, who was on the show from 1985 to 1991, was a wickedly funny “Weekend Update” anchor known for his rapid-fire string of erudite references. He wasn’t outspokenly conservative on the show, but he has subsequently been suspected of being a conservative as far back as the early 2000s. In 2004, more than a decade before Trump, he blasted the Left for what he called “the mislabeling of Hitler.” “Quit saying this guy is Hitler,” he said about George W. Bush. “Hitler is Hitler.” As for Biden, Miller is willing to make the jokes that SNL these days is not: In the 2020 campaign, he said that Joe Biden is “in the basement more than that chick in The Silence of the Lambs.”
A more recent convert is John Lovitz, who was on SNL from 1985 to 1990. He was famous for characters such as Tommy Flanigan, the pathological liar, who would accentuate his fibs with the phrase, “Yeah, that’s the ticket.” Lovitz also did the legendary “Dukakis after Dark” skit in which an about-to-lose Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis donned a dinner jacket for a party with iconic leftist figures and told running mate Lloyd Bentsen that “we represent unpopular and discredited views.” Lovitz labeled himself a “Kennedy Democrat,” believing that in America, “you have an opportunity to work your butt off and make something of yourself.” Consequently, he was not a big fan of President Barack Obama, whom he accused of “creating a false class warfare,” nor of Bernie Sanders, whom he considers a “self-loathing Jew.”
The highly versatile Rob Schneider, on the show from 1988 to 1994, was best known as the “making copies” guy. While Schneider considered himself a “lifelong Democrat,” he also noted that he is “definitely more conservative.” He felt that “the Democrats in my party have abandoned me, so I abandoned them.” Schneider also didn’t like the stifling approach of liberals, noting, “If you make fun of liberals, you’re going to get attacked. If you make fun of conservatives, you get branded as a stereotypical Hollywood person.” Being an old-school comedian, he said, “I try to make fun of both.”
Another SNL conservative was the late Norm Macdonald, who was on the show from 1993 to 1998. A philosophy major until he dropped out of Ottawa’s Carleton College, Macdonald portrayed Republican Bob Dole in 1996. He lost his job on the show because of his brass-knuckle commentary on O.J. Simpson during his double murder trial. Simpson was good friends with — and protected by — NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer. In the 2000s, Macdonald said on The View that he loved George W. Bush, calling him “a good man.” He also considered Ronald Reagan “the best president in history.” During COVID, he wrote and performed the “Bat Song,” crooning, “Once you’ve had bat, you never go back.” Still, he denied being a conservative, saying in 2017, “I am not a conservative. I’ve never been a conservative in my life. But I do know this: Everyone is lying.”
This short list of conservative-adjacent comedians is, of course, dwarfed by the many vocal leftists who have dominated the show, especially in recent decades. Former cast member and current talk show host Seth Meyers has referred to Trump as a “dips*** racist doofus.” Pete Davidson got a Hillary Clinton tattoo, which he posted on Instagram with the caption, “Thanks for being such a badass and one of the strongest people in the universe.” Current “Weekend Update” co-anchor Michael Che, named after Che Guevara, has called Trump “a salesman playing to the most racist segment of the country.” Another current cast member, Sarah Sherman (aka Sarah Squirm), regularly drops lefty posts backing Bernie Sanders or “defund the police.” As executive producer Lorne Michaels said in 2012, “Republicans are easier for us than Democrats.”
Time will tell what happens to more recent SNL cast members over the next three decades, but it seems extremely unlikely that committed leftists such as Che and Sherman will become more balanced or nuanced. The unfortunate result is that we will have to get our laughs from Biden’s unintentional miscues or Trump’s intentional but unbecoming jokes. We will also miss out on an essential way of collective catharsis through humor, meaning that half the country will be unhappy with the election result, and few of us will be laughing.
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Former senior White House aide Tevi Troy is a contributing writer at the Washington Examiner and a senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Institute. He is the author of five books on the presidency, including the forthcoming The Power and the Money: The Epic Clashes Between American Titans of Industry and Commanders in Chief.