Saturday Night Live (SNL), the long running social and political satire show announced on Friday that they would be discontinuing any and all projects following the first presidential debate.
Lorne Michaels, the creator and executive producer of SNL, said in a press statement, “There is simply nothing more we can do at this point”.
He went on to say, “The line between reality and discernible absurdism has been crossed, there frankly isn’t much more we can satirize”.
Alec Baldwin, the SNL actor for Trump, also voiced severe discontent, “It’s a real shame, SNL has been such a consistent part of the modern political sphere”. However, Baldwin understood their reasoning, saying, “honestly, I laughed harder at that debate than any point in our last three seasons”.
Somehow, the President’s attacks on Biden’s son for his cocaine addiction by throwing a bag of the so-called ‘booger sugar’ at the former vice president were not even the highlight of the evening. Trump’s call to arms for white supremacists to await his orders far outdid “the satirical abilities and expectations of the SNL writers,” according to Michaels.
The “debate” boiled down to a shouting match between two geriatric old men, one blatantly racist and dangerously childish, and the other unable to dispense with the equivalent of a schoolyard bully. American politics was effectively upended, and any last shreds of presidential decency and poise were obliterated in one night more effectively than SNL could ever hope to accomplish.
Trump was diagnosed with COVID-19 following the debate, adding the crown jewel of irony to the entire debacle.
“I couldn’t have written it better myself” said Colin Jost, longtime writer and co-anchor on SNL. “In my 15 years writing for SNL, I have never come across a situation that made such a mockery of itself that it would be impossible to satirize; that is, until this debate.”
Photo of Donald Trump courtesy of Gage Skidmore/Flickr
Illustration of JoeBiden courtesy of DonkeyHotey/Flickr
