How SNL Predicted Our Political Future
If you have clicked on this post after reading the headline, then you might be ready to blow up the comments for being a glib asshole while people across the country seethe and despair over the presidential election. However, I would encourage you to read on. Then, if you still want to blast me, feel free.
Many thoughts have been swirling around my head for the past couple days; I may keep writing on here to sort them out. But, for now, I wanted to look forward. And when I was considering our country’s future, I couldn’t help but remember this SNL sketch from a couple of weeks ago:
This inspired bit from Saturday Night Live was rightly hailed as brilliant across the political spectrum.
In the sketch, the host and the other two participants are more and more impressed with Doug, who is presumably a Donald Trump supporter given his “Make America Great Again” hat. He is suspicious of big business (Apple taking our thumb prints), politics (“they” already decided who won the election before it happens), and those that seek to take advantage of people (the unscrupulous car mechanic). Doug is just as skeptical of the system as they are.
Of course, everything grinds to a halt with the last category: “Lives That Matter.” And that reflects the current state of American society. My Facebook feed is been full of friends who are justifiably afraid, given the rhetoric and policy proposals employed by Donald Trump during the campaign. Some of my conservative friends, who have publicly summarized their reasons for voting for Trump, have expressed frustration with being labeled as racist or hateful because of their decision. The point of this post is not to re-litigate the campaign or cast aspersions. It is to imagine a future that will inspire my efforts moving forward.
What Can We Learn
The sketch’s ending was also incredibly prescient: voters broke along racial, age, and religious lines. A surge of white, older, more religious Americans, particularly in the Midwest, delivered Donald Trump to the White House.
There are many excellent stories that profiled Trump supporters prior to the election. There are also some astute analyses that have followed. Like I said, I hope to explore those further. The point of this reflection is to point out a major trend in American society: low, and falling, confidence in a variety of institutions.
You can see here that only the military, small business, and the police enjoy a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence from more than half of those polled. This is, of course, more complex than this chart. Race, class, and religious affiliation play a role in how individuals view a given institution. That said, it is still deeply concerning that so many Americans have so little faith in most of the major institutions in our country. But it should also be an opportunity.
What I Hope
I have to hold on to the hope that a inclusive, durable political coalition is on the horizon. One that productively channels anger, resentment, and frustration with our social and political institutions into enduring, manageable change. One that cuts across race and class, at least among the poor and middle-income. One that encourages public-private partnerships that unleash the vast amount of capital that is currently idling to benefit everyone in society. One that rejects xenophobia, isolationism, and unchecked nationalism because it has the confidence to welcome those that would contribute to its goals.
This will not be built overnight or without many, many fraught and painful conversations about the role of race, religion, culture, and class in American history as well as present-day society. It may not be one of the existing political parties that has the ability to build this coalition. Its policies may be a mix of progressive and conservative. Three days post-election, it is impossible to predict what the immediate future holds. But, in order to move forward, I have to hope that every American will someday feel included in our country’s safety and prosperity.