Staff Reports
Saturday Night Live set out this month to roast the Trump administration on live television, but the result was anything but a knockout. What was supposed to be a sneering sketch instead handed the administration and conservative allies a heap of free publicity and talking points to use against the late-night elites.
The episode leaned on caricature — Tina Fey playing DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Amy Poehler lampooning Attorney General Pam Bondi — and even staged a faux ICE recruitment ad that was so slick the actual Department of Homeland Security couldn’t resist. Rather than humiliate, the sketch amplified familiar conservative themes about law and order while the cast sold the caricature so hard it looked like campaign content.
In an ironic twist, DHS embraced the moment, resharing the clip and pivoting from satire to a real recruitment push, effectively turning a comedy bit into government propaganda for enforcement policy. That move proved the old media script: lampoon your opponents long enough and you’ll end up advertising them for free. Conservatives smelled blood and recognized an opening; SNL supplied the footage, and the messaging rode straight into feeds across the country.
This isn’t just comedy failing — it’s cultural institutions showing their cards. The same coastal elites who pretend to despise Trump style politics went on national television and produced material that bolstered his narrative about a hostile, out-of-touch media. Ordinary Americans don’t need to be told how contrived this all is; they see the hypocrisy and respond by tuning out the punchlines and tuning in the results.
James Austin Johnson’s Trump impersonation even broke the fourth wall, flirting with the audience in a way that humanized the caricature and softened what was meant to be an attack. When late-night’s best impressionists end up making their subject look like a regular guy rather than a monster, conservatives win the political optics battle without lifting a finger.
The takeaway for patriotic, hardworking Americans is simple: don’t expect the cultural elite to win by mockery. They mock, they pontificate, they pretend satire will change minds — and then they hand their opponents the ads and the headlines. The smarter move is to call out the hypocrisy, stay focused on policies that keep families safe and communities prosperous, and keep delivering results that no sketch can undo.
SNL thinks its jokes are a weapon, but every so-called roast that descends into predictable, rehearsed caricature simply exposes the show’s irrelevance. Conservatives should welcome the theater — it sharpens our message and rallies the people who actually get up early, pay the bills, and love this country. Keep your boots on the ground and your message simple; let the late-night scolds keep making their own ads while America gets to work.
