Saturday Night Live is a source of media popularly consumed that provides satirical comedy on American culture, with commentary being made on both politics and poking fun at Americans as a whole. The video above is no exception, and it provides commentary on the election between the former president Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton. After Trump successfully won the election of this particular term, much controversy was sparked, and the concept of the electoral college was brought under much scrutiny because of the manner Trump managed to win this election. Even though he was not the popular vote, he still won this election because of how the electoral colleges give each state equal footing when trying to elect a presidential candidate that represents more rural states of America. In the clip, friends are gathered watching live reporting of the results coming in, with the news showing each state the two candidates were winning. All of the friends were very confident that Hilary Clinton would be winning this election, except the one black man in the mix of people. He contradicts many of the statements being made by the people who were much more confident about the results coming in with the first being a response to his friend exclaiming their excitement of having a first female president, which he replies to with, “Yeah it might be a historic night, but just don’t forget it’s a big country”. In the end, the black friend was shown to be correct with his skepticism in whether Hilary Clinton would be winning this election when Trump was shown to win at the end of the election night.
This video helps illustrate how much the electoral college impacts the politics of American culture. Even since its conception in 1787, it has been a subject of much debate, not just when Hilary did not win the election of this term, but also when Andrew Jackson was denied office in 1824 by the House of Representatives.
Questions:
- Is the system of electoral colleges something that should continue to be used? Why or why not?
- Why was the idea of the electoral college originally conceived?
- In the video, criticisms were made about America as a whole. What are some criticisms that were made and what aspect of American culture was being criticized?
- Do you generally agree with the criticisms being made? Why or why not?
- Are there any statements made in this video that can still be applied to the election in 2020? What are they?
I enjoyed this assignment. I think it should definitely be used again. I liked how it forced me to look at many different resources representing American culture and what aspects of it I found interesting enough to find a video for.
I enjoyed the video. SNL does a great job on at political satire. I do like how this relates to the popular vote and electoral college. I really like your first question posed to the students.