Saturday Night Live Reveals the GOP’s Post-Kavanaugh Victory Celebration

Maybe America wouldn’t be as fractured today if the media didn’t treat governing a real country full of people and stuff like it was a sport. The ideologues in the Republican party didn’t want to get Brett Kavanaugh confirmed to the Supreme Court by any means necessary simply because they wanted a victory or to “own the libs,” but because having a firm conservative majority on the Court will let them better enact the exclusionary and self-enriching agenda that’s always driven them. Most pundits and news programs rarely ever talk about actual ideas, though, simply covering politics like they were shouting about LeBron on ESPN.

It’s tempting to view this SNL sketch from last night as a critique of that divisive, surface-level analysis of what’s happening in DC. The GOP celebrating Kavanaugh’s confirmation in their “locker room” as if they just won the World Series isn’t the worst idea, or anything, and having CNN journalists like Don Lemon and Dana Bash treat this like the most natural thing in the world can be seen as a statement about the media. That’s not really this sketch’s focus, though. It’s less pointed than that, simply counting on the “rappin’ grannies” style gag of these ancient Republican senators raging to “This is How We Do It.” It gets in a few good digs, though, like Republicans banking on “horny male energy,” the desperate uselessness of Susan Collins, and Alex Moffat’s Chuck Schumer giving a nonchalant post-defeat interview about how whiteness usually wins in situations like this. It’s definitely funnier and smarter than the typical cold open with Alec Baldwin as Trump, but it’s still not particularly funny or useful as satire. Still, it’s probably worth watching, if you’re the kind of person who watches stuff like this. Get to it.