NBC has become the latest willing participant in Donald Trump’s maniacal plan of self-aggrandizement by asking him to host SNL at a pivotal point in the presidential campaign.
Trump’s campaign so far has been largely based on stoking the flames of hatred, race-baiting, and name-calling. His comments about and against Latinos, in particular, have lowered the intellectual debate about comprehensive immigration reform to a base level of building a wall and deporting families to unknown fates in other countries.
The Trump campaign has only needed to spend a few million dollars to spread his message of division because the media – which he and other Republican candidates have labeled as the “liberal media” – has continued to cover his every move, given airtime to every one of his childish insults, and tolerated his bombastic style of self-promotion, all in the name of ratings.
Now NBC has offered Trump another media platform from which to spew his ugly message, but this time they’re allowing him to soften his message with comedy to defang his attacks. Past hosts of SNL have been mostly famous or infamous celebrities, from Lindsey Lohan to Paris Hilton, from Frank Zappa to Andrew Dice Clay, but only three presidential candidates have ever served as host during a campaign cycle. Ralph Nader hosted in 1977, Steve Forbes in 1996, and Al Sharpton in 2003. None of the three, though, generated so many calls for a boycott during the lead-up to the show.
But this is exactly what Trump wants; people talking about him. Unless there are serious negative consequences to NBC and SNL for taking this opportunistic ratings bet, the media will continue to love people like Trump who generate ratings through hate and division and deliver huge profits to the networks.
The National Hispanic Leadership Agenda, a group of 40 national and regional civil rights and public policy groups, sent a letter to NBC CEO Stephen Burke asking him to rescind Trump’s invitation to host the show. Other groups including the California Legislature’s Latino Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus have also joined the calls against Trump’s hosting gig.
Is it fair to ask NBC to reverse their course? Well, after all, this is the same Donald Trump that called for cancelling NBC News’ Republican candidate debate in February because he was unhappy with the questions asked during the last debate hosted by NBC sister network, CNBC. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
In previous Perspective pieces in this newspaper we have argued for political and social empowerment though our collective voice. We have argued that the way to express displeasure with companies is to boycott their products and services. The way to object to negative political attacks is to vote against those that chose to victimize our community.
In this case, we should do both. Trump is already bragging about delivering the highest ratings on other shows he has made appearances on, including Jimmy Kimmel, Steven Colbert, and Jimmy Fallon. Trump claims to be the Midas of TV ratings.
If we want to send a message that Latinos will not stand idly by while others use us human piñatas, we should all not only refuse to watch SNL, but also avoid watching all NBC shows, and refuse to purchase goods from sponsors advertising during the show.
Donald Trump may very well continue leading the Republican race for President and may even win the presidency, but it should not be with the support of the Latino community.
If we allow ourselves to be pawns in this game of Celebrity Apprentice for President, then we cannot complain when other candidates follow suit and blame all the ills of the country on Latinos, calling for a “huuuge” wall along the border, and they call for rounding up undocumented immigrants for mass deportations.
Our numbers are large and our influence should reflect that reality, but if we don’t stand up for ourselves, no one else will stand up for us.
Help tell Donald Trump, “You’re fired!”