MAGA is seeing red — and it’s not just because they’re all wearing the same hat.
Supporters of President Donald Trump have big, bad, uncomfortable feelings towards beloved actor Tom Hanks because he made fun of them for being racist on Sunday’s 50th anniversary special for “Saturday Night Live.”
In the sketch, called “Black Jeopardy,” Hank’s right-wing, working-class character, Doug, returns to play a trivia game that’s specifically tailored towards Black Americans. As in the original sketch, Doug appears to be completely out of his element surrounded by Black contestants (played by comedic legends like Eddie Murphy, Leslie Jones and Tracy Morgan), but he proves to be surprisingly good at this niche game.
After Doug wins $400 for correctly identifying Dana Carvey’s iconic “Church Lady” character during the trivia game, he decides to make somewhat of a political statement to the audience.
“Hey now, speaking of church, can I say something?” Doug asks the game’s host, played by Kenan Thompson. “If more folks went to church, we wouldn’t be in this mess we’re in now.”
“You know, I agree with you, Doug,” Thompson says. “I’d like to shake your hand, sir.”
Thompson then leaves his podium. As he walks towards Doug to shake his hand, Doug appears terrified and jumps back with his hands up, like Thompson is going to rob him. Despite the initial confusion, the two men do eventually shake hands — albeit very awkwardly.
Right-wingers were clearly offended by the sketch, and aired their grievances on X, formerly Twitter, after the skit aired.
But many liberals were delighted to double-down on the sketch’s implications.
What many on the right failed to realize is that Doug being afraid of Thompson was actually a call-back to the original skit, which aired nearly nine years ago. In that 2016 sketch, Hanks’ Doug character is equally savvy at answering Thompson’s stereotypical “Black Jeopardy” questions — the joke being that working-class white and Black people have much more in common than they may realize.
Thompson’s character becomes progressively more and more impressed by Doug throughout the game, and walks over to him to shake his hand — and Doug is just as frightened.
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Supporters of Trump, like the president, have taken to weaponizing terms like “DEI” for racial minorities and support the mass deportations of migrants.
In a recent Buzzfeed survey, in which the outlet asked Trump supporters how the president could lose their support, many respondents answered the question using anti-LGBTQ+, anti-immigrant and racist language.
“If Trump didn’t follow through with his promises to deport ALL illegal migrants, eliminate DEI, purge the FBI, and ban transgenders, he would lose my support,” one anonymous respondent said.
