As he did four years earlier, Dave Chappelle returned to Saturday Night Live for the series’ first post-presidential election episode, with the comedian once again delivering a timely, powerful monologue.
“This morning after the results came in, I got a text from a friend of mine in London, she said the world feels like a safer place now that America has a new president. And I said, ‘That’s great, but America doesn’t,” Chappelle said.
“You guys remember what life was like before Covid? I do. There was a mass shooting every week, you remember that? Thank god for Covid. Something had to lock these murderous whites up, keep them in the house.”
Chappelle also talked about how, due to Covid-19, his recent comedy shows have taken place in a cornfield close to his rural Ohio home, and how that has upset his neighbors.
“The local farmers, my neighbors, started to complain that my shows were too noisy, in a cornfield… I had to have a whole town meeting about how noisy I was being in a cornfield, it was so embarrassing. And I resented it, I resented that these country farmers could decide a guy like me’s fate. People who don’t deserve to do that. They haven’t seen enough, they don’t know anything,” Chappelle said.
“They’re probably watching me right now, they’re probably like, ‘Honey, come quick, come quick, the guy from the grocery store is on television.’ No, you big dummy. The guy from television is at the grocery store.”
The comedian added, “I don’t know why poor white people don’t like to wear masks, what is the problem? You wear masks at the Klan rally, wear it at the Walmart too. Wear your Klan hood at Walmart so we can all feel safe.”
Midway through the 16-minute monologue, Chappelle addressed the election and the outgoing president. “Now Trump is gone,” he said as the crowd applauded. “Called the coronavirus the ‘kung flu.’ I said ‘You racist, hilarious son of a bitch.’ I’m supposed to say that, not you. It’s wrong when you say it.”
Chappelle then mocked Trump’s coronavirus cure press conference, as well as the president contracting Covid-19. “And after all that, you know what Trump did after all that stuff, went out and got the coronavirus, wasn’t that something? You know, when he got coronavirus, they said everything about it in the news, but you know what they didn’t say? That it was hilarious,” Chappelle said.
“Trump getting coronavirus was like Freddie Mercury getting AIDS. Nobody was like, ‘Well, how did it he get it?’ This guy was running around like the Outbreak monkey.”
Chappelle closed out his monologue with an emotional plea that aimed at reconciling a divided nation.
“I would implore everybody who’s celebrating today to remember that it’s good to be a humble winner. Remember when I was here four years ago, remember how bad that felt? Remember that half the country right now still feels that way. Please remember that,” he said.
“Remember, for the first time in the history of America, life expectancy of white people is dropping ’cause of heroin, because of suicide. All the white people out there that feel that anguish, that pain, they mad because they think nobody cares — maybe they don’t — let me tell you something: I know how that feels. Promise you, I know how that feels. If you’re a police officer, and every time you put your uniform on, you feel like you got a target on your back, you’re appalled by the ingratitude that people have when you would risk your life to save them. Believe me, I know how that feels. Everyone knows how that feels. But here’s the difference between me and you: You guys hate each other for that, and I don’t hate anybody. I just hate that feeling. That’s what I fight, and what I suggest you fight. You gotta find a way to live your life. You gotta find a way to forgive each other. You gotta find a way to find joy in your existence, in spite of that feeling.”