In the days leading up to the election tomorrow night, both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have been campaigning non-stop in efforts to sway any remaining undecided voters in their favor. Harris took a break from the campaign trail this past weekend to make a special appearance on popular late night television show, Saturday Night Live. Not only has the skit that she participated in angered the Trump campaign, poking fun at his actions earlier in the week, such as working at a McDonalds, but Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulator Brendan Carr, has come forward on social media platform “X” claiming that by appearing on the show, Harris was making “a clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC’s Equal Time rule.”
As we learned earlier in the year, the Equal Time rule was put into place many decades ago with the rise of radio and television to limit any partisanship from the broadcasting companies. The rule is supposed to enforce that broadcasters must give all candidates the same amount of coverage and interview opportunities, in order to not unfairly influence the results of an election. However, despite Carr’s statement, the FCC has yet to take action in light of the accusation, with a spokesperson stating that “The FCC has not made any determination regarding political programming rules, nor have we received a complaint from any interested parties.”
Outside of the FCC debate, the choice to appear on a live television show was a risky one for the Harris campaign. There’s no going back if anything goes wrong, no editing out jokes that are too offensive after the fact. But it was a risk that the Harris campaign chose to take, just as several previous presidential candidates have done, including Trump himself in 2015. So while the Harris campaign is going from campaign event to event, one must question if going on SNL was worth it. With polls in key battleground states as close as ever, one can argue that the appearance had very little impact on Harris’s success. Not even official polls can agree on who is ahead in the race, with an ABC poll putting Harris at 49% of the vote to Trump's 46%, yet another NBC news poll having the candidates tied at 49%. In the end, the choice to go on SNL may have only reached a marginal amount of voters who weren’t already planning on supporting Harris, and this late in the game, there isn’t much impact that her appearance may have had. Whether or not Harris wins on Election Day tomorrow (or in the days that follow), the truth is that there is no way to know whether or not this appearance, or any of the other last minute campaign events are going to have an impact on the results.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/02/us/politics/kamala-harris-snl.html
https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/kamala-harris-snl-fcc-rule-violated-trump-commissioner-1236198975/
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/03/harris-appearance-snl-equal-time-rule
8 comments:
It is natural that candidates will make more appearances as election day approaches. One thing that should be noted about the Federal Communications Commission regulator is that he is part of the Republican Party. Additionally, Donald Trump appointed him to the position. At first, I thought that it may be a situation that caught the attention of the FCC because of only rules. But, after finding out that the FCC regulator is part of the Republican Party, it severely damaged the credibility of the accusation. I am not saying Harris did not break a rule set by the FCC, but rather, interestingly, the FCC regulator who called out Harris was appointed by Trump. It almost feels like the FCC regulator is pointing out something for his gain or to make himself look good to someone.
I agree that going on live television shows or podcasts such as SNL is a risky move for candidates, but can also be significantly beneficial to their campaigns. For instance, on the tiktok post that captured the main portion of Harris' skit on SNL, many comments were centered around the fact that seeing Harris' sense of humor makes her even more favorable. SNL is a show that attracts a wide variety of audiences---young adults to the elderly---and therefore I feel that out of all live television broadcasts, appearing on SNL could have reached the correct audiences (independents, moderate Republicans, etc.), espcially with social media sites reposting the skit. Although it is true that risk comes with candidates coming on these shows, candidates are often given the agendas and questions beforehand in order to come prepared. This can help to prevent any mishaps that can harm their campaign. Harris also made an appearance on the young adult women empowerment podcast "Call Her Daddy," which was a move similar to her appearnace on SNL that came very unexpectedly. The podcast is again somewhat humorous and light-hearted as is SNL, which allowed Harris to not only showcase her personality and genuineness, but also speak on her policy stances such as the right to an abortion.
I think that the FCC is important for maintaining the fairness of the election, but I also think that social media has changed the way politicians and share their messages, and maybe more importantly, represent themselves. Live television has been losing its audience, so while appearances on T.V do matter, I think social media is becoming more and more important. I have already seen numerous clips of Kamala Harris on SNL, so even people like me who don't watch the show have seen her sketch. I think this reinforces one of Kamala's strengths this election which is he likeability. Her personality is less polarizing than Trump, and I have seen a lot of young people praise her sense of humor, which she displayed on SNL. I also think the Trump campaign has taken advantage of the freedom of social media, with both he and J.D Vance appearing on podcasts. Trump went on the biggest podcast in the world with Joe Rogan, and although I haven't watched it myself, it has over 45 million views. I know that Kamala turned down going on that same podcast, so I'm unsure of the effect that could have. I think for both campaigns, social media and its rapid spreading of messages has been an effective way of getting around the limitations of the equal time rule. For Kamala Harris, clips of her personality and humor have won over many young people, and for Trump, longer, more in depth interviews online could appeal to those who are not put off by his brashness.
I agree with what Aiden says about how the Federal Communications Commissions regulator (Brendan Carr) is a registered republican damaging the credibility of his accusation against NBC. While it indeed did break the Equal Time Rule, more conservative media such as Fox News has been breaking it the entire election campaign. They have hosted (now presidential elect) Donald Trump over 100 times on their morning broadcast called Fox and Friends either in person or through voice calls. What I think is ironic is that if NBC violated the equal time rule, then Fox News must have done so every time they hosted Trump. Furthermore, while NBC attempted to fix their "violation" by selling an ad to the trump campaign after a NASCAR race, Fox News has interviewed Kamala Harris on their show once. I think that someone like Carr, a registered republican taking it upon himself to do his organization's job, isn't going to call out Fox News for their violations of the Equal Time Rule.
Now knowing that the violation of the equal time rule didn’t exactly help Harris, it begs some questions. Last minute statements and campaigns do matter. Making light of the election in the SNL skit and Biden’s comments about race towards African-Americans and Latinos “having to vote Blue doesn’t make you look that good coming up to the election. Her main point in the SNL skit was Keep Kalm-ala and carry on-ala which was likely representative of why her campaign didn’t work. She has constantly backed Joe Biden’s presidency even people claiming she is more qualified because she did more as vice president because of Joe’s incapability. Americans don’t think that the last 4 years were that great, we were involved in more wars, we saw even more inflation and Americans were tired of things “staying the same.” While Trump’s policies are likely going to move our country back a couple steps, I think people want to see change in some aspects and Trump made Kamala look more like an extremist on issues like abortion and foreign policy.
I don’t think her violating the equal time rule made anyone switch their vote, I think her SNL skit would’ve done more harm than good, maybe she would’ve lost by more if she didn’t go on SNL.
Writing this after the election, seeing Harris' failure to rouse her supporters and take away the republican base, the implications of Harris' unique style of campaigning are clear. Harris going on SNL is only a small piece of her campaign, consisting of TikTok and social media posts, which seem to make her resonate with a younger audience. Harris also focused on bringing entertainment to her rallies with stunts like Megan The Stallion and Bruce Springsteen holding concerts at rallies. Seeing Trump's massive victory for the Republicans, it is clear that this youth identity type of campaign was a mistake that did not resonate with a lot of Americans. In my opinion, flaunting the massive amounts of wealth at her disposal and the billionaire friends that she has, made Harris appear out of touch. Besides many other flaws with the Harris campaign, what might have likely happened is that rather than resonating with young liberal voters, Harris upset and riled old conservative voters, paving the way for a republican win.
I think Harris' appearance on SNL is a clear indicator of how much the media has shifted since the FCC's Equal time rule was created. Because of this shift, I would argue that trying to maintain the Equal Time rule is unrealistic and ineffective in our current times. You mention how "differing viewership of each program may mean that Trump needs to receive more time in order for the equal time rule to be met," but with platforms like TikTok and X, candidates reach audiences in ways that are impossible to regulate. I understand this rule applies solely to broadcast coverage, but in today's world, it’s really the social media impact following these broadcasts that often matters most.
Additionally, I think this SNL appearance highlights the contrasting approaches of Trump and Harris. Throughout the election, Harris has made it a point to resonate with younger audiences (as demonstrated by appearing on a show revolving around pop culture), while Trump aimed to reach across demographics. I think their styles may have contributed to the outcome of the election. If Harris had made more of an effort to connect with older generations, who were likely the most hesitant about her, the polls might have turned out differently.
I believe that while this choice to come onto SNL was definitely not a major contributing factor to why Donald Trump won the election, but I think it definitely summed up the majority of her campaigning and clearly highlighted its flaws. Much of Harris's campaigning efforts were directed at young voter's, and voter's who were already likely to vote for her. By going on SNL she continued to do this and basically was talking to a demographic that already liked her. However, because of the equal time rule Donald Trump was able to capitalize on this and appeal to people that may or may not be voting for him. Basically Trump didn't focus his attention on his sole supporter's he appealed to every demographic through a wide variety of avenues. It is hard to blame Kamala Harris for losing this presidency as she was thrown into the fire at close to the last moment, but I do believe that if her campaign was run a little bit better, the election wouldn't have been as much of a landslide as it has been.
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