Comedy is built on surprises and reversals of fortune, and it’s hard to imagine bigger examples of either this week than the slow collapse of everyone’s election predictions on Tuesday as the results started to come in. So naturally, Saturday Night Live had a sketch set at an election party hosted by exactly the sort of people most shocked by Trump’s victory: white coastal liberals. (Slate readers, too: Vanessa Bayer’s character has a friend who works here and is predicting a 3-point Hillary Clinton win.) Chappelle plays their less optimistic friend—for some reason, he has an inkling that things might not turn out quite the way they imagine. When Beck Bennett breathlessly tells the guests, “Because of shifting demographics, there might never be another Republican president in this country,” Chappelle leans back and asks, “You ever been around this country before?”
As the night wears on and the electoral map gets grimmer, Chappelle is joined by Chris Rock, who is equally amused by the straws the other guests are grasping at, from late returns to the state of Alaska to a large black turnout in Green Bay, Wisconsin. It’s great seeing Rock again, even if he’s just in the skit so Chappelle doesn’t have to be the only person to act surprised when Cecily Strong comes to the drunken realization that America might be racist. Still, it might be a little too soon to revisit Tuesday night, so maybe take a page from the characters and treat yourself to a little white wine and a whole bunch of Xanax before watching.
