Hillary confesses her love to a Trump elector, Love Actually style.

In a Decision Sure to Please Everyone, SNL Puts Hillary into a Scene From Love Actually

In a Decision Sure to Please Everyone, SNL Puts Hillary into a Scene From Love Actually

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Slate's Culture Blog
Dec. 18 2016 4:44 AM

In a Decision Sure to Please Everyone, SNL Puts Hillary into a Scene From Love Actually

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The truth is, maybe it would have been a good idea to go to Michigan.

NBC

If there’s one thing everyone loves around Christmas, it’s Love Actually, Richard Curtis’ overstuffed 2003 attempt to ruin the Troggs forever. And if there’s one thing everyone loves around Christmas 2016, it’s the idea that Hillary Clinton—last seen throwing a thank you party for her richest donors in the same room where Truman Capote threw his Black and White Ball—has been tirelessly working to avert the impending disaster of a Trump presidency. So when someone on the Saturday Night Live writing staff had the brilliant idea to combine the two, an instant American classic was born.

A little context: On Monday, the electors for most states are voting to choose the president, which has led to an almost-certainly-quixotic grass-roots campaign to convince Trump electors to save us from our own worst impulses. Saturday Night Live imagines Clinton, who dedicated one of her rare public appearances since the election to honoring Katy Perry, going door to door talking to Trump electors, employing the same tried and true Bob Dylan tactics Andrew Lincoln uses to try to convince Keira Knightley to leave her husband in Love Actually.

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It’s not all bad: The Saturday Night Live crew did an extraordinary job duplicating the items on the shelves in Keira Knightley and Chiwetel Ejiofor’s apartment, down to the rabbit sculpture:

loveactually1loveactually2

A tale of two shelves.

Bravo, prop department! But the idea that Saturday Night Live or Hillary Clinton can save the day by pointing out to Trump electors that the man is unwell—well, that’s sort of what got us in this mess to begin with, isn’t it? You don’t get chosen to be a Trump elector by listening to reason, and if “Trump is an unhinged misogynistic con artist” were a winning argument with the Republicans Clinton inexplicably courted, she would have won the election. In its way, the skit is a perfect encapsulation of the Democrats in 2016: When they go low, we make videos reassuring ourselves that things are fine and virtue will inevitably triumph, then share them on social media. Naturally, the skit is blowing up on Twitter; on Monday, we’ll find out how many electoral votes it swayed.