You Had Me at 'Shut Up': SNL Co-Opts Adele for a Very Liberal Thanksgiving

Yes, I thought it was funny. I even L’ed.O.L.

But then I stepped back and considered: “What’s the message here?”

I’m talking about the Saturday Night Live parody video [view below] of a Thanksgiving dinner that devolves into political bickering. (Watch it now and come back, unless you don’t care about spoilers.)

The “Thanksgiving Miracle” video aired Saturday (11/21/2015) and has been seen, so far, by more than 3.9 million on YouTube. The family fights over Syrian refugees, Black Lives Matter and transgender rights, but each time a new dispute arises, the only child in the scene turns on a CD player and fills the room with “Hello,” the latest smash hit by pop balladeer Adele, and everyone sings.

It’s really a brilliant piece of comedy and leftist propaganda rolled into one. I should be grateful that any TV comedy show has opted for both rather than just the latter.

But ICYMI (which means In Case You Missed It, ICYMI), there are at least six liberal tropes packed into fewer than four minutes.

1. Conservatives are stupid: The aunt who’s grateful to her governor for barring Syrian refugees thinks an Asian woman she saw at the store was “an ISIS.” The family patriarch thinks every refugee is a terrorist. The grandpa calls transgenderism a “very interesting trend.”
2. Conservatives are insensitive (AKA racist): The aunt, in an effort to “get to know” her niece’s black boyfriend, asks him why his “friends” keep antagonizing the police.
3. Liberals are smart and sensitive: The young woman is shocked at her aunt’s anti-Muslim bigotry and the racist question to her boyfriend. The mixed-race leftist couple corrects the grandpa, noting that transgender people have always been with us, but previously they were closeted, miserable, then dead.
4. Children are wiser than adults: Only the little girl realizes that peace in the family is more important than winning political arguments, so she turns the music on.
5. Pop culture is god: At Thanksgiving the one who truly brings us together, and to whom we owe a debt of gratitude, is a pop music icon.
6. Political debates end when you shut up: Rather than listening, finding common ground, identifying differences in perspective, acknowledging personal shortcomings and agreeing to disagree without breaking the bonds of love — liberals prefer that their ideological rivals simply shut up. Notice in the video that the “right wingers” are the persistent instigators of conflict.

Now that I’ve spoiled it for you, feel free to go back to just laughing at the video, and belting out “Hello” at the top of your lungs. After all, that’s what I did.

Come on, it’s Thanksgiving. We can at least be grateful to God that we have liberal relatives.

How else would we know how relatively well-informed and thoughtful we are?