The Jimmy Carter parodies were of the good-natured sort.
Chevy Chase’s portrayals of President Ford are not. They’re an onslaught of depicting Ford as stupid. They are not funny and they are not entertaining.
They—were—effective in branding Ford as stupid much as Dan Quayle (stupid), Reagan (stupid and demented), the Bushes (stupid), ... have been portrayed. I’ve only seen a few of SNL’s Trump portrayals on youtube and they seem to be the same nasty and unfunny material as SNL used on other Republicans.
SNL is political propaganda with a smattering of entertainment.
Agreed.
I won’t argue with you there. Comedians always usually fun of Dems for sins of the flesh (who doesn’t want to get laid?) but Pubbies get skewered for being evil (Nixon killing little southeast Asian babies, Bush killing for oil, all wanting to deny mothers and children their healthcare). But I still say SNL went from being comedy with a little bit of politics to politics with no comedy.