If you asked most Americans about the politics of Saturday Night Live, they would probably tell you that the show falls on the liberal side of the fence. But as former cast member Horatio Sanz has said in the book Live From New York and now in a new interview with ESPN’s Bill Simmons, he thinks it has abandoned its progressive roots and has actually helped conservatives more than you would think.





In his interview with writers James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales for the 2014 update to their comprehensive history of the show, Sanz called longtime writer Jim Downey “the Karl Rove of SNL” and said the show should have been harder on conservatives in recent years.

As an example of what he was talking about, Sanz pointed to a sketch that aired the week Nancy Pelosi took over as Speaker of the House, in which her staffers are two men in S&M outfits. “That’s what you get out of that story?” Sanz asked. “That everyone in San Francisco is so weird that they’re wearing fucking leather and whipping each other.”

Watch the sketch below, via NBC:

“It’s that kind of conservative bullshit that I was against,” Sanz added.

Simmons marveled at SNL’s ability to affect political outcomes, saying he thinks it really hurt both Sarah Palin and the first George Bush in tangible ways. But, on the other hand, Sanz said that when Americans saw Will Ferrell as George W. Bush “having a beer and being a bro” it may have actually helped push him over the top in the 2000 election.

RELATED: Sarah Palin: I ‘Hated’ That SNL ‘Portrayed Me as an Idiot’

While the show tends not to him Democrats that hard, Simmons pointed out the “savage” portrayal of Hillary Clinton in the most recent episode as a counter-example. “It was pretty brutal,” he said. “If they keep this going, this actually could affect things a tiny bit.”

Going back to the original spirit of the show when it started in the ’70s, Sanz said he thinks it should be a little more “anti-establishment” and a little less “conservative.” As it stands now, he said it is just trying to be “popular.”

Listen to audio below, via Grantland:

You can hear the full podcast interview at grantland.com.

[Photo via screengrab]

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