SNL speech in MAGA hat: “This mean, you can’t tell me what to do.”

“Tonight’s _SNL_performance is gonna be crazy!!!!,” tweeted Kim Kardashian West to her million followers on Saturday. “Tune in!”

On the 44th season opener of “Saturday Night Live,” viewers were expecting Ariana Grande, who canceled because of “emotional reasons.” So Kanye West stepped up to do the honors.

West performed three songs, including “I Love it” with Lil Pump and “We Got Love,” with Teyana Taylor. As the credits rolled, West performed “Ghost Town,” wearing one of Donald Trump’s red “Make America Great Again” hat, which producers told him he could not wear on stage.

“You see they laughing at me,” West said. “You heard ‘em. They scream at me. They bully me. They bullied me backstage. They said, ‘Don’t go out there with that hat on.’” West said the hat was his “Superman cape” and told the crowd “this mean, you can’t tell me what to do.”

“Thank y’all, for giving me this platform,” West told the crowd “I know some of y’all don’t agree but y’all be going at that man neck a lot, and I don’t think it’s actually that helpful. Ninety percent of news are liberal. Ninety percent of TV, LA, New York, writers, rappers, musicians. So it’s easy to make it seem like it’s so, so, so, one-sided.” West said “I feel kind of free. I thought this country said that I could be me.”

“I wanna cry right now,” West sang out. “Black man in America, you’re supposed to keep what you feel inside right now. And the liberals bully you and tell you what you can and cannot wear, where you and they can’t not stare. And they look at me and say, ‘It’s not fair. How the hell did you get here?’” West’s speech was cut off but captured on video by some in the audience, including comedian Chris Rock.

“The blacks weren’t always Democrats,” West said. “You know it’s like the plan they did, to take the fathers out the home and put them on welfare. Does anybody know about that? That’s a Democratic plan. There’s so many times I talk to, like, a white person about this and they say, ‘How could you like Trump? He’s racist.’ Well, uh, if I was concerned about racism I would’ve moved out of America a long time ago.”

The audience fell silent but a few booed and yelled. The Washington Post decried West’s “pro-Trump rant,” and “rant” showed up in reports from CBS and Fox. The British Independent cited West’s “tirade.” On the other hand, West’s performance caught the attention of President Trump, who tweeted:

“Like many, I don’t watch Saturday Night Live (even though I past hosted it) - no longer funny, no talent or charm. It is just a political ad for the Dems. Word is that Kanye West, who put on a MAGA hat after the show (despite being told “no”), was great. He’s leading the charge!” The president did have a point.

Here was a black American, in one of the strongholds of the cultural left, openly defying the bullies and proudly wearing his MAGA hat. He denounced the welfare system that has broken down black families and took shots at fake news and biased entertainment. The president also had support for his charge that SNL was no longer funny.

Chevy Chase, part of the original SNL cast in 1975, is recently on record that the show has become “the worst f***ing humor in the world.” And in its funnier days, the show was more evenhanded politically.

In 1991, during the Clarence Thomas hearings, an SNL sketch had Phil Hartman as a drunken Sen. Ted Kennedy asking Thomas (Tim Meadows) if he ever walked out of the bathroom nude, a tactic that “works” with the ladies. Chris Rock appears as porn star “Long Dong Silver” and Sen. Joe Biden (Kevin Nealon) tells him several committee members are admirers of his work.

For a more evenhanded approach check out “Dukakis After Dark,” with Jon Lovitz as the Democrats’ 1988 presidential candidate Michael Dukakis celebrating his loss in advance. Phil Hartman plays a drunken Ted Kennedy hitting on Kitty Dukakis and Joan Baez, (Nora Dunn) croons a tune that mocks the Democrats’ agenda.

Unilateral disarmament, abortion on demand Take everybody’s guns away, and throw them in the sand Free needles for the addicts, free condoms for the kids And we’ll not blame the criminal, for anything he did And who’s to say what’s right or wrong, is there such a thing as sin? And it doesn’t really matter, if it’s wars we lose or win.

Viewers would not see that today but all is not lost. As Kanye West showed, you can stand up to the bullies, put on MAGA hat, and speak your mind. So maybe Kanye West’s revolution in the making will be televised.