Hollywood actor characterises trump supporters on MSNBC
Actor Jeff Daniels painted a somewhat sinister picture of President Donald Trump and a “wing” of the Republican Party as racists, making a comparison to the KKK.
Daniels, who appeared on left-leaning MSNBC, warned that Trump’s re-election in 2020 would signal “the end of democracy.”
The actor then compared Trump’s rallies to a line from Broadway’s current production of “To Kill a Mockingbird” he is currently starring in.
“A mob is a place where people go to take a break from their conscience.”
“That’s what I see when I look at Donald Trump’s rallies, that’s when I see the lies he’s spewing at these people, and people going, ‘I gotta believe in something,’ and he said he’d bring my manufacturing job back and he didn’t … but at the end of the day, it’s race. It’s race,” Deadline reported the actor saying.
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Daniel then refers to a particular “wing” of the Republican Party:
This is about the Republican Party — or a wing of it — going: ‘This is our last chance to save the party. And if we don’t, it’s the end of the Republican Party.’ And the only way they can do that was to tap the race button and say, ‘Go ahead, it’s OK.’ And [Trump] did,” he said.
“And they did. That was the only card they had left to play, and they played it. And they aren’t going to go quietly.”
The actor earlier likened his performances on Broadway as “white liberal Americas’” “wake-up call.”
“You walk out there, and we pin the ears back of, basically, white America. White liberal America comes in, and they go, ‘We had no idea it was that tough.’ It’s a slap in the face; it’s a wake-up call,” he said.
Daniels then goes on to compare Trump supporters to KKK members, implying that believing they have ve good intentions is dangerous and enabling.
On MSNBC’s @DeadlineWH, actor @Jeff_Daniels re Trump supporters: “Aside from I don’t want to pay taxes, it’s race. It’s race.” #DeadlineWH pic.twitter.com/NgeVfOYCSk
— Brent Baker (@BrentHBaker) May 20, 2019
According to Deadline:
Daniels] cites a moment in the play when the KKK is coming for Finch, and his daughter Scout recognizes one as their neighbor and compares it to when Daniels asked his fellow Michiganders about the 2016 election results, and they said, “Yeah, isn’t it great?” He then notes how Finch’s defending his neighbors by saying, “I know these people, they’re good people,” but “he’s an apologist, he’s an enabler,” Daniels said.
“And I think there are people in the Midwest, between the coasts, who don’t know anything about this, who don’t care about this, who don’t have any time for this, who have to make a decision now,” he continued.
If the big gamble is to go all the way to November 2020 … and lose, that’s the end of democracy.”
“You have to decide whether, like Atticus, you believe that there is still compassion, decency, civility, respect for others — ‘do unto others,’ remember that?
All that stuff you guys believe in, and you still voted not for Hillary or for Trump. Where are you now?”