Robert De Niro's f-bomb-punctuated anti-Trump speech at the Tony Awards provided a window into the nature of the "resistance," or at least the Hollywood component thereof.
First is the always irritating relationship between celebrity on the one hand and the propensity to spout off about politics on the other. For some reason, never fully explained, Hollywood actors, pop stars and other entertainment figures seem to think that we care what they think about such matters, although there is no actual evidence that we do, that we should, or that they actually do much thinking.
In De Niro's case (and the Tonys were hardly his first foray into anti-Trump blathering), the first thought was of how dropping a few f-bombs on live television garnered him more attention than anything he'd done on a bigger screen in at least a couple decades; that a once-great actor was issuing a plea for attention and trying to reacquire some relevance after starring in the likes of Dirty Grandpa and Meet the Fockers.
But the more interesting part was the response on the part of the audience, the standing ovation which suggested that either everyone at Radio City Music Hall agreed with everything De Niro had said, in which case the group-think and insularity in such environs is even greater than stereotypes suggest, or, more likely, that there were at least a certain number who felt his speech inappropriate but got up and clapped for him anyway because Hollywood is full of moral cowards willing to cravenly conform to politically correct orthodoxy for the sake of career advancement.
Either way, the spectacle was eerily totalitarian and brought to mind Alexander Solzhenitsyn's admonition in The Gulag Archipelago, "Don't ever be the first to stop applauding" when an ode to Stalin had been delivered. In the case of contemporary Hollywood, the lesson is that you don't want to be caught sitting with your hands in your lap after another member of the hive says "F*** Trump."
Brave souls these Hollywood types aren't--at least Stalin could threaten you and your family's life if you were deemed insufficiently obsequious. The Hollywood establishment can only threaten you for political disobedience with the loss of invites to swank parties and maybe that supporting actor part in the new Tarantino film.
Finally, we are left to contemplate precisely what message De Niro and his lockstep admirers thought they were communicating to the broader world, as opposed to the one that world actually received.
Assuming that roughly 40 percent of the nation's voters detest Trump and would never vote for him under any circumstances and that another 40 percent love him and will vote for him regardless of what obnoxious stuff he does, that leaves his fate (and therefore the fate of the republic, if some of the more overheated rhetoric is to be believed) in the hands of the 20 percent or so that are persuadable in either direction between now and November 2020.
As such, it is difficult to see how De Niro and the standing ovation in response to his speech by self-absorbed people with corn-kernel size brains did anything other than shift lots of votes from that last group closer to Trump's column. Even "Meathead" himself, Rob Reiner, noted that, "There's a very fine line between energizing your base and energizing the other side."
At the least, what happened at the Tonys suggests that Hollywood folks remain clueless as to how the rest of the country perceives them, that their bubble is so thick and they are so firmly sealed within it in glorious obliviousness that they fail to recognize the primary beneficiary of their antics is none other than the ogre himself.
One could thus be forgiven for wondering why, if Trump is truly the face of creeping fascism in America, they are trying so hard to get him re-elected.
Vladimir Lenin allegedly used the question of who profits to cut to the heart of political matters, and in the case of the Hollywood version of the resistance, the hunch might be that both sides do to some extent, only in different ways--Hollywood airheads get to use Trump to indulge in serial virtual signaling and wallow in warm baths of moral superiority and self-regard, while Trump's numbers go up every time a washed-up actor launches into a profane tantrum and an unfunny comic holds up a fake version of his severed head.
Thus, contrary to appearances, De Niro and company are probably inwardly grateful for having Trump around to so cheaply kick; the moral preening effect with a President Marco Rubio or President Nikki Haley would hardly be as satisfying. Trump's the best thing ever for their sense of self-importance as they speak truth to power risk-free and get to pat themselves on the back for their bravery at the cocktail parties afterwards.
If this is some kind of deal, Trump, on the whole, at least in terms of real-world political consequences, appears to be getting the better end of it.
There are many reasonable people, including many conservatives, who think getting Donald Trump out of the White House is imperative.
So then why are De Niro and friends making our job so difficult?
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Freelance columnist Bradley R. Gitz, who lives and teaches in Batesville, received his Ph.D. in political science from the University of Illinois.
Editorial on 06/25/2018