Veteran actor Rob Reiner spoke to MSNBC’s Ari Melber and said there is one critically important thing Americans must do to fight for democracy.
And it comes down to one thing: Keeping Donald Trump from winning the 2024 election. On Melber’s show The Beat, he emphasized we must prevent “fascist” GOP frontrunner Donald Trump from turning into a full-fledged dictator, Alternet reports.
“Every time we have a presidential election, they always say: This is the most important election of our life…. this one actually is… you have one candidate, Trump, who actually tells you he’s going to govern like an authoritarian. He says it. It’s not a mystery. And you have another guy who has been there, knows how to run the government, believes in the constitution, believes in Democracy, the rule of law. And you’ve gotta make a choice.”
Reiner added extra emphasis:
“you have to make a choice. do we want fascism or do we want to continue the 248 years of self-rule?”
Melber has described Trump as an “authoritarian menace,” responded, “You just said it more clearly than some of these Beltway pundit types in D.C., some of them around Biden. You just said it: Do you want fascism or not? Do you want to give your vote to someone who’s trying to take your vote? Which doesn’t mean you have to pretend that everything is sunny and perfect with the incumbent.”
Reiner explained: “It’s a choice. You make a choice. And right now, we’re at a place where it’s a crossroads. Do we want to continue democracy, or do we want to slip into fascism? … He told us that he is going to put people in camps. And those of us who are Jewish…. That sound goes off. And you go, ‘Oh my God, we know what that means.'”
Reiner was absolutely brilliant on Norman Lear’s incendiary sitcom All In The Family, which first premiered in the early 1970s. Now 76, he played Mike Stivic, the liberal son-in-law of the very bigoted Archie Bunker (played by Carroll O’Connor). Mike and Archie became famous for their fiery debates about politics on the show. When O’Connor was alive, he was the complete opposite of the racist Bunker, and like Reiner, he often supported liberal and progressive causes.
Now, of course, Reiner has become a celebrated director who’s compiled quite a list of major films, including When Harry Met Sally and A Few Good Men.”
Reiner has given us some scary food for thought. Now let’s use our brains to keep Trump out of office.
I’m with Meathead
The real irony of all these GOPers backing Trump is they haven’t considered what an authoritarian government means for GOPers at the state level. All those calls for “states’ rights” that so often rise from the right-wing red state folks will go the way of the dodo since there’s NEVER been an authoritarian state anywhere that has allowed its “second-level” governments (in the case of the US, that means “states”) to have any meaningful level of self-rule. All the leaders are put there by the central government (granted, with most of the current red state leaders, they’d only have to swear an undying oath to der Führer to keep their current jobs).
One of the biggest mistakes the well heeled and well connected made in the early thirties in Germany was believing they could control Hitler by giving him power. We see how that worked out. These idiots seem to believe their loyalty and sacrifice will be rewarded. What a ship of fools. As the saying goes…those who don’t learn from history are DOOMED to repeat it.
and those who try to conceal and rewrite history are DETERMINED to repeat it!
The gqp who think an authoritarian government will be great do not understand that what applies to the Democrats, the liberals, will also apply to them because they will be seen as a threat to the authoritarian government, especially with all of their high-powered weapons. They really believe that their new form of government will let them be their militia, their protection, when the reality is that the new government will be terrified of a coup and will disarm them asap and probably lock them up as well. As you say, “what a ship of fools”.