OPINION:
I’d think it was reverse psychology, except I know they’re not that clever. A group of celebrity commissars is organizing against Donald Trump.
Jane Fonda, Michael Moore, Rosie O’Donnell and a cast of the usual suspects have started a “Dump Trump” campaign to expose The New Yorker, who is (according to their website) “a grave threat to democracy, freedom, human rights, equality and the welfare of our country and all our people.” They forgot truth, justice and the American way.
The billionaire is indicted for “inciting hatred against Muslims, immigrants, women, [and] the disabled,” “unleashing a lynch mob mentality,” and “bullying and fear-mongering” — but not in a good way. “We pledge ourselves to speak out in every way possible against the politics of hate and exclusion he represents,” Ms. Fonda and her allies heroically proclaim.
The Donald’s campaign can’t pass up an opportunity like this. It should pay for a Trump-bashing telethon by Ms. Fonda and company, and have it telecast to every gun club, evangelical church, and American Legion and VFW post in the early primary states.
Leading lifestyles of the rich and obnoxious, Hollywood lefties believe they have their finger on the pulse of the nation — that their values are American values. They would be, if the Soviet Union had won the Cold War.
Hollywood values are typified by that “revolutionary woman,” (her words) Jane Fonda. In the 1970s she was bouncing around college campuses telling student audiences: “We should strive for a socialist society, all the way to communism.” Couldn’t we stop with Bernie Sanders’ platform?
And who can forget her pilgrimage to Hanoi — posing with a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft battery and making propaganda broadcasts for the agrarian reformers in July and August 1972, when 50,000 Americans had died in the war. She called U.S. pilots “war criminals,” and returning POWs who spoke of being tortured at the Hanoi Hilton “liars, hypocrites and pawns.” She probably thinks John McCain is faking arm injuries, which make it impossible for him to tie his shoes or comb his hair.
Recipient of the 2003 Margaret Sanger Award, among other causes, Ms. Fonda has taken to bashing the Catholic Church over its opposition to abortion and contraception. She also believes “patriarchy” is partly to blame for the rise of terrorism.
Michael Moore is Ms. Fonda after solitary confinement in a Subway shop on a diet of foot-longs and water. Mr. Moore is the author of the 2001 book “Stupid White Men and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation.” (It was not autobiographical.) He’s best known for documentary hits like “Bowling for Columbine” — a rant against the National Rifle Association, Charlton Heston, stupid white males and what gun-grabbers call America’s homicidal, gun-loving culture.
Mr. Moore has been an indefatigable champion of the Palestinians. To protest Israel’s alleged occupation of their lands, he announced that he would not attend a Jerusalem screening of his film “Roger and Me.” That must have hurt.
At the 2003 Oscars, after receiving an award for “Bowling,” Mr. Moore launched into a diatribe, blaming George W. Bush for the Iraq War. After he left the stage, master of ceremonies Steve Martin quipped that some longshoremen were “helping Michael into the trunk of his car.”
Ms. O’Donnell, who believes “radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam,” says of the NRA, “The only life that is important to them is white, Republican life.” In 2007, on ABC’s “The View,” she charged that explosives, not planes, brought down the Twin Towers on 9/11. “I do believe it is the first time in history that fire ever melted steel,” she said, and that then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani had evidence “removed and shipped off to Canada” to cover up the crime. Now who could not take seriously an organization whose leaders include a conspiracy-nut-cum-metallurgist?
That the Dump Trump brigade thinks anyone outside Beverly Hills cares about their views is beyond delusional. While railing at Republican greed, they lead lives whose opulence would make the lord of Downton Abby gag. They buzz around in private jets while lecturing us on carbon footprints.
Jane Fonda — who says Mr. Trump is “a grave threat to human rights” — never said a word about the Cambodian genocide that followed our withdrawal from Southeast Asia. She told anti-war activist Joan Baez, who protested the imprisonment of 100,000 Vietnamese after the war, that she didn’t criticize “revolutionary regimes.” For the Hollywood left, hypocrisy has no limits.
We’ve gone beyond political humor to political slapstick humor. Instead of Larry, Moe and Curly, we have. Rosie, Jane and Fatty.
• Don Feder, a former columnist for the Boston Herald, is a freelance writer.
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