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Robert De Niro: democracy will ‘perish’ if Trump elected
Robert De Niro speaks outside Manhattan Criminal Court today. Credit: Getty
Happening today beneath the surface
Robert De Niro speaks outside Manhattan Criminal Court today. Credit: Getty
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SubscribeWhen you have built a career speaking lines written for you by great writers, your appearance controlled by great directors and had your mistakes removed by great editors, then it probably isn’t a good idea to show your audience the real you. You’ll only disappoint them.
It’s such a stupid argument anyway – Neither candidate is an unknown quantity. The electorate have seen them both in office and can make a side by side comparison. If De Niro’s childish threats were in any way true, it would have already happened. Never in the history of the world has a leader had a better opportunity to take total control – with the entire country under a lockdown – yet nothing of the sort happened. In fact it was the Liberals who were demanding that the country remain under curfew, when they felt the Trump administration wasn’t being authoritarian enough!
Democracy would be under a greater threat if the half-thought musings of a once-great actor turned grudge-filled misanthrope carried more weight than the concerns and desires of a nation.
One should never overestimate the intelligence of the average individual voter – but equally one should never underestimate the wisdom of the electorate as a whole.
Agreed. I was thinking about writing something along these lines, but you have done it so much better than I would be able to formulate it.
We had to destroy democracy to save it.
Whenever I hear the Dems talking about “saving democracy,” I remember news footage of US troops setting fire to hootches in Vietnam.
I’m still trying to figure out why I should care about the opinions of an actor who did some great work in his early years but spent the rest of his career as a walking caricature of the iconic characters he played while young.
Because he never was one of the iconic characters he played, he always was what he is.
To paraphrase a 1980s song by Bananarama:
Robert De Niro’s waiting, talking b*ll*cks
Good one. It’s a long time since I heard anyone mention Bananarama.
You obviously don’t live in Fiji. Colonel Frank Bananarama is often in the news there.
I was going to write exactly the same thing!
They think they’re enlightened and we’re idiots. They presumably are unfamiliar with the story of Socrates and the oracle at Delphi. Their talent is acting, so they do, and because they’re famous, the press will report what they say. The real crime is the media for giving people who have no business in politics a political platform. That’s part of how we ended up with Trump in the first place, as he too started as a celebrity who made random political comments and had the slavering press dutifully tell us all about it.
I don’t have a problem with actors spouting opinions in politics, as they are citizens too and have the same rights as any of us to their viewpoints, but I DO have a problem with elevating them above the everyone else. I would rather hear from the groundskeeper of one of his many estates, as that man’s opinion is going to be much more reality based and intuitive.
First modest remark – Trump said about presidency many years ago.
Second modest remark – Did you ever ask yourself why he is so popular?
Third modest remark – Reagan was a Hollywood actor, but not a “Robert De Niro”
Reagan may not have been a great actor, but he was a great President.
Hear, hear!
Agreed, and honesly most of his best roles were iconic because of a great script, not great acting. Taxi Driver, Heat, etc. Great script. Average acting. My opinion of course.
He’s as senile as Biden.
So, basically, the results of a free and democratic election will destroy democracy. De Niro is using hyperbole and presenting a highly melodramatic argument. He’s an actor and he’s using his skill, acting, to try to influence public opinion. He might not even care and just be bashing Trump to further his career in a vehemently anti-Trump Hollywood community. His actual views as expressed in private may or may not make any sense or have any bearing on what he says in public.
So, yes, he’s overstating and greatly oversimplifying the situation but he may actually have a point, not that it’s a very good one. It sounds counterintuitive and illogical to suggest an election could destroy a democracy, but it can and has happened. Most recently, it could be said with some justification that the German elections in 1932 destroyed the very weak and very young Weimar Republic, but that’s hindsight, and the United States is not Germany, nor is it 1932. Nobody in Germany in 1932 knew what Hitler and the Nazis would do. If they had, they presumably wouldn’t have voted for them, but they didn’t. Nobody knows the future, and other events and circumstances greatly contributed to the Nazi’s rise to power, notably widespread popular antisemitism, a lack of democratic history and values, the weakness of German leadership at the time, and perhaps most importantly, the highly flawed treaty that had ended WWI.
De Niro is trying to channel some biblical prophet through his considerable acting talent and foretelling a similar terrible doom if Trump is elected, but I call BS. We had four years of Trump, and it was mostly four years of generic Republicanism thanks to a gridlocked and dysfunctional Congress while even the policy he had power over tended to change as Trump changed advisors. None of the people around Trump, like Bannon or Lighthizer, who were calculating and Machiavellian enough to accomplish anything significant could stay in lord Trump’s good graces long enough to accomplish much, so we got four years of inconsistency and chaos. On the plus side, that lack of decisiveness did accomplish some things, like keep the US out of wars and kept the US from any overambitious environmental or social spending commitments. I can see why people would vote for Trump based on only that. I think a lot of people know very well what Trump is and vote for him anyway because they saw the results and don’t care so much about the process. It was Thoreau who said the best government governs the least. If the problem is too much government, too much power, too much ambitious overreach, anything that handicaps the government’s ability to exercise power can be positive, even if it comes in the form of an agent of chaos like Trump. If electing a circus clown keeps the US out of foreign wars, keeps immigration at a tolerable level, and keeps the woke crowd at bay, then there’s a pretty good case for voting for the circus clown.
He is increasingly embarrassing
People who say “we need to save democracy” actually mean “the status quo”. And there is indeed some danger of an undemocratic regime coming to power via democratic means and then canceling democracy, but this is the inherent paradox of democracy. Same thing with “tolerance”. Tolerance of intolerance will finish off tolerance.
Why are Democrats such bedwetting hysterics? From his entitled world of Californian palaces, endless Reiki massage sessions and mindfulness workshops, he’s essentially saying the lower classes are all fascists. It’s like something out of the court of King Louis XVI.
Because most intellectually honest Dems realize that Biden et al. have “scr—ed the pooch,” and there’s a boat load of the public who will either vote for Trump or sit out the election. Especially in swing states.
To be fair he has always been a dramatic Fokker.
Stick to acting and STFU about politics, Mr de Niro.
Well, I suppose with Mr DeNiro’s roots he could be excused for thinking he is in Ancient Rome defending the Republic from Caesar…
For all my love for free speech, I must acknowledge, not without some (moderate) shame that I often dream of a ban for actors, athletes and other celebrities to express political views. Almost by definition, they are not the brightest knives in whatever drawer and hence whatever they say is usually utter nonsense and causes third-party embarrassment at best. Or pure cringe, in most cases.
Now at least any waverers will know how to vote!