https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxyGmyEby40
If you haven’t seen this yet, give it a watch.
I always cringe a little when celebrities speak out on political and social issues, even when (as is often the case) I agree with them. And Streep’s joke about the audience at the Golden Globes being the “most vilified group” in America today fell a bit flat for me, for obvious reasons.
But her comments about Trump’s mocking “performance” imitating a disabled reporter during one of his stump speeches were right on:
This instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everyone’s life because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing.
Disrespect invites disrespect, violence invites violence. When the powerful use their position to bully others we all lose.
Naturally, Trump has responded in his characteristic manner:
Meryl Streep, one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood, doesn't know me but attacked last night at the Golden Globes. She is a…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2017
Hillary flunky who lost big. For the 100th time, I never "mocked" a disabled reporter (would never do that) but simply showed him…….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2017
"groveling" when he totally changed a 16 year old story that he had written in order to make me look bad. Just more very dishonest media!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 9, 2017
Dude, just stop. It’s embarrassing. We all saw what you did.
First bit of hope I’ve seen in awhile, to be honest. Still, I want to remain a party pooper to anyone who holds this up too high. Yes, it’s awesome that someone with privilege used it to say something about those without those privileges. However, now think about how much more someone with that level of privilege could do? Especially if more people with that privilege are now inspired by Meryl Streep to speak out.
In other words, we hit the ground running, and I’ve got the celebratory cake ready, but we can’t eat it until we get a little further in the race. We’re still too behind to be complacent.
The reaction from the Trump camp has been telling: Meryl Streep calls for compassion, and Kellyanne Conway complains that Ms. Streep is appealing to the worst instincts.
Therefore, to the Trump camp compassion is the worst instinct.
@Iseult
Well, it’s the same lot that booed Ted Cruz when he told them to vote their conscience … apparently another dirty word to Trumpets.
There are many reasons to find Trump loathsome; but what amazes me is his sheer pettiness.
On its own it might just be bemusing. There are thicker skinned soap bubbles. But it’s the combination with his hypocrisy that makes him so vile. He’s a classic example of ‘you can give it but you can’t take it’.
A man who will bully a 16 year old girl in the most egregious manner just for having the audacity to question him, yet explodes in a fit of petulance when faced with the most sublime of criticism.
I do see a silver lining here though. His insecurity is his achilles heel. He clearly finds criticism and mockery devastating and humiliating. We can weaponise that. Mock him at every opportunity. Treat him as a joke (albeit a dangerous one). Let his name become synonymous with ignorance and foolishness. As tempting as it may be, don’t yell at him, just laugh. Make his time in office such a humiliating experience his ego just can’t take it any more. Jeer him out of power. Ensure he fears sneers and pointed fingers like real presidents feared the assassin’s bullet. Make his first term simply unendurable until he slinks back under the rock of celebrity TV from whence he came.
I’ve honestly seen three-year-olds behave more maturely than this.
Still haven’t fully wrapped my head around how this guy becoming president was even possible…
@Alan Robertshaw
Only works if the bugger hears it from people he wants respect from. Us, well, we don’t exist. Right?
Not to say it isn’t fun mocking him anyways.
@Alan
I’ve been thinking about the same thing for a few days now. It just seems, to me, that it’s a horrific combination of circumstances that made His Oranginess into what he is.
Firstly, he’s a man who’s only marketable skill is failure. It’s the only thing he’s been consistent with his whole life (I hope he wasn’t a very racist baby, but considering stories of his father I won’t hold my breath). Couple that with the fact that he hasn’t failed in any permanent sense. My economic knowledge base is abysmal, but my ignorant opinion would be that a lot of that has to do with there being a certain wage cutoff above which you can’t really go back down from. If memory serves, a big reason the banks that he owed millions to didn’t deliver the coup de grâce was that the buildings with his name in gold letters would lose value if Trump went down. A man who can do nothing but fail, yet somehow recovers from said failures, is a man I would not be surprised lives in a fantasy world. He has to to stoke his own insatiable ego, and he has the means to surround himself only with people who will keep pouring gasoline on it.
That explains his general lashing out and self-aggrandizement. Now, however, the game has changed; he can’t buy every person in the world. By running for office he has left his bubble, and the tantrums we’re seeing are his desperate attempts to get his bubble to fit over the world instead.
We are not dealing with a man who can ever agree on even basic facts, because in the real world Trump is a failure. And that is the most egregious sin possible in Drumpfworld.
I honestly hope he keeps wasting time making an ass of himself on Twitter. At least then he’s distracted and not causing mayhem elsewhere.
Oh, she is just brilliant isn’t she? And her speech is so carefully and deliberately worded that it’s quite hard to openly disagree with it, which is why people are resorting to ‘she’s irrelevant’, ‘she should stick to her lane’ etc…
I’m afraid I am not so positive about some of the responses to this, although I am glad that people are using their platforms to dissent. I find two things scary: How quickly Trump flies off the handle at criticism, which leads me to fear that he’ll simply clamp down on it and feel entitled to. Most dictatorships are not led by people who aim to be evil, but by entitled and oversensitive cowards who don’t like being criticised and don’t see why they should have to allow it.
Secondly, how quicky his defenders rushed in to claim that the bullying of the reporter had simply never happened. There’s footage, but that simply doesn’t matter. The comments from Trumpsters under articles are full of people not just denying it, but actively being utterly furious that ANYONE would dare repeat this obvious lie. Scary stuff 🙁
@TCS: and then Pence really gets to run things? Not necessarily an improvement.
Trump can’t even make a statement about the state of the DC apparel industry without lying. Lying is just a compulsive state for him. He’s learned over time that he can say whatever and there is some group of people who will roll with it, so that’s become his MO. He probably knows no other way to speak anymore.
Thing about gaslighters: you can see em a mile away, and they’re fulla hot air
She’s a 4, tops
@Alan
Dayum!
@Nequam
Pence is awful, and in some ways arguably worse in that he’s actually semi-competent at getting awful shit done, but also seems less likely to break out the nukes on a whim.
But letting Pence do all the work as VP is the worst of both worlds, because Pence gets awful shit done, while Trump is still the one who can nuke countries because he got his back hairs up over an unkind tweet.
@Alan,
Wow, your post! Fiery, awesome stuff.
@Caveats and Quandaries,
OT, but I love your nym, for the highly selfish reason that it encapsulates how I think and write (it maddens me sometimes). Plus, caveat and quandary are such lovely words 🙂
Saw it live, it was glorious. Also, her message to the press was very much on point. Hope she’s safe, I can only imagine she’s being inundated by death threats from internet nazis.
@ Mish of the Catlady Ascendancy
Haha that was my thinking when I came up with it. It also stands as a go-to response to an imaginary strawman who might ask, “How is it possible for two people to see the same facts so divisively!?”
Anyhoo if we’re talking about epic names that deserve their own soundtrack you’re one to talk.
To put it another way, caveats and quandaries are the two things I most frequently see anti-feminists (and the various ugly groups that stem from that) get wrong when it comes to social issues. They might be very close to a revelation, with one awful little asterisk ruining it for everyone.
@Caveats and Quandaries,
Ah, but I can’t claim credit for coming up with my name, unlike yourself. Mish is actually (part of) my name, and the Catlady Ascendancy bit was taken from an alt-right rant featured here on Mammoth, back before the US election. It’s a good fit, though, as crazy catlady has long been a career aspiration of mine 🙂
What a fabulous line!
At this point, perhaps Meryl Streep was harking back to phrases she used many times in her role as a mom.
Much as I adore Streep and this speech, there’s also been some good discussion about the ableism in it (especially given its coming from Hollywood.) I don’t have the links on me (and it’s 6am here and I have a 7 hour train this afternoon if I ever sleep) but Ijeoma Oluo linked a twitter thread on her fb page and I believe there’s an Establishment article to the same effect.
@Headologist I may have missed something, but I’m not sure what ableism you’re referring to?
The Establishment article rubbed me up the wrong way tbh. One has an an absolute right to point out instances where people are trying to help, but getting it wrong (especially if there is racism, sexism, ableism involved etc…). For ages I have valued the idea that we need to hold each other to account over the things we deem progressive. That we question how progressive something actually is, and if there turn out to be flaws (like, it ignores black women, or ignores lack of income) then we do better. But I am completely sick and tired of this need to out-progressive whatever progressive thing gets mainstream attention.
No, Meryl Streep is not on the front lines of this fight, but she has a platform and she is using it. She had a short speech, and a short space of time, to use an example that everyone would recognise and make a point that reached out to the apathetic. This is good!!! For goodness sake, she’s not preaching to the converted, and a disabled rights activist who could do that speech better wasn’t invited to a celebrity event. It’s like claiming that a primary school teacher isn’t REALLY teaching maths because REAL mathmeticians don’t just just learn times tables. No, but they’re teaching to 8 year olds right now and we’ll get there. It’s being applauded because it was very public (and dangerous for her career) not because it was progressive thing anyone has ever said.
THIS!
I don’t want to insinuate that Streep’s speech wasn’t important or, y’know, awesome, because it was, but I’m afraid that I really don’t think it’s trying to “out-progressive” her to point out that the example that she used and the way she and the rest of the media are talking about it is really problematic. Disabled people are always held up as the helpless victim, often not named by the people using them for political caché, and far from being an unfortunate necessity it’s fucking harmful. It feeds the view that anything a disabled person does is in spite of their disability, that they have no personal agency, that they are defined only by their disability and that once you get diagnosed your life is over. It’s the same track of thought that leads to the celebration of things like “Me Before You,” and the “bravery” of euthanasia for disabled people – because how could they lead a full life themselves? So while I agree Streep’s speech was great, I’m not going to ignore the huge ableist elephant in the room because however good something is you can’t just gloss over ableism, and I think it’s important to critique our heroes. Telling disabled people they are reducible to their disability and have to wait around for society to fight for them because they’re helpless is not OK, no matter what it’s in service of.