Hollywood’s ‘Job’ Is To Explain Democracy and Warn Americans That Trump Is An ‘Autocrat,’ Director Rob Reiner Claims
Veteran director Rob Reiner is worried America is one year away from becoming a hellish “full-on autocracy” under President Donald Trump — and he said it is the media and Hollywood’s “job” to educate citizens about democracy before it is too late.
Reiner shared his grim outlook during an appearance on Ali Velshi’s MSNBC program on Sunday.
“People have to understand our democracy is being taken away from us, and we only have about a year,” Reiner said.
He then told Velshi that he and many other pundits are doing a “great job” of covering Trump. “But make no mistake, we have a year before this country becomes a full on autocracy and democracy completely leaves us,” Reiner said.
The “A Few Good Men” director pointed to Trump using ICE agents to deport illegal immigrants and deploying National Guard troops to crackdown on crime as two signs that America is in peril.
Another issue, Reiner said, is that the average American does not understand democracy or the threat Trump poses to it:
“We have to make the public absolutely aware that their democracy is being taken from them. And we have to do to everything we can to make sure people understand that. It’s a vague term, democracy. It’s like, ‘What does that mean? The Constitution, we don’t know what that means.'”
Normal Americans are more concerned with the price of eggs and their healthcare costs, Reiner said, and understandably so. But he said it is time for the media and Hollywood to step up and educate more citizens ASAP.
“Our job now as communicators is to start communicating to the rest of the country, to let them know what is going to happen to them. The two big things that an autocrat needs: They need control of the media, which is what they’re trying to do. And they need military control of the streets. And that’s the other thing that we’re seeing,” Reiner said.
“So we’re in it right now, and we’re sliding downhill in a very, very fast way, and we have to find a way to stop it.”
His comments are not a total shock, considering Reiner is one of the entertainment industry’s most vocal liberals.
He recently told Bill Maher, during an appearance on the Club Random podcast, that it was wrong for Trump to “force the federal government onto” universities like Harvard, which is currently squabbling with the administration over taxpayer funding.
Beyond talking politics, Reiner was on Velshi to promote the sequel to Spinal Tap, which came out last month.
You can watch part of his interview above, courtesy of MSNBC.
