Dear Meryl Streep, About That Golden Globe Speech

January 10, 2017 // 18 Comments »

Dear Meryl:

I love so many of your movies. Sophie’s Choice and French Lieutenant’s Woman were especially faves. When we were both younger I had a total fan-boy crush on you (full disclosure.)

And Trump is an ass, he did indeed mock a disabled person, hate breeds hate. Thank you, Meryl, for saying those truths.


However, by confining your criticism, and not speaking out against Obama and his NSA, drones, Gitmo, wars (Libya, Syria, Iraq, etc), use of the Espionage Act, poor record on Freedom of Information Act requests, shielding CIA torturers from prosecution, never mind just making nice speeches while doing nothing practical to curb racism and mass killings, you leave all those bad things on the table. Silence insulates Trump from criticism for, for example, future drone terror, because he’ll be able to say “Well, Obama did it and no one complained.”

You had a platform, a chance to lay down a marker to not allow the coming Obama revisionism to protect Trump, and you did not use it.


By leveling criticism at Trump only, you spoke to the same group of people that already dislikes Trump. You squandered any credibility with the people you need to speak to, those who supported Trump but need to understand what is happening going forward. You made yourself and your pals feel all revolutionary and warm, but do you think you gathered any new support for the Dems heading forward into midterms? Nope.

And by slipping in your snark against wrestling and MMA, Meryl, you flipped off a huge segment of the nation, some of whom the Dems may want as voters. I’m pretty sure very few people think of wrestling as what you called “The Arts” but sure, reinforce that idea that the Dems are cut off from regular people and that because those folks don’t watch black and white movies (how do you even know?) they are yokels.

You really don’t get it, do you, Meryl? Your near-total misunderstanding of what is going on outside your happyland (Meryl, it seems your net worth is $75 million, and the only job you have held since graduating from Vassar and Yale has been actress) makes your “stand” seem pretty sad. People are hurting.

So let me try and put it in terms you might “relate” to. One of your early roles was in the movie The Deer Hunter, about a group of blue collar steel workers who go off to Vietnam and are mentally and physically destroyed there. I spent a good part of a summer in the towns in West Virginia and Ohio where a lot of the movie was filmed. The factories are gone. The mills used as background scenery for your movie are cold and empty. The towns suffer from meth and opioid epidemics because of the pain. Nearly everyone is on some sort of food aid. An awful lot of the sons and daughters of the people who fought in Vietnam went on to fight in other pointless wars.

Those people are pissed off, Meryl. They are pissed off at people like you who want to dismiss them as simple racists and women haters. They are pissed off at being told they are too stupid to realize Obama fixed their economy, and that people like you know better. They do not see Hillary’s defeat as a martyrdom operation. The election was less about Trump than it was about people like you.

You made a movie in their backyard and then left them behind. That’s what happened, Meryl.

Oh, and Meryl, an underappreciated bit of stupidity in your speech was stressing the diversity of your attendees like Sarah Jessica Parker by saying she was from Ohio, and someone else starring in something was from New Jersey. What the hell was that even about?

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