Meryl Streep plays the role of culturally insulated Hollywood liberal almost as well as she plays any role. And that’s saying a lot, especially from a devoted defender like me. But if one could win an Academy Award for best exemplifying the patronizing elitism that drove so many voters to cast their ballots for Donald Trump last November, surely Streep’s remarks at the Golden Globes would catapult her to victory.
Now, Streep is making headlines again after delivering another grandiloquent expression of anti-Trump sentiments, this time proclaiming dramatically, “If we live through this precarious moment — if his catastrophic instinct to retaliate doesn’t lead us to nuclear winter — we will have much to thank this president for.”
Echoing one of President Ronald Reagan’s most-remembered quotes, Streep argued that if and only if the republic survives his presidency, Trump “will have woken us up to how fragile freedom really is.”
Sounding, dare I say it, almost conservative, Streep continued to predict that Trump will teach us “how the authority of the executive, in the hands of a self-dealer, can be wielded against the people, their Constitution and Bill of Rights.”
That is actually a rather articulate encapsulation of concerns constitutional conservatives raised routinely during the Obama administration.
If Streep were sincerely interested in reversing the steadily increasing concentration of power in the executive branch, she would have reprimanded one of its greatest facilitators rather than donating $40,000 to his victory fund.
In fact, as Obama’s presidency drew to a close, even the New York Times reported that he “pursued his executive power without apology, and in ways that will shape the presidency for decades to come.”
“History may now judge the regulations to be one of Mr. Obama’s most enduring legacies,” a Times report concluded last August, declaring, “His exercise of administrative power expanded and cemented a domestic legacy that now rivals Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society in reach and scope.”
Thus, it is not an increasingly powerful president Streep seems to be concerned about, but simply a President Trump.
The competition for least-coherent celebrity commentator is stiff. As Streep collects her well-deserved accolades for filling roles other actors could not, abandoning her rapid ascent to dominance over that part would better serve her legacy.
Then again, like Donna in Mamma Mia, perhaps it is a role she is unable to resist.
In another unnecessary and unsolicited swipe at Middle America, Streep told the audience on Saturday, “If you think people were mad when they thought the government was coming after their guns, wait until you see when they try to take away our happiness.”
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
