Two more Hollywood actors have joined their voices with those of Samuel L. Jackson, Morgan Freeman, John Hamm, and Janeane Garofalo: Sean Penn (left) and Alan Cumming say the Tea Party is racist. Cumming added that the Tea Party is also “homophobic.”
The stars fired the salvo on CNNs Piers Morgan Tonight. As with the previous actors, neither Penn nor Cumming offered any proof that the Tea Party is racist.
What They Said
Piers Morgan set up Penn to knock one out of the park, as Brent Baker wrote at Newsbusters.org. Morgan helpfully boasted of how actor Morgan Freeman, on his show three weeks ago, was very passionate about that very subject, saying there are elements of the Tea Party who just, as he said, want to get the black man out of the White House. He said it on this show, Baker wrote.
Penn quickly agreed that Freeman is right, opening his remarks about the Tea Party with a short mention of President Obama’s being akin to Bulworth, a fictional leftist presidential candidate. He then observed:
And, and there, yet there’s another problem. You have what I call the “Get the N-word out of the White House party,” the Tea Party, this kind of sensibility, which is much more of a distraction.
That was when Morgan tossed the chum into the water. Morgan: Well, I had Morgan Freeman on, one of your movie colleagues, and he was very passionate about that very subject, saying there are elements of the Tea Party who just, as he said, want to get the black man out of the White House. He said it on this show.
I don’t think there’s any doubt about it. If you ask a representative of the Tea Party, okay, Social Security, socialist, get rid of it, they’re going to get very confused. What the, what they’re at the end of the day, there’s a big bubble coming out of their heads saying, you know, can we just lynch him?
If we just focus on the basics, together, I think this is a country that if it if it if we kind of wake up and look at each other in a room, it’s like the light’s off. You turn the light on, people are good.
The night before that, Morgan offered Alan Cumming the opportunity to air his opinions. Asked Morgan, What do you think of all these politicians, talking of politics, who on the Tea Party side of the Republicans, are coming out and saying same-sex marriage is disgusting and can’t happen?
Cumming, the star of The Good Wife, was ready with his reply:
Well, I think if I think, you know, there’s such Americas this country full of such hatred in terms of politics and the politics of hate is so rampant. And now the only kind of minority that can really be dealt with in that way is the gay population.
So it kind of makes sense. But, of course, I just think it’s I think it’s awful. I think that the Tea Party have some very, very some quite sensible notions, actually, when on paper. But also that kind of seems to be an umbrella thing that just covers up a lot of real homophobia and racism. …
I just think the Tea Party is out of touch with America, actually. That’s the sad thing for them to have to come to terms with.
Jackson, Freeman, and Co.
Samuel L. Jackson has a low opinion of the Tea Party as well. He told New York magazine that the story in the Washington Post about an alleged racial slur, painted on a rock at a hunting property leased by the family of GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry, would help Perry win the Tea Party vote.
Asked if the story in the Post would harm Perry, Jackson replied, No! Are you serious? He’s a Republican and this is America. Hell actually gain respect from a lot of people that he didn’t have respect from before. He’ll be all right.”
Asked if he agreed with Morgan Freeman’s assessment that the Tea Party is racist, Jackson replied:
Its pretty obvious what they are.
The division of the country is not about the government having too much power. I think everything right now is geared toward getting that guy out of office, whatever that means. Its not politics. It is not economics. It all boils down to pretty much to race. It is a shame.
Piers Morgan elicited Morgan Freemans negative comments about the Tea Party. The actor told Morgan that Obama’s elevation to the presidency had worsened racial matters because the Tea Party wants to remove a black man from the presidency. He did not mention that the Tea Party has stated the reason it desires to remove the President is because his socialist policies are destroying the country.
Said Freeman, The tea partiers who are controlling the Republican party … their stated policy, publicly stated, is to do whatever it takes to see to it that Obama only serves one term. What underlines that? Screw the country. We’re going to do whatever we can to get this black man out of here.
Freeman in turn, followed the rumination of Jon Hamm, the star of AMCs Mad Men. Hamm wondered about the motives of Tea Party Americans who say they are aiming to take the country back. Well, who are we taking it back from? Hamm asked on Bill Maher’s Real Time. I’m pretty sure … we as Americans still have America. I dont know who we need to take it back from.
Actress Janeane Garofalo is another Hollywood resident who dislikes Tea Party members; however, observers note that the leftist party line goes beyond Hollywood.
“Mainstream” Politics
A few weeks ago, Rep. Andr Carson (D-Ind.) accused GOP colleagues who support the Tea Party’s platform which mostly treats budgetary and fiscal matters of wanting to lynch him. He claimed the inchoate movements agency is the effort that were seeing of Jim Crowm adding:
Some of these folks in Congress right now would love to see us as second-class citizens. Some of them in Congress right now with this tea party movement would love to see you and me … hanging on a tree. Some of them right now in Congress are comfortable with where we were 50 and 60 years ago but it’s a new day with a black President and a Congressional Black Caucus.
In March, Carson falsely claimed that racist Tea Party Americans spat and hurled racial imprecations at him and his colleagues in the Congressional Black Caucus, on the same day the House passed ObamaCare, as they emerged from the Cannon House Office Building.
The NAACP has tried retailing the “Tea-Party-is-racist” idea as well, and in March, the chief executive officer of National Public Radio was fired after her top fundraising deputy was caught on tape also claiming the Tea Party is racist. The NPR executive said,
[The Tea Party is not] just Islamaphobic, but really xenophobic, I mean basically they are, they believe in sort of white, middle-America gun-toting. I mean, its scary. They’re seriously racist, racist people.
