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As the country reeled from twin tragedies — the shootings at Brown University and the murder of Hollywood director Rob Reiner and his wife — Donald Trump decided to weigh in on the latter.
On Truth Social, he wrote: “Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS.”
He went on: “He was known to have driven people CRAZY by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, with his obvious paranoia reaching new heights as the Trump Administration surpassed all goals and expectations of greatness, and with the Golden Age of America upon us, perhaps like never before.”
To say the post was ill-considered is a wild understatement. It was insensitive, ill-timed and absolutely the wrong thing to do. It left both Republicans and Democrats aghast.
Given the opportunity to walk back the post, however, Trump dug in, citing Reiner’s involvement in efforts to find criminal collusion with Russia in the 2016 election. “... I was not a fan of Rob Reiner at all in any way, shape, or form. I thought he was very bad for our country,” he told reporters.
Trump may well have had good reason to have been angry with Reiner; the men clearly had animosity toward each other. But the president seems to have not gotten the memo that says you don’t speak ill of the dead, and his post was especially poorly timed given the vile response by some on the left to the assassination of Charlie Kirk just three months ago.
It was a chance for the president to do better, a chance to show moral leadership.
Moreover, it would have taken far less effort to rise to the moment than to do what Trump did.
On X, Daniel Gump “edited” Trump’s statement to make it appropriate and respectful. (He also did the same with a Reiner tweet on the day that Rush Limbaugh died.)
Often, the less said, the better.
The conservative magazine National Review also gave a master class in how it’s done, publishing a piece by Jeffrey Blehar entitled “Rob Reiner, Narrator of My Childhood.” The essay was the author’s appreciative take on Reiner’s career, with not one mention of the star’s politics. It’s worth mentioning again that this was in National Review.
A reliable punch line on social media is the question “Who’s going to tell him?” (or her) when somebody is being especially obtuse. Now people are asking, in all seriousness, why there is no one in the president’s inner circle who can speak to the damage that he’s doing to his legacy, and even to his supporters, with inflammatory posts like this.
Conservative podcaster Erick Erickson put it well on X, writing, “A relative last night told me he voted for Trump, he likes Trump’s policies, but he’s exhausted by Trump and embarrassed by the President’s behavior. He wished the President would just go off the grid for a while. Instead, we have Trump going off on the murder of Rob Reiner.”
A tale of two Christmas ads
It’s been nearly 30 years since the “The 12 Pains of Christmas” debuted, and after all of this time, the song is still funny. The musician, Bob Rivers, makes fun of things that many people find annoying at Christmas, using the melody of “The 12 Days of Christmas.” (Five months of bills!)
Presumably, those responsible for McDonald’s advertising in the Netherlands were going for the same vibe in an AI-generated ad that proclaimed “It’s the most terrible time of the year!”
Major fail.
As Emma Neff explained, part of the backlash to the ad was the use of AI. But one look at the still shot embedded in this tweet shows the main problem — the ad calls Christmas terrible. And for all of their good-natured grumbling about Christmas, most Americans like the holiday — 75%, according to a YouGov poll five years ago. (Republicans, the same poll revealed, like Christmas even more than Democrats.)
We may laugh about “facing our in-laws” and “sending Christmas cards” (two of the “12 Pains of Christmas”) but don’t tell us it’s the most terrible time of the year and that a McDonald’s meal will make it better.
Meanwhile, a heartwarming Chevrolet Christmas ad is making everyone all weepy on social media. Advertising firms worldwide should be paying attention.
Recommended Reading
Asma Uddin looks at the debate over whether conversations that take place in therapy sessions are protected speech, particularly when advice being offered has to do with gender and sexuality.
“A quiet tension has emerged among diverse religious therapists who work with religiously observant clients. They worry that laws banning conversion therapy, though designed to stop harmful practices, have sometimes been interpreted so broadly that even voluntary discussions about faith and identity feel legally risky.”
When therapy becomes ‘speech,’ the legal landscape shifts profoundly
Allyson Flake Matsoso understands the impulse to go overboard on gifts at Christmas; she starts a Google document for gift ideas in the fall. But she asks us to consider if giving all this stuff is actually beneficial in the long term.
“Ask a child what they received last Christmas — many cannot remember. … The problem runs deeper than fleeting excitement. Each new possession carries weight — physical, mental, spiritual: more arguments over screen time, more clutter and broken toys, more storage challenges, more maintenance, batteries and lost pieces. John Ruskin said, ‘Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.’”
Following Christ into a simpler Christmas
End Notes
There was a time in our family when part of the excitement of the holiday season was seeing a blockbuster movie, often one released on Christmas Day. But it occurs to me that the last Christmas-release film that I was really excited about was Hugh Jackman’s “Les Mis" — released in 2012.
That may say more about me than it does about Hollywood, but scanning the list of this year’s holiday movies, the only one I’m vaguely interested in seeing is “Ella McCay,” a movie about politics and family set in 2008. And maybe “Hamnet,” but that’s been out for nearly a month and isn’t exactly a feel-good holiday movie.
Most of the movies that performed best at the box office this year were family films, like "Zootopia 2" and the live action "Lilo & Stitch." Having no small children or grandchildren in my orbit, these don’t appeal, and Hollywood doesn’t seem interested in turning out any more intelligent, funny films with a center-right bent, like 2023’s “American Fiction.”
Help me out. Have you seen any movies for grown-ups in theaters this year that you wholeheartedly recommend? Have you seen any movies in theaters at all?