Meghan McCain has famously tweeted "This Meryl Streep speech is why Trump won. And if people in Hollywood don't start recognizing why and how- you will help him get re-elected."
McCain doesn't indicate how a speech made on January 6, 2017 elected someone on November 9, 2016. but never mind. She explains little, perhaps because she would seem to be the hypocrite she apparently believes Hollywood stars are. However, we don't know, because McCain did not mention why she believes Streep's speech will be so helpful to Trump politically.
It may have been wise to avoid facts, to which conservatives are often allergic, or the Arizona senator's daughter may realize that an individual living in a figurative glass house shouldn't throw stones.
Responding to McCain's tweet in a (mostly) righteous rant of his own, Charles Clymer says he "grew up in white poverty in central Texas" with a father "who is a lifelong car mechanic," a "mother (who has worked minimum wage jobs all her life," and a stepfather who "was junior enlisted in the Army." He warns "these folks- my people- don't need your condescending conservative asses speaking for our 'values.'"
Clymer slams McCain for pretending to care about the working class while she is "a privileged white daughter of a U.S. senator who used her dady's connections to get this far ahead." Evidently, McCain did not graduate from Podunk High School in Flyover Country, Kansas or Working Class U. in Oklahoma, Alabama, or Idaho. Wikipedia helpfully informs us she "attended Phoenix Country Day School and Xavier College Preparatory, an all-girl Catholic high school. She attended Columbia University, where she earned her bachelor's degree in art history."
That doesn't preclude Ms. McCain from speaking on behalf of the average Joe and Jane (or if younger, Joshua and Jessica). However, it doesn't give her the street credibility that she understands Meryl Streep lacks- but in fact never claimed.
McCain may have been motivated by outrage that political commentary would be offered by an elite actress or because she now has obtained a fine gig at Fox News. She may be unnacustomed to the humility demonstrated when Street approvingly recalled "Tommie Lee Jones said to me 'isn't it such a privilege, Meryl, to be an actor?'" Streep didn't claim it to be an "honor" nor pretend to be "humbled," instead recognizing it as a privilege.
Or there may be something more serious, more disturbing, more dangerous involved. Before endorsing the Committee to Protect Journalists, Streep explained "we need the principled press- to hold power to account, to call them on the carpet, be outraged." There is probably nothing Donald Trump, nor his supporters, hate and fear more than a free press. For one night at least, an actress reminded us of the danger ahead, and if it happens to be an extremely privileged, wealthy celebrity, someone had to do it.
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