Celebrities Bail from the Resistance under the Second Trump Regime
From Lake Como to Radio Silence: As Trump federalizes D.C. police and Texas Republicans gut democracy, Hollywood’s loudest 2024 voices have nothing to say.
It’s been one of those weeks in America where the phrase “constitutional crisis” feels less like an alarm bell and more like the day’s weather report. In Washington, D.C., Donald Trump just pulled a move straight out of the authoritarian starter kit, invoking Section 740 of the D.C. Home Rule Act to take control of the city’s police department.
His justification? A “crime emergency” that isn’t actually reflected in the data — violent crime is down 26% from last year and homicides are at their lowest point in decades — but never let a good fake emergency go to waste when you’ve got National Guard uniforms in the closet. He’s put Attorney General Pam Bondi in charge of overseeing local law enforcement, because nothing says “public safety” like handing the keys to someone whose career greatest hits include defending corporate fraudsters and working PR for Trump during impeachment. Roughly 800 Guard troops are now patrolling D.C., which the President recently compared to “worse than Mexico City.” If this is liberation, I’d hate to see what occupation looks like.
Meanwhile, in Texas, Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton have decided that democracy is more of a suggestion than a system. Republican lawmakers are pushing a redistricting plan designed to grab up to five extra U.S. House seats in time for the 2026 midterms. Fifty-plus Democratic legislators have skipped town to block a quorum, because apparently the only way to get fair maps in Texas is to first get yourself on a no-fly list.
Abbott, not one to let an opportunity for political theater pass, has signed civil arrest warrants, floated expelling lawmakers from their seats, and even enlisted law enforcement to track them down. This is the same governor who made “Don’t California My Texas” his rallying cry — and yet here he is, taking cues from the kind of one-party state power grabs you’d expect in the most gerrymandered corners of the country. Back in July, when this map-rigging was still in the plotting stage, I wrote about it, warning that the early outlines were already bad. That was the “infancy” stage — the ugly ultrasound before the thing was born. Now it’s here, breathing MAGA air and drawing with Sharpies.
You’d think this would be the moment for high-profile voices who once stuck their toes in the political waters to wade back in. Which brings us to George Clooney and Rob Reiner. Yes, those George and Rob — Hollywood’s self-appointed 2024 election conscience committee. Flash back to July of that year: my inbox was graced with an ActBlue email breathlessly informing me that re-electing Joe Biden was the only way to save democracy. This was before the first debate, before the media freakout, before every political pundit with a wi-fi connection decided they could see the future.
Biden has one bad night on stage, and suddenly Clooney emerges with a New York Times op-ed calling on him to step down, framing himself as the reluctant truth-teller. Rob Reiner backed him up immediately, hitting every cable news couch that would have him, warning about the “existential threat” of a second Trump term. They made headlines, they got applause, they got treated like political oracles — it was Hollywood activism at its most performative: low-risk, high-visibility, and guaranteed to trend.
And let’s be real — these aren’t starving artists. Clooney and Reiner have the kind of wealth that could bankroll voter protection lawsuits, fund grassroots organizers in battleground states, or even help underwrite security for threatened journalists. Clooney’s net worth hovers around the kind of number you only see on professional athletes’ contracts and Wall Street indictments. He’s got an Italian villa on Lake Como that looks like it was designed for a Bond villain with a wine habit. If America does become a police state, he can be in a speedboat out of the country before the ink dries on the executive order, sipping espresso while locals tell him how much they loved Ocean’s Eleven.
The rest of us, meanwhile, will be here trying to remember which rights we lost on which Tuesday. Reiner isn’t hurting either — the man’s made “Hollywood rich” money twice: once as an actor-director, and again as the guy who will forever own This Is Spinal Tap merch royalties. If either of them wanted to do more than tweet when it’s convenient, they could materially shift the fight. Instead, we get silence — the kind that echoes louder the richer you are.
Fast forward a year from their big moment. Trump has federalized the police in the nation’s capitol. Texas is actively trying to redraw itself into a congressional cheat code. We are living in the kind of real-time democratic erosion that history textbooks use as cautionary tales. And from Clooney and Reiner? Nothing. Radio silence. Well, Mr. Political Scientist, what do you have to say now? Because this would be the moment. Vulnerable people could actually use the platform, the voice, the reach. I see no NYT op-eds. No MSNBC hits. No earnest Instagram posts in front of a well-curated bookshelf.
Red Hat Rebranders: How MAGA Became the Final Sanctuary for Shameless Celebrities
A while back, I wrote about how MAGA has become a cheat code for politicians who don’t want to do the hard work of explaining things, governing, or interacting with reality. They just slap on the hat, scream “deep state,” and watch their supporters do backflips to rationalize anything that follows.
When I Googled “George Clooney” today, the first headline I got was an IndieWire puff piece about how soulful his co-star is. The next was an MSN recap of him defending Adam Sandler’s acting chops, which, okay, might be the bravest stance he’s taken this year. The most political Clooney headline I could find was a Yahoo story about Hunter Biden planning to roast him in a new documentary. For the record, I’m actually looking forward to that takedown — which says more about the state of Clooney’s political relevance than it does about Hunter’s comedic timing.
It’s not that Clooney owes anyone political commentary on demand. It’s that he set the precedent. He stepped onto the field, waved to the crowd, gave an impassioned speech about the stakes, and then… disappeared the moment the game got bloody. Right now, he’s the political equivalent of that one-season love interest he played on The Facts of Life — shows up, gets a few laughs, wears a leather jacket, and then is never seen again. Only this time, the stakes aren’t Jo’s and Blair’s friendship — it’s the functioning of American democracy.
Rob Reiner isn’t faring much better. From what I can tell, he’s busy prepping a sequel to This Is Spinal Tap, which, given the news cycle, might as well be called This Is American Politics. There’s nothing wrong with making movies, but when you’ve positioned yourself as a public defender of democracy — one willing to help push a sitting president out of the race — going quiet during an actual authoritarian power grab looks less like artistic focus and more like selective engagement.
The broader point here isn’t just about Clooney or Reiner. It’s about the Hollywood activism cycle: loud when it’s safe, absent when it’s messy. Celebrities who speak out when their words can be wrapped in applause-line safety bubble, but fade out when there’s risk of backlash, complication, or having to wade into an issue without the net of consensus. When the cause is something everyone in their bubble agrees on — opposing a visibly aging president after a bad debate — they can’t get to a microphone fast enough. But call out a sitting president for deploying troops in an American city under questionable legal authority? Slam the brakes. Challenge a governor actively trying to turn congressional districts into partisan monopoly squares? Suddenly, we’re back to soulful co-stars and Adam Sandler defense.
The thing about this selective engagement is that it’s not neutral. Silence in moments like this sends a message. It says, “We’ll fight for democracy, but only on opening weekend.” And it leaves the work — the messy, thankless, less glamorous work — to grassroots organizers, local journalists, and the handful of elected officials who haven’t fled the state or bent the knee. People notice when voices go missing. They noticed in 2016 when everyone thought Trump couldn’t win. They noticed in 2020 when celebrity endorsements flooded in only after the polls tightened. And they notice now, as the Guard patrols the streets of D.C. and Texas Republicans sharpen their district maps.
Maybe Clooney thinks his political capital is better spent behind the scenes. Maybe Reiner’s saving his voice for the press tour. But if you step into the public political arena and use that moment to help push a major party’s sitting president off the ticket, you’ve forfeited the option to ghost when the other side is actively dismantling democratic norms in broad daylight. That’s not how credibility works. You don’t get to play civic engagement like it’s an acting role — taking the part when the script flatters you and disappearing when the plot gets inconvenient.
Here’s the truth: Nobody actually expects Hollywood to save democracy. But when someone like Clooney, who has both the platform and the bank account to cut through noise, chooses to wield it, the choice to then go silent becomes its own political act. And right now, that act is telling. If you’ve got time to do press about Adam Sandler’s misunderstood genius, you’ve got time to weigh in on whether or not the President should be able to unilaterally control a city’s police force. If you can give a heartfelt interview about a co-star’s soulful performance, you can spare a minute for the soulless calculus of gerrymandering in Texas. And if you’ve got the cash to buy half of Como, you’ve got the cash to help protect the country you claim to care about — assuming, of course, you plan on sticking around when the credits roll.
Kristoffer Ealy is a political science professor who teaches at California State University Fullerton. He is the author of the upcoming book, Political Illiteracy: Learning the Wrong Lessons. Read the original column here.
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Should we expect more from Hollywood than we do from Americans in general, whose apathy toward the forward march of fascism has been staggering? I have many friends who bemoan the Trump lawlessness, but who have not called or emailed their elected folks EVEN ONE TIME. They have not shown up for a single protest action. They sit and watch open-mouthed and horrified as the “administration “ rolls forward with its agenda, but don’t lift a finger in opposition. If we don’t all get it together and say “no more”, then we deserve what we’ll get. Waiting for the folks with the biggest wallets and the loudest voices to “do something” is lazy and dangerous.
Thank you thank you Professor Ealy-my thoughts exactly-as in Clooney couldn't wipe Edward R Murrow's shoes let alone affect the veteran journalist's moral stature. I was horrified and stunned at his betrayal of Biden clearly for his own self aggrandizement-ungentlemanly at best. But then, he, Dicaprio and Winfrey all pranced to Bezos' wedding. No grace, no morality, no courage. We have to do this ourselves-at our local Democratic Clubs and on our streets. Celebrities no longer have the stature they did -the Elizabeth Taylors of the world are the rarest breed of all. Those not meeting Taylor's high standards will fade (albeit in huge wealth) into deserved obscurity while lesser known but much better voices will rise.