Trending News: Clint Eastwood Defends Trump, Tells People To 'Get Over' Racism

August 4, 2016

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Why Is This Important?

Because Eastwood remains an important American figure and, like it or not, people will listen to him.

Long Story Short

Clint Eastwood vented his frustration with American politics, slamming Hillary Clinton and political correctness, and telling America to “just f-cking get over” racism. He mercifully stops short of praising Donald Trump.

Long Story

In a lengthy interview with Esquire, Hollywood icon Clint Eastwood sounded off on many of the things that piss him off about American politics these days. There’s a lot, and that’s why he sounds very sympathetic towards Donald Trump.

First off, he thinks this is, in his words, “a pussy generation,” and Trump is tapping into a growing resentment against that.

“He's onto something, because secretly everybody's getting tired of political correctness, kissing up. That's the kiss-ass generation we're in right now. We're really in a pussy generation. Everybody’s walking on eggshells. We see people accusing people of being racist and all kinds of stuff. When I grew up, those things weren’t called racist,” he said. (Eastwood was born in 1930.)

He stopped short of endorsing Trump, saying he’d never met him, and doesn’t sound too impressed with him either.

Referring to Trump’s race-baiting of Judge Gonzalo Curiel, Eastwood said, “It’s a dumb thing to say. I mean, to predicate your opinion on the fact that the guy was born to Mexican parents or something. He’s said a lot of dumb things. So have all of them. Both sides. But everybody—the press and everybody's going, ‘Oh, well, that’s racist,’ and they’re making a big hoodoo out of it. Just f-cking get over it. It's a sad time in history.”

(There is, of course, no small amount of irony in Eastwood getting so worked up over people “getting offended.”)

Nor is he looking forward to the possibility of a Hillary Clinton presidency. “It’s a tough voice to listen to for four years,” he said. 

To be fair, Eastwood shows little love for anyone in the political establishment, left or right, and spends much of the rest of the wide-ranging interview discussing the work ethic instilled into him by his father as he grew up during the Depression and his desire to get the personal out of the political. But he also comes across as someone who hasn’t ever been the target of casual racism or police violence.

If only he could write in his empty chair on the ballot.

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question

Does the fact that he’s 86 years old cut him any slack?

Disrupt Your Feed

You can separate the art from the artist. Most of his movies still stand up, though it’s very tough to watch the original Dirty Harry films.

Drop This Fact

Eastwood’s latest film, Sully, is the 35th feature he’s directed. It opens Sept. 9.

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