Rob Reiner’s Legacy Can’t Be Sullied by Trump’s Shameful Attacks

The horrific news from Los Angeles on Sunday evening that filmmaker and actor Rob Reiner, 78, and his wife, Michele Reiner, 70, were found murdered in their Brentwood home and that their own son, Nick, was charged in their deaths capped a weekend of violent news. A shooter at Brown University killed two people and injured nine. Violence during a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach in Australia left 15 dead and 40 injured. During an ambush in Syria, two American soldiers and a translator were killed by an ISIS terrorist.

This is all horrible, but in the case of the Reiner murders, America lost a voice that had been part of our pop culture and political conversations since the late 1960s. On our television and movie screens, Reiner became a friendly face of America’s liberal left. Reiner rose to fame in the 1970s on the hit sitcom All in family. This happened alongside actors like Alan Alda in CRUSHBéa Arthur on MaudEsther Rolle on Good timesand Bonnie Franklin on One day at a time— all during a series of prime-time current affairs television programs that amplified liberal politics at an unprecedented moment in our pop culture.

Son of screenwriter-director-comedian Carl Reiner, he began his career writing about Smothers Brothers Comedy Houra left-wing music and sketch comedy program, and appearing on shows like Gomer Pyle, USMC like a flower child. In All in familyhe played liberal student Mike Stivic, in near-constant opposition to his stepfather, conservative blue-collar Queens man Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Conner), who habitually called him “Meathead.” Stivic lived in his in-laws’ house while he studied at Columbia University, and their wives, Gloria Stivic (Sally Struthers) and Edith Bunker (Jean Stapleton), were often caught in the middle between their feuds and their staunchly ideological husbands, and often unintentionally shut Archie down. This combustible, close-knit family setting created one of the best confrontational political satires ever to air on television. Stivic almost always had the moral and ideological advantage when it came to his arguments with Archie, but Reiner always played him with just enough authoritarian pomposity and enough overconfidence to help us understand why Archie found him so insufferable. Half a century later, Reiner could still be seen arguing daily on social media with another Queens oaf, President Donald Trump.

Trump gloated over Reiner’s murder, as he did over the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s show and the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel — as if Reiner’s murder was yet another media victory for him. Trump said the killings were “apparently due to the anger he provoked in others because of his massive, unyielding, incurable affliction with a paralyzing mental illness known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes called TDS. He was known for driving people crazy because of his raging obsession with President Donald J. Trump…” Trump’s joy – which inadvertently seemed to justify his own rage MAGA followers incited deadly political violence — only gave more credence to Reiner’s frequent assertions that Trump is “mentally unfit to be president.” When asked to clarify – or perhaps tone down – his insensitive and narcissistic outburst during an Oval Office press conference, Trump instead doubled down.

Despite his liberal politics, Reiner remains so beloved that even Republicans took issue with Trump’s pathetic attack. “That’s not true,” New York Republican Rep. Mike Lawler responded to Trump on X.com. “Regardless of their political views, no one should be subjected to violence, least of all at the hands of their own son. This is a horrible tragedy that should elicit the sympathy and compassion of everyone in our country, period.” Prominent Trump critics on the right, like Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie and Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who have no more MAGA credibility to lose, have also chastised the president.

When Reiner turned to directing, he released a series of notable films, starting in 1984 with It’s Spinal Tap. His films cover a wide range of genres and subjects, but several are considered classics: Stay close to me (1986) The Princess Bride (1987), When Harry met Sally… (1989), and Some good men (1992). From there, he directed a series of political dramas like Ghosts of Mississippi (1996) and L.B.J. (2016). In 2015, Reiner and his son Nick also made a semi-autobiographical film, Being Charlieabout a father and son’s turbulent relationship and the son’s addiction issues.

Reiner did not have a distinctive visual style. He was not an “auteur” in the strict sense of the term, a director announcing that what you are watching is being made at all times. He belongs more to a category of filmmakers focused on the emotional themes that shape their films – conveyed by plot and characters – rather than the style of storytelling itself. His best work belongs to films directed by Robert Redford, Mike Nichols, and studio-era directors like George Stevens, William Wyler, and Fred Zinneman. Reiner had a perfect idea of ​​the dramatic core of a scene and a perfect eye for casting. That’s why, even though he didn’t write most of his films, you’ll never forget lines like “These go to 11” or “I’ll have what she’s having” and “You can’t handle the truth!” or “Inconceivable!” by Wallace Shawn.

Perhaps most importantly for California residents, Reiner never lost sight of his true sense of activism. He played the comical flower child and liberal know-it-all in sitcoms or the boorish Marxist Sheldon Flenner in Woody Allen’s 1994 film. Balls on Broadwaybut became incredibly effective, along with his wife Michele, as a fundraiser and organizer of state policy. In 1998, he co-organized a campaign to pass California Proposition 10, the California Children and Families Initiative. He imposed a 50¢ tax on cigarettes and tobacco products to fund First 5 California, a series of health programs for preschool children. He served as president for eight years, and his success led to much talk of his candidacy for public office.

Reiner chose not to and arguably remained more effective in his role as an activist with an outsized pop culture platform. He and Michele later co-founded the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which successfully challenged California’s Proposition 8, a ballot initiative banning same-sex marriage. She was the group’s treasurer. Recruiting conservatives like George W. Bush’s Supreme Court solicitor general, Theordore B. Olsen, and former RNC chairman Ken Mehlman was critical to his success. As vocal as Reiner could be on social media, he understood the importance of bipartisan activism. They canceled Proposition 8 in 2013.

Reiner used his influence and fortune in the entertainment industry to achieve strategic effect as a political organizer. He was born into a privileged background, and all the accusations of nepo-babyism certainly apply – All in family And It’s a lumbar puncture were supported by his father’s friend Norman Lear. Reiner took everything he was given as both a personal and civic challenge – a platform with which he repaid all those breaks. Just as importantly, he knew what to do with the influence she gave him. It is both his legacy as an artist and as a key figure who helped make the state of California a much better place to live for millions of its citizens. These achievements speak far more powerfully to us – and even, it seems, to a growing cohort of Republican lawmakers – than the petty, vindictive and self-serving policies of Donald Trump.