The United States is currently seeing an uptick of hate directed at the Jewish community, after a precarious couple of weeks in which former president Donald Trump lobbed a thinly-veiled threat at American Jews, and Kanye West … well, is continuing to burn his legacy to the ground in the most problematic way possible. And in response to the vitriol, actress Susan Sarandon tweeted a meme in solidarity that is being taken out of context by Gina Carano fans, of all people.
Now, for full transparency, we will start by conceding that Sarandon — who is about as far left as one can go — is not perfect, in any sense. In addition to famously endorsing Jill Stein in the 2016 presidential election and labeling Hillary Clinton as “very, very dangerous,” even after Trump won the election, Sarandon’s extreme views occasionally get her into hot water. We know it’s shocking, but being politically extreme in any direction is usually not ideal!
But that’s not what was happening here. On Monday, the 76-year-old tweeted a photo of an unattributed quote about the Holocaust.
“It didn’t start with gas chambers. It started with one party controlling the media,” read the quote. “One party deciding what is truth. One party censoring speech and silencing opposition. One party dividing citizens in ‘us’ and ‘them’ and calling on their supporters to harass ‘them.’ It started when good people turned a blind eye and let it happen.”
Whether or not you think Sarandon’s message seems extreme — that’s actually what’s happening right now. In response to Kanye’s antisemitic remarks, a hate group literally hung a banner that read “Kanye is right” over a Los Angeles freeway this week.
However, as Sarandon’s tweet began to go viral, Gina Carano fans began to call foul — because if you’ll recall, it was a similar meme that the disgraced Mandalorian star shared that got her axed by Disney in early 2021. However, not only was Carano not sharing the meme in support of the Jewish community but in fact, doing so because she herself claimed to have felt persecuted as a member of the Republican party in Hollywood.
Carano’s post was also not so much an isolated incident as it was a last straw — following weeks of social media posts spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic and voter fraud in the 2020 election. Yet, so shortage of slack-jawed MAGAs came out of the woodwork with their big, durrrr, gotcha moment, thinking they finally owned the libs.
Still, there were a handful of voices of common sense that prevailed!
Reading comprehension and nuance! These are important concepts, folks … which are also unfortunately lost on nearly half of this country. In the meantime, give Susan a chance. Eventually, she’ll probably say something to get herself canceled, but today is not that day.