So, the past 10 days have been rough. As I mentioned earlier this week, I’m grateful I had the foresight to adopt a rescue dog before Election Night, because the need, nay, the privilege of taking care of him is pretty much all I’m running on. This particular lame duck period is such a mindf–k, too; it’s like we’re passengers on the Titanic, but we actually know the ship is gonna sink in two months. What a time to be alive. Venerated actor, singer, dancer and funnyman Dick Van Dyke has been on this planet for nearly a century (he’ll be 99 next month), and when bombarded approached by photographers in a parking lot recently, was asked for his thoughts on Trump’s imminent second term. DVD quickly responded, and it wasn’t with, “Ain’t it a glorious day?!” No, instead DVD said, “Fortunately I won’t be around to experience the four years.” Would you believe me if I said he’s not the first nonagenarian I’ve heard express that sentiment, just today?
Mary Poppins star Dick Van Dyke has said he is glad he “won’t be around” to experience the full duration of Donald Trump’s second term as president.
In a video published by the Daily Mail, Van Dyke, 98, was stopped in a car park and asked: “Does the future look bright for America?” The actor replied: “I hope you’re right.”
Van Dyke was then asked: “Do you think Donald Trump is capable of making America great again?” Van Dyke said: “Fortunately I won’t be around to experience the four years.”
Before the election the actor was one of dozens of celebrities to endorse Kamala Harris and make their anti-Trump position clear. Van Dyke posted a clip on social media the day before the vote in which he read out a message written by The Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling, which Van Dyke had originally read out at a civil rights event in 1964 in Los Angeles, alongside Martin Luther King.
The message read, in part: “Hatred is not the norm. Prejudice is not the norm. Suspicion, disklike, jealousy, scapegoating … none of those are the transcendent facets of the human personality. They are diseases. They are the cancers of the soul. They are the infectious and contagious viruses that have been breeding humanity for years.”
Van Dyke had told the Hollywood Reporter earlier this year that he planned to support Joe Biden, before the president dropped out of the election race.
Ok, first of all, “dozens of celebrities” who supported Kamala Harris? The Vice President had an Academy Awards audience-size team of supporters in Hollywood. Celebs were lining up to speak or perform at rallies, post endorsements on social media, and hand out water to people waiting in long lines to cast their votes. On the other baby-fisted hand, Trump got Brett Michaels, Hulk Hogan, Zachary Levi, Danica Patrick, Mel Gibson, and Paula Deen. ‘Nuf said. As for the Daily Mail reporters encroaching on him, Dick Van Dyke is a nearly 99-year-old National Treasure — stop harassing him when he’s just getting out of his car! His wife had to act as a buffer between him and the cameramen. And speaking of age, only three-and-a-half years ago DVD received a Kennedy Center Honor, and during that bit of publicity he proudly, joyfully, exuberantly proclaimed his wish to live to be 100. Now he’s thankful he won’t be alive to see the next four years of Trump destroying the Republic. Can we go ahead and say that Donald Trump killed Dick Van Dyke? At least spiritually?
Photos credit: Avalon.red, Cover Images and Getty