Despite Hollywood's well-earned reputation for Progressive activism and incessant liberal virtue-signaling, there is a growing conservative minority in Tinseltown. Has the election of Donald Trump to the White House emboldened or empowered those conservatives? That is the question posed by The Hollywood Reporter (THR) recently to more than 50 conservatives working in Hollywood to gauge their level of support for President Trump.
The responses confirm that "Hollywood has become a no-go zone" for his supporters. "Don't believe it? Try wearing a 'Make America Great Again' baseball cap on a film shoot," one told THR.
Ninety percent of the people THR approached refused to speak on the record. "Too hot. No way," said one filmmaker. "No upside," said another. Asked one actor, "Are you trying to get me killed?" Another said, "I'm staying away from politics for the foreseeable future."
By contrast, actor Scott Baio, who spoke on Trump's behalf at the Republican National Convention, says, "I don't give a shit about Hollywood liberals. They're gonna hate the guy no matter what. If he cured cancer, they'd be on him for putting oncologists out of business." Baio asserts that his support hasn't waned and neither has that of his friends in the biz — largely because of the relentless attacks on Trump from late-night show hosts, stars and the news media.
"All this does is help Trump because people have had it. Conservatives in Hollywood have had it," he says. "We know who Trump is, and we don't believe the propaganda, and I don't think most of the country does, either. The media is almost irrelevant. It's predictable and boring. I want the man to get his agenda through, and everything else is a sideshow."
Producer Frank DeMartini, who's considering a run against California Congresswoman Maxine Waters, says, "I've heard no one at all lose faith."
Justified actor Nick Searcy (pictured above) says the Hollywood left have taken the president's words out of context. "Trump didn't say some nice people were Nazis; he said there are some nice people who don't want monuments torn down. This movement to erase the history of the Democrats' support for the Confederacy and the KKK is ridiculous."
Searcy says he has often experienced this himself. "I'll say the communist 'Antifa' is bad, and they'll twist it to say, 'Nick Searcy defended Nazis.' They're so self-righteous," he says. "It's not that they disagree, it's that they're better people. They're not better than me because they voted for Hillary Clinton."
THR has more:
That the president's support has actually (mostly silently) increased since Charlottesville was a theme among Hollywood conservatives. "It has grown as the unhinged nature of the left has become desperate and hysterical," says Evan Sayet, a former writer on Politically Incorrect who has helped write speeches for Trump.
"Compare the media coverage of Charlottesville to when President Obama failed to condemn terrorists," says Sayet. "I even remember Obama trying to cover up for Islamic terror by dubbing the murders in Ft. Hood nothing more than 'workplace violence.'"
Mell Flynn, an actress who was a Trump delegate at the Republican convention, says the president has more supporters in Hollywood than many realize. "Hollywood conservatives are very hesitant to speak out in support of Trump because they fear that they will never work again," she says. "There's a lot of truth to that."
Baio is undeterred. "I don't give a shit if I ever work again," he says. "My country comes first. I guess I'm just an old, angry, successful white guy who stole everything he has from someone else."
