At the Golden Globes ceremony last night, Meryl Streep used part of her time in the spotlight to denounce Donald Trump, focusing specifically on the Republican’s mockery of journalist Serge Kovaleski and the reporter’s physical disability during the campaign.
“It kind of broke my heart when I saw it, and I can’t get it out of my head, because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life,” Streep said. “And this instinct, to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing.”Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. When the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose,” she added. “We need the principled press to hold power to account, to call him on the carpet for every outrage.”
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."