I’m a fan of Jeff Daniels. He seems like a nice guy, he’s a great actor, and Dumb & Dumber — for my money — is an undeniable classic.

What’s also becoming classic is for people on the Left to make wholly ludicrous comments about 2020 — “If Trump is re-elected, (insert cataclysmic event that was supposed to happen last time but didn’t but will this time for sure).”

Why make absurd remarks when they could instead reference realistic negatives? If Trump stays in office, there will indeed be ramifications Democrats won’t like. How about just name those?

For some reason, the trend is to prefer apocalyptic predictions that can’t be taken even remotely seriously by reasonable people.

Apropos, here are a few samples of stunning silliness from the last several months:

Michael Moore: Donald Trump May Be The Last President Of The United States

In Light Of Kavanaugh, Nut On MSNBC Predicts A Possible ‘Thousand-Year Reich’

DNC Chair Tom Perez On ‘Face The Nation’: November Will Save Or Destroy Democracy

‘New York Times’ ‘Reporter’ On MSNBC: Donald Trump Wants To Round Up People And Murder Them

It seems to me it would be infinitely more effective to say things normal people might actually believe; but oh well.

Moving on:

On MSNBC Monday night, Jeff Daniels compared Trump rallies to a line from the Broadway play in which he’s currently starring, To Kill a Mockingbird:

“A mob is a place where people go to take a break from their conscience.”

The theatrical production is, of course, about a wrongly accused black man in the 1930’s south.

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To Jeff, people at pro-Donald events aren’t wholly different than the maniacal mobs of yore:

“That’s what I see when I look at Donald Trump’s rallies. That’s when I see the lies he’s spewing at these people, and people going, ‘I gotta believe in something,’ and he said he’d bring my manufacturing job back and he didn’t…but at the end of the day, it’s race. It’s race.”

Are MAGA fans really thinking, “Well, I gotta believe in somethin'”?

Apparently so. And racism is the only thing that can preserve the GOP:

“This is about the Republican Party — or a wing of it — going: ‘This is our last chance to save the party. And if we don’t, it’s the end of the Republican Party.’ And the only way they can do that was to tap the race button and say, ‘Go ahead, it’s okay.’ And [Trump] did. And they did. That was the only card they had left to play, and they played it. And they aren’t going to go quietly.”

Then came what seemed to be a drawn connection between Trump supporters and enablers of the KKK.

As described by Deadline:

[Daniels] cites a moment in the play when the KKK is coming for (Jeff’s character in TKAM, attorney Atticus) Finch and his daughter Scout recognizes one as their neighbor and compares it to when Daniels asked his fellow Michiganders about the 2016 election results and they said, “Yeah, isn’t it great?” He then notes how Finch’s defending his neighbors by saying, “I know these people, they’re good people,” but “he’s an apologist, he’s an enabler,” Daniels said.

Jeff also appeared to assert — but perhaps I’m not understanding correctly — that middle America is dumb:

“And I think there are people in the Midwest, between the coasts, who don’t know anything about this, who don’t care about this, who don’t have any time for this, who have to make a decision now. You have to decide whether, like Atticus, you believe that there is still compassion, decency, civility, respect for others — ‘do unto others,’ remember that? — all that stuff you guys believe in, and you still voted not for Hillary, or for Trump. Where are you now?”

Am I interpreting that properly?

Okay, now here’s the classic:

“If the big gamble is to go all the way to November 2020…and lose, it’s the end of democracy.”

There ya go.

The end of democracy, folks. Somehow — and no one knows how, but somehow — it’ll just cease to exist.

With all due respect to Jeff — and I sincerely mean that — in my view, comments such as his don’t put us in a better place. They don’t forward a conversation. And they don’t motivate the sensible.

As for his Broadway run, Jeff hopes all the white liberals who pack Broadway’s houses (are there no conservatives?) will see To Kill a Mockingbird as a call to arms:

“You walk out there and we pin the ears back of, basically, white America. White liberal America comes in, and they go, ‘We had no idea it was that tough.’ It’s a slap in the face; it’s a wake-up call.”

So that’s how The Newsroom star sees it (and I’ve heard The Newsroom is great).

But here’s somewhat of a wake-up call, too: Southern Democrats were resistant to integration, and it was they — not Republicans — who formed the KKK.

And no matter who is elected in 2020, they won’t be bigger than the country, bigger than the Constitution, bigger than our system of government. And they most certainly won’t be — no matter who they are — the end of democracy.

-ALEX

Relevant RedState links in this article: here, here, here, and here.

See 3 more pieces from me:

Venezuelan Writer Has A Message For Pro-Socialism Professor Jim Carrey

Mark Wahlberg Shows Hollywood What A Role Model Looks Like

This Hilarious 1986 SNL Sketch Absolutely Nails The Left’s Portrayal Of Donald Trump

Find all my RedState work here.

And please follow Alex Parker on Twitter and Facebook.

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