Here’s a story for you from the “Not The Onion” files.

Noted word-reciter Alec Baldwin gave an interview to The Hollywood Reporter recently. He talked about a few fun things, all with the air of tone-deafness Baldwin and his Hollywood colleagues are increasingly known for.

Making absolutely no connection to the Kavanaugh circus (unsurprisingly), Baldwin lamented that the #MeToo movement’s dependence on emotion and accusations rather than proof was…problematic. Particularly for himself.

“It’s not a witch hunt because a witch hunt indicates that there is very little truth, if none at all, and there is a lot of truth here. But what worries me is that this is a fire that needs constant kindling.” Late last fall, it all became personal. In the wake of Harvey Weinstein’s unraveling, a publication reached out to one of Baldwin’s former co-stars and began questioning her about his behavior on a particular 1980s film set. The actress, who’d been a minor at the time, contacted Baldwin to let him know. (In sharing the story for the first time, he asked that I omit the names.) “She goes, ‘Alec, they called me and they said that a wardrobe person said you sexually molested me and that you constantly had me sitting on your lap and they asked me for a comment.’ I go, ‘My God, what did you say?’ And she said, ‘I told them it was ridiculous, that you never groped me.'” I can feel Baldwin’s blood pressure rising from across the table. “I just remember thinking in that moment, ‘Wow, they’re looking for people. This is a fire that needs fresh wood, and they’re coming for me.'”

But perhaps the most entertaining part of the interview comes when Baldwin is approached by a young black man named Tyrone. Tyrone proceeds to heap praise on Baldwin for his Trump impression and the two have a jovial exchange. When he finishes up, the interviewer describes Baldwin as getting almost a sort of “high” from the encounter. Then, in what can only be described as the “hubris of Hollywooding”, Baldwin goes on to utter something he knew he shouldn’t have said out loud in the first place but could not help himself from blurting out because, well…it’s all about him!

As we load into the back seat of his SUV, Baldwin’s still buzzing from his exchange with Tyrone. “I don’t know how to say this and I don’t want to get it wrong either, because everything is a minefield of bombs going off, but” — and here it comes — “ever since I played Trump, black people love me. They love me. Everywhere I go, black people go crazy. I think it’s because they’re most afraid of Trump. I’m not going to paint every African-American person with the same brush, but a significant number of them are sitting there going, ‘This is going to be bad for black folks.'”

I guess I missed the memo where we as Black people collectively praise and thank our white savior Alec Baldwin for standing up for us. The twitter responses seem to indicate not many other Black people got the memo either.

legit thought that quote was from trump at first — Danielle Sparks (@dannysparky) October 10, 2018

I don’t think black people. fear Trump-more or less than any other group of people. — richard (@howe2cher) October 10, 2018

Wakanda nonsense??? We don't acknowledge you colonizers 💀 pic.twitter.com/CmuzaKnXwv — Jason (Crown Clown) (@EscaflowneClown) October 10, 2018

Should we tell Baldwin that Trump’s approval rating among black men has skyrocketed from 19% to 36% in just one year?

Nah. It’s more fun to just let him talk.

He really should have gone with his initial instinct to just say nothing. But just saying nothing is so hard for a celebrity class that earns their living by being presented as the most important people in our culture.

To be fair to Baldwin, he’s pretty much this arrogant on all subjects. He seems keen on promoting himself as some kind of national savior in our time of “crisis”.

“I mean, it’s cartoonish. All I wanted my Trump to be is mean-spirited and miserable, like Mr. Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life. But then I’ll say, ‘Oh, I don’t want to do it anymore,’ and people will go, ‘Don’t you dare give that up, we need you.’ Like I’ve gotten people through something in our nation’s history.”

If only we’d had an Alec Baldwin to shepherd us through WWII…we probably would have won much sooner.