Depending on your age, John Ratzenberger is either the actor who played the beloved character Cliff Clavin on Cheers or some guy you saw at a Tea Party rally on Fox News bellowing about socialism. Sometimes with these actors, and I include Clint Eastwood in this, you have to wonder if their conservatism is a put-on…a form of performance art. In Ratzenberger’s case, my suspicion was driven by reading things he’d said about the Clavin character over the years. If you’re unfamiliar with the character, he was a know-it-all postman who spent all his free time on a barstool pontificating about arcane trivia of dubious validity and his many ridiculous conspiracy theories. He was, in effect, a total crank and pretty much a prototype for the kind of folks who later joined the Birth Certificate Brigades at the Obamacare is National Socialism rallies.
In this example, he completely disassociates himself from the character and calls him a wingnut.
On the Cheers 200th-episode special, host John McLaughlin asked Ratzenberger about Cliff Clavin. The actor replied that Cliff would describe himself as the “wingnut that holds Western civilization together”; however, Ratzenberger said he would describe Cliff simply as “a wingnut”. When McLaughlin asked Ratzenberger if there was any part of him in Cliff, the actor replied that although he was interested in fascinating facts the only part of Cliff in him was that they both wear white socks.
In this much earlier example from 1985, he describes the exact kind of Keyboard Commando we later became so familiar with in the Iraq War era:
Cliff is the kind of guy who wishes he’d been a combat Marine, but maybe he was nearsighted or had flat feet and became a mailman. He loves the respect he gets. […] As for women, Cliff is like the construction workers who whistle at women but turn to a quivering mass when they’re face-to-face with a woman. The greatest fear of men is that they won’t live up to their expectations.
Yet, somewhere along the line, Ratzenberger started acting like the exact kind of crank he portrayed on Cheers.
I had to wonder if it was a real metamorphosis or if he had perhaps fallen on hard times and discovered a way to get some attention and pay the bills. Or was it just an act?
But enough about Cliff Clavin. I only mention him because he’s the kind of voter who didn’t show up for Romney in 2012 and is expressing support for Donald Trump today. These voters are not ideological but they are mentally impaired. They actually think the birth certificate stuff makes sense.
Consider these results among people with a high school education or less in the latest Washington Post poll:
If you take the Cliff Clavin vote away from Jeb Bush, he winds up polling twenty-one points behind Hillary Clinton.
So, I won’t be too upset if Trump gets fed up with the Republican Party and decides to run as an independent.
The only potential downside is that Trump will bring the Clavins out of the woodwork and make things harder on downticket races.
Not so sure about hard times as he did all those Toy Story movies in the intervening years.
Anyone can make bad investments or enter into bad business ventures.
Reported net worth $80 million
Aging white males that have accumulated a tidy (or large) nest egg find the GOP attractive. Especially if partisan politics were of limited to no importance to them when they were younger.
In Ratzenberger’s bio there’s nothing to suggest any connection to Republican policy positions — and much that is contrary to what the GOP stands for. Yet, a GOP base has emerged from that cauldron of blue collar white males in which Ratzenberger was formed. They also seem to latch onto “Christianity” more firmly (as an identity and not so much as living “the word”) concurrently with their process of becoming partisan Republicans.
It’s not an act. But personally I think it is a sign that their brains are losing elasticity beyond a norm for their age.
Ratzenberger was in way more than just Toy Story. He has voiced at least one character in every Pixar feature made to date.
Trump has been running for what? A month? (Seems like a year.)
The Bush and Clinton brands…because that’s what these two tomato cans really are, just the same PermaGov hjstle in a slightly different container…have been around since Bush I was Reagan’s late life caretaker. The Clinton brand “unexpectedly” beat the Bush brand in 1992, and since then we have had nothing but massive hustle from both brands. And he’s catching up at what pace? A few percentage points a week? Something like that.
I think Trump is going to wipe the floor w/the other candidates in the primaries and in the debates. He will have to bully the media into submission, but they will not be able to ignore the public joy at the televised beatings that he will give his rivals. Then on to the campaign.
Lemme see…if he gets all of the Bush votes and just keeps his, that adds up to 49% against 47% in the dumbed-down sector. Already.
Hmmmm…
I wonder how he’s doing with the middle class?
I wonder how he’s doing with the 40% undecided slice of likely voters?
Hmmmm…
Watch.
All of your media-jiggered poll numbers won’t mean shit if he starts to really roll.
Watch.
AG
A lethal threat to the Rand juggernaut.
He’s been running for more than four years. His public lead time before formalizing his status is merely longer than most. (Except for Clinton who has been at it for fifteen years.)
OK, just to be clear about this, are you saying there’s an actual chance of Donald Trump being elected president?
Scary thought isn’t it? But is it scarier than Cruz, Paul, or Walker? Or a total puppet like Rubio? With Jeb(!) we at least by now should be familiar with those that control the Bush family strings and what he would deliver for them.
Yes, it is scarier. Trump is an out-of-control megalomaniac. The others are just journeyman politicians.
He would be Hitler-level within only a couple of years, if that long.
AG
Tough call. There’s no daylight between him and most of the other GOP candidates on the major issues of the day. And we know that most of them are true believers; whereas, with tRump some of it could be a marketing strategy. The time he’d spend publicly fluffing and preening his feathers would take away from his time to get things done. Now Walker …
Trump’s an artifact of the crowded field.
If there were a belligerent, shouty asshole who was also saying the right things about Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, he’d be in trouble.
As it is, his lack of overt religiosity, and his truly laughable attempts to fake same, cap his support.
Agree that a belligerent asshole with close to 100% name recognition does well early on in a crowded GOP field.
However, looking at Huckabee’s and Santorum’s numbers, that Jeebus thing appears to be waning among the GOP faithful.
Yes. I am. A terrifying chance.
AG
That’s all opinion anyway.
I’m just picturing a Get Out The Vote effort on Jeb’s behalf knocking on Cliff’s door. Or better yet, Jeb knocking on Cliff’s door and then trying to convince him not to go to Cheers but instead go to the local polling booth.
Years ago I had a couple of clients, that could have spent intellectual time with Cliff. Each day when they left for work they put up a Barbara Bush doll at their coffee table with the idea that if robbers looked in the window they’d see First Lady Barbara and run away. I looked in the window. Scared me!
So, I won’t be too upset if Trump gets fed up with the Republican Party and decides to run as an independent.
Still can’t stop thinking about 1992?
tRump’s ego is big enough that should his poll numbers drop down to the second tier level of GOP candidates, he could conceivably flirt with an independent run. And gain the historical big prize that Wallace, Anderson, and Perot got. He’ll come in third and either a Democrat or a Republican will win.