State of Tuesday: ROB REINER'S MURDER IS ABOUT TRUMP NOW
It’s like Hollywood lost something as America struggled its way through two wars and a financial crisis.
Greetings, Dear Reader,
We’re going to keep it light today.
Trump had some thoughts on Rob Reiner after he and his wife had a truly gruesome demise at the hands of their own son (allegedly).
Some people have thoughts on ol’ Trumpo.
Let’s get to it.
ROB REINER’S MURDER IS ABOUT TRUMP NOW
Human beings have always struggled when it comes to death. The religious among us handle it the best, in my opinion.
The media, the elite, they have the worst time.
As you’ve now certainly heard, Rob Reiner and his wife Michele were found dead over the weekend. The evidence pointed to murder. Both had their throats slit.
Reiner’s daughter, Romy, found the bodies and immediately suspected her brother Nick, who has a history of substance abuse and mental health issues. Nick had recently gotten into a massive argument with his father at a holiday party hosted by Conan O’Brien. Anonymous sources told the New York Times the blowout “alarmed” the guests.
Police have since arrested Nick.
Needless to say, this is brutal and tragic, yet not entirely unheard of in the rank stew of Hollywood. People lose their minds there.
I can’t speak to the type of father Rob was. He appeared to be caring. He teamed up with Nick once to produce a movie inspired by Nick’s own life. Michele, according to previous reporting, also seemed eminently worried about how to help Nick.
Maybe we’re missing something, but otherwise, this does not appear to be an edge case in which parricide — one of the worst sins imaginable — would be remotely understandable.
The public was shocked. Horrified. Saddened.
Trump immediately danced on Reiner’s grave. Twice.
It wasn’t Trump’s best performance, I mentioned it to my circle of friends. Usually he’s at least a little funny. This one seemed off. Even when Trump’s at his most shocking, he’s usually a little entertaining. This was only bile.
Here it is. You can judge for yourself.
People on the right pride themselves on demonstrating grace when ideological opponents, particularly worthy ones, suffer tragedy. It’s what distinguishes us from the godless rabble on the left who’d happily load our children on trains if they could.
But I’m here to tell you: It’s useless to attack Trump from the right over his treatment of Rob Reiner. I mean that literally. It has all the intellectual heft of putting a black square on your Instagram to support black lives. It’s just meaningless virtue signaling.
I’ve seen likewise from a small cohort online when it comes to Tucker as well. People who should know better. People who wouldn’t be where they are right now if not for Tucker’s intervention. It’s useless and achieves literally nothing.
It’s not like you witnessed Trump back over a little girl’s puppy with his Chevy Tahoe and then drive off, leaving her sobbing next to a twitching, bloody mess on the ground. It’s not a crime to be an asshole. In some places, many in fact, it’s not even noteworthy.
This is what Trump does. He posts nukes when his antagonists suffer misfortune. Reiner spent the last few years of his life attacking Trump online. Trump doesn’t care if Reiner demonstrated stunning grace in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder. It doesn’t even register. He’s going to unload on the guy.
All criticizing him achieves is making you look like a bundle of tightly clutched pearls (or maybe sticks), and whatever energy it takes to post a tweet these days.
So what do you do instead?
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I’m not sure I’d be married to my wife if not for Rob Reiner.
When we first started dating, we both loved quoting the movie The Princess Bride.
“My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die.”
That’s a thing that doesn’t happen much anymore. When was the last time you could quote a recent movie in mixed company and everyone or almost everyone recognized the quote?
“I’m not f***in’ leaving!” is the last one I can remember. Wolf of Wall Street. Ironically, Rob Reiner played an outstanding role in that film.
Otherwise, it’s been mostly bupkis. It’s like Hollywood lost something as America struggled its way through two wars and a financial crisis. The ubiquity of social media that followed somehow ended the ubiquity of culture.
It was kind of a tenuous time socially for us. She had just gotten out of a relationship with someone in a tight-knit, college friend group. I was nine years older than her and our families knew each other well, since we both grew up in the same small town.
She was a little worried initially about word getting out that we were dating. To her friends. To her father and brothers. Another small wrinkle: I was working in Manhattan as a broke writer and she was still going to school at Temple in Philadelphia.
I was nevertheless determined.
So when we were apart, I began writing her letters. I wrote one every day. Sometimes they were just straightforward love letters. Other times an imagining of what we might become. Our potential together, which I saw as great. I even developed a fictionalized world I’d visit from time to time. I’d hike up into the mountains, where I’d talk to spritely woodland creatures, who’d excitedly ask me all sorts of questions about her.
Needless to say, the strategy worked. We have two children now and probably a third on the way.
But because of the social tension, in order not to out ourselves before she was ready, I’d sign each of these letters pseudonymously.
“Love always,
The Dread Pirate Roberts”
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It saddened me, to say the least, when Reiner became so broken over Donald Trump. It reminded me of family members and friends who slipped past some mental event horizon Nov. 8, 2016, and just never came back.
He was obviously broken and, because of his fame, it happened in public. In fact, media vultures were happy to capitalize on his mental illness.
Pretty sad.
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None of this really is about Trump. That’s why he’s nuking Reiner, because it isn’t about him. In some corners, frankly, it’s sound media strategy, like it or not.
It was good to see James Woods, a massive right-winger, eulogize Reiner on Fox News last night. He spent six minutes heaping praise on the man, talking about how Reiner saved his career, how they could be friends despite their intellectual differences, in fact, how that made their friendship tighter.
He didn’t say the word “Trump” once.
That’s it for the free portion of today’s State of the Day.
The full subscriber edition continues below with expanded analysis and additional context.