Susan Sarandon sounded off on the 2016 presidential race and excoriated the media for failing to do “in-depth, responsible, grown-up kind of journalism.”
“The press is responsible for making Trump who he is,” Sarandon said of the Republican party frontrunner. “I don’t know why. Things have just not stuck on him, and I blame a lot of the circus that was created by the press and not treated seriously for allowing him to get as far as he has. We’re just not reporting in-depth, responsible, grown-up kind of journalism.
“So it’s taken people a while to educate themselves,” the Oscar-winning actress told The Hollywood Reporter. “For being such a powerful country, we need to be better informed and more responsible in how we go about choosing candidates. It’s not a reality TV show. No one is going to be voted off this island once it happens.”
Despite the avalanche of support from many of Hollywood’s most liberal entertainers who have already thrown their support behind Bernie Sanders, Susan Sarandon says “there’s a lot of people I’ve talked to who are afraid” to support him.
“I feel people have to make up their own minds and their publicists are leaning on them,” the Oscar-winning actress told The Hollywood Reporter.
Sarandon also says there are liberal celebrities in Hollywood who are “afraid” to support Bernie Sanders, some of them saying, “‘I am definitely supporting him, but I’m afraid to come out’ because either I am woman and I don’t want to get shamed; because that has been a big part of what the response has been; or they say ‘I am just waiting to see what happens.'”
“I understand entertainers who say they are waiting because you put yourself out there for [interviews] like this. And people, especially if you’re a woman, are making it very, very difficult,” she added.
The socialist senator from Vermont won four states during Super Tuesday to Hillary Clinton’s seven. With 427 delegates, Sanders lags Hillary Clinton by over 600 of the 2,383 delegates needed to secure the Democratic nomination for president.
Sanders does have a very devoted base of voters, and he raised over $10 million more than Clinton in February.
Sarandon says she still sees hesitancy among Sanders supporters on the left. “I know there are environmentalist actors who understand that he’s the guy, but what you get is ‘I’m just waiting to see.'”
“If you look at the polls, Sanders is the candidate who’s favored to beat Trump,” she says. “Both Trump and Sanders are attractive to people who want somebody outside of the establishment, who want somebody they feel is authentic and they’re not getting that in other candidates.”
Sanders holds an eight point lead over Donald Trump in a general election head-to-head, according to the Real Clear politics average of all polls.
“The response to him is still very strong and people are not giving up,” Sarandon says about Sanders’ appeal to the middle class. “I am very enthusiastic about having a candidate who lives and professes a progressive platform because I care about the environment, and I care about women and children and the middle class.”
Follow Jerome Hudson on Twitter @jeromeehudson
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