As my former boss Tim Graham of the Media Research Center’s News Analysis Division, aka Newsbusters, tweeted, it’s not shocking that Ken Burns would attack Donald Trump during the commencement ceremony at Brandeis University.
“Ken Burns is PBS. PBS is Ken Burns. PBS is a leftist War Room. And we subsidize it,” he wrote.
Burns capped off what’s becoming a trend: notable liberals and anti-Trump political commentators getting more than a little nervous about Joe Biden’s re-election chances. The prolific and award-winning documentarian delivered a doomsday meltdown to the graduating class of 2024, noting that “there is nothing equal about this equation” this election year. If we elect Trump again, America will be destroyed.
Ken Burns warns about Trump during his commencement speech at Brandeis University: so powerful, so wise, so emotional, so true. It shook me to my core. Tearing up a river. pic.twitter.com/rsExpYx2yj
— George Shiber 🧐🧬🧮🕊️🫶 (@GeorgeShiber) May 25, 2024
Ken Burns is PBS.
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) May 27, 2024
PBS is Ken Burns.
PBS is a leftist War Room.
And we subsidize it. https://t.co/UH4hzXZqgt
He used esoteric language as if we wouldn’t understand what he was saying, but the intent was clear. Burns is so worried about this election that he declared to the graduates that he would suspend his long-standing political neutrality protocol to deliver this screed.
Burns called Trump the “opioid of all opioids—an easy cure for what some believe is the solution to our myriad pains and problems. When, in fact, with him [Trump], you end up re-enslaved with an even bigger problem: a worse affliction and addiction.”
The PBS fixture then bellowed about the existential crisis before us and how we’re at a critical nexus point in our civic and political lives. Anytime a Democrat is in trouble of losing, our republic is on the verge of collapse. Just like how Democrats thought Facebook ads could destroy the country. It’s exhausting. How about not crafting a foreign policy and domestic agenda that’s absolute political bushwa?
Of course, the crowd ate this up—our tax dollars at work. Man, I miss the old Ken Burns, who, besides his landmark series on the American Civil War, did an equally laudable series on baseball, Prohibition, World War II (from the American perspective), and the Vietnam War.
Alas, Trump broke everyone on the Left, so we should expect these outbursts like psoriasis; it comes and goes.