Trump is "the opioid of all opioids": Ken Burns abandons "long-standing attempt at neutrality"

In a Brandeis commencement address, the filmmaker warned that another MAGA White House would "destroy us"

Published May 29, 2024 5:49PM (EDT)

Ken Burns speaks onstage during the 2024 GQ Creativity Awards at WSA on April 11, 2024 in New York City. (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for GQ)
Ken Burns speaks onstage during the 2024 GQ Creativity Awards at WSA on April 11, 2024 in New York City. (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for GQ)

Filmmaker Ken Burns offered an ominous message about the potential threats another MAGA presidency could impose during a recent commencement address at Brandeis University in Massachusetts.

“For nearly 50 years now, I have diligently practiced and rigorously tried to maintain a conscious neutrality in my work, avoiding advocacy if I could, trying to speak to all of my fellow citizens,” Burn said, later adding that he had been forced to "suspend my long-standing attempt at neutrality” because “there is no real choice this November."

"There is only the perpetuation, however flawed and feeble you might perceive it, of our fragile 249-year-old experiment or the entropy that will engulf and destroy us if we take the other route," he continued. "The presumptive Republican nominee is 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, you end up re-enslaved with an even bigger problem, a worse affliction and addiction, 'a bigger delusion,' James Baldwin would say, the author and finisher of our national existence, our national suicide as Mr. Lincoln prophesies.

"Do not be seduced by easy equalization," Burns continued. "There is nothing equal about this equation. We are at an existential crossroads in our political and civic lives. This is a choice that could not be clearer."