Conservatives Criticize Streep's Anti-Trump Speech For Its Style, Not Its Substance UPDATE

I was curious as to what the reaction among conservatives would be to Meryl Streep's anti-Trump speech at The Golden Globes last night and my curiosity has not been disappointed.


Armond White at NRO and George Neumayr at my old stomping grounds at The American Spectator answered the bell.


White concurs with Trump's assessment that Streep is an overrated actress:

It was rich to see Streep, impersonator and belittler extraordinaire, condemn her phantom enemy for cruel imitation. She has become the most overrated actress of our times, making unstoppably arrogant attempts at doing everything and being anyone — a narcissist’s peculiar form of demagoguery.

Kael noted Streep’s tendency to overestimate both her own talent and the public weakness for a performer’s ostentatious ego. That side of her character made her Golden Globes behavior inappropriate and uncalled for. Like so many people deranged by the recent challenge to their political will (“I have lost my mind sometime earlier this year,” she said, describing disappointment and feigning hoarseness at the beginning of her diatribe), Streep couched her pettiness in moralistic terms, accusing her presumed enemy of lacking empathy.

This was also rich. Her invective flowed from her own lack of empathy. She chose the vain actor’s — and spoilsport politician’s — lazy method of showing empathy only for someone who shared her own ideals, thereby failing to meet the artistic obligation to understand and communicate the humanity of someone with whom she disagrees or finds objectionable. Where was the boldness of her Margaret Thatcher performance that defied the contumely of the politically rigid? Streep should have graced her inordinate acclaim by similarly wishing hope for the country’s imminent future.

At least, Neumayr expressed his contempt for Streep's speech with far more brevity:


The actors in attendance hung on her words with bated breath (except maybe Ron Paul supporter Vince Vaughn and Mel Gibson who were criticized afterwards for not looking at Streep in a sufficiently worshipful manner). She called the bejeweled crowd “outsiders” in a nice delusional touch. No “please wrap it up” sign flashed as she rattled on. Actresses wept as she recalled Trump’s treatment of a disabled reporter who had no “capacity to fight back.” Never mind that the establishment media, on his behalf, has been fighting back ever since, subjecting that episode to greater and greater hysterical interpretation.


Yet for all of White and Neumayr's pomposity neither of them dispute the fact that Trump mocked Serge Kovaleski's physical disability and that is all that really matters here. They can condemn Streep all they want but at no time do they attempt to defend Trump's conduct in South Carolina on the evening of November 24, 2015. This speaks volumes.


UPDATE: I think it also speaks volumes that conservatives are going after Streep's remark that if there were no foreigners we'd only have the NFL and MMA which she added are not art with Robert Verbruggen of the American Conservative and Jim Geraghty of NRO raising their objections. I have nothing against their objections. But like White and Neumayr, neither of them disputes the fact that Trump mocked Kovaleski. Streep probably made an unforced error here, but it gives conservatives cover to avoid discussing Trump's misdeeds.