Peter Fonda is an idiot. He’s an idiot for tweeting something gross and completely wrong about Barron Trump. Peter Fonda is also an idiot because he gave all of the Deplorables and Fox News and all of the right-wing talking heads a way to pivot away from the national/international conversation about how the American government is ripping babies away from their mothers, keeping kids in cages and putting migrants into concentration camps on the border. On Wednesday, Peter Fonda tweeted that Barron Trump should be ripped from “his mother’s arms and put in a cage with pedophiles.” Fonda apologized hours later, saying:
“I tweeted something highly inappropriate and vulgar about the president and his family in response to the devastating images I was seeing on television,” Fonda said in the statement, released by both his manager and his publicist. “Like many Americans, I am very impassioned and distraught over the situation with children separated from their families at the border, but I went way too far. It was wrong and I should not have done it. I immediately regretted it and sincerely apologize to the family for what I said and any hurt my words have caused.”
But of course this was the perfect excuse for every Trump apologist and Trump voter to suddenly spend the day claiming that Peter Fonda is the perfect representation of how liberal Hollywood elites work with Democrats to say horrible things about poor Barron Trump. Apparently, Melania Trump’s office even personally contacted the Secret Service about Fonda’s tweet. Someone said something awful about a white child and suddenly everything stops on a dime.
To be clear, Barron Trump should not be ripped from his mother’s arms and put in a cage. That’s a horrible crime. It’s a horrible crime when Donald Trump orders border patrol agents to do that migrant families too. Children should not be kept in cages, whether they have the last name “Trump” or not. Not Barron, and not the migrant babies, migrant toddlers and migrant children. You should not wish for any child to be victimized by sexual predators, not Barron, and not the 4-year-old daughter of an undocumented migrant. The 4-year-old was repeatedly assaulted by a sheriff’s deputy in Texas, and the deputy threatened the mother with deportation if she ever reported his crime. You should not wish for Barron to be abused like the migrant children being physically assaulted and sexual abused at the shelters where they’re being caged, drugged and restrained. Pray for Barron. Pray for the thousands of babies and children who are actually living through hell right now too.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
I understand the rage that prompted his tweet.
I do too. If he had to go postal, he should have said, how would trump feel if his child were ripped away from him and put in a cage. He blew it, but I think any normal thinking person would understand the message behind the rage.
What Nancy said. It is insane to drag more hate over a little boy. He is innocent. Kids are innocent. That’s all i got.
I do not understand the so-called rage that prompts someone to say that a boy should be raped by pedophiles. Are you kidding me? There is NO excuse for what Peter Fonda said.
I also understand. I’ve been so enraged about Trump and said things I normally wouldn’t. Fonda took it a little too far, and doing it on social media made it worse
So do I. This whole situation has me so angry and scared for both the kids and the families. At this point, I think it’s pretty safe to say that any Trump supporter (or libertarian sympathizer for Trump Supporters) still taking that stance, doing the tone-policing, and reducing support for Trump to just a matter of ‘having a different viewpoint’ is not a decent person capable of change. How can you hear about undocumented migrant’s children being torn from their families, disappearing, being caged and/or raped and otherwise abused and still care more about things like, ‘The Left is so divisive! I’m just going to vote the same way again because the liberals are persecuting us for our opinions’? That’s a defect.
I do too. Trump and his followers need to have this issue put into context. What if it happened to them? The pedophile part was too much, but using Barron as an example doesn’t bother me. Unfortunately Trump and the deplorables have no soul so they don’t care regardless. There is no reasoning with them.
Do not ever give Donnie Jr an excuse to pretend he is taking the high ground. And Melania, nice way to waste my tax dollars yet again.
Not defending what Peter Fonda did. Leave their kids out of it.
Meanwhile, allegations of horrific abuse of boys is coming out of one of the detention centers in Virginia. It’s breaking all over the place right now. And still, where are the girls?
Fonda is an old man, as is trump, yes he should have known better. I’m a pregnant woman with three other kids (I’m not a Duggar!), so I always say leave the kids out of it. But, this isn’t an ordinary presidency, nor anything close to a normal situation. By adding the pedophile reference, he changed what could have been an acceptable tweet. One has to wonder if trump has ever even imagined his blood could be incarcerated. Not the big boys or bombshell barbie, but his 12 year old. The thought to any parent is unfathomable. Like I said above, I don’t approve of his verbiage, but I get the message. Children should be protected and safe, not just HIS child.
“By adding the pedophile reference, he changed what could have been an acceptable tweet.”
The thing is though, Nancy, in the light of the appalling accounts coming out over the last few days of the sexual abuse that immigrant children in US detention centres have been subjected to over the past decade or so, can we not credit Fonda with being aware of this and that it might just possibly be at the root of his end-of-tether tweet? It’s a horribly pertinent fact that this could be the possible fate of these currently caged children. Babies and all.
I see it from that angle so I find it hard to condemn Fonda for letting his rage at the monster get the better of him.
Yes you are so right Skylark. Rape, trafficking. But the deal is, when he specifically stated trumps wife and son’s name, he effed up. This is such a sorted and defective display of hatred on trump’s part. The only good and this is also questionable, to come out of this is the outrage worldwide. It’s going to take more than tweets to change this atrocity. But, if nothing else, we are WOKE. What was that movie years…decades ago, Network, “I’m mad as Hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.” Says us all.
Fox watchers were outraged about this but not about what’s actually happening to migrant children. Tells you all you need to know.
Which is why I am tired of the centrist Democrat push to reach across the aisle to the Deplorables. That is a group of people we should give up for lost. The Democrat party should focus on gaining the vote of people who don’t vote at all.
This. Reach the Conservatives who run middle of the lane, reach those who don’t vote. Trump voters/new Republicans are a lost cause. I truly mean this. They will never stray from their viewpoint. They cannot have reasonable debates. They are mean people.
I agree with both of you. they are a lost cause. if a three-month old baby being taken from it’s breastfeeding mother and kids being put in cages didn’t do it, nothing will.
Exactly. If things like this going on with the Trump regime in power are not enough to touch any remaining humanity left on the right and make them realize that enough’s enough, no amount of pandering, coddling, and ass-kissing from the left is going to make a difference. Killing them with kindness is not going to work.
Yes,and this rhetoric from Peter Fonda isn’t helping with moderates.As well as the comment from Bill Maher that we need another recession to get rid of Trump.The last one destroyed lives,many who would never support Trump.
My sister has become completely brainwashed by Fox News and she is militant about her support for Trump. There’s no pulling her back – she’s gone and I can’t even bring political issues up with her anymore. It’s sad because it’s damaged our relationship and we have been so close all of our lives.
It’s happened to me too, Katy. I’ve had to cut ties with a few relatives. My aunt is on facebook saying things like American citizens don’t get to take their children to jail so why should illegals, this was an Obama policy where were you libs then, posting that stupid Britt Hughes Reality Check propaganda video, etc etc. I told her that she was incorrect and that it was shameful she was trying to defend this and her precious Trump. My aunt also reeealllly really hates Pres Obama and Hillary Clinton and posts negative things about them all the time, so her go to is to post old videos of them talking about illegal immigration. I’m all- why are you soooo obsessed with them? Then she has the gall to tag me in a post about fairy gardens. Gah, I’m done with people bending over backwards to cape for the vile things he does.
My mom is too. We can’t even discuss politics to see why each of us feel the way we do. And she’s a hard core Christian! I don’t get it
No way am i sticking up for fonda, but think he was trying to say ‘how would they feel, if it was their child put in that situation’. Don’t think he would actually ever want that to happen, but he expressed that anger in a very irresponsible way.
The part about pedophilia is way too specific to let it go. No rage can justify this.
+1
No it’s not too specific. The children being taken away from their parents and put in cages are at risk of physical, mental and sexual abuse. Unpalatable and horrifying as it is, that’s a cold fact and it needs to be acknowledged.
I used to work with abused kids so maybe that colors my thinking but the potential for sexual abuse was one of the first things that crossed my mind when the news broke about separated families.
Not to mention the fact that these children are being seen as ‘lesser’ which makes them even more of an abuse target. We saw/heard yesterday the mocking of traumatised, sobbing children by those in whose care they were left. That lack of empathy is truly frightening and it’s not a stretch to see what further horrors it could lead to.
It should be a real concern, yet it’s missing in the coverage. Are the people that are running these places trained at all?..companies were contracted to do the job just like the govt contacts a company to build a building..and we all know the scum the trump’s have been connected with..and yet no reporter can find out who they are? Everything surrounding this is too secret, too dark, every image controlled by the govt, and that fact alone should be unthinkable here.
My argument still stands. The hate is a fair response and I usually detest when someone comes up trying to “calm me down “, but the man said he wishes a child would be molested. He didn’t say Donald Trump, or Ivanka, or anyone from them . A child is a child, no matter where he or she came from. Now, we can all point the double standard in their reaction .
Yep it was an appalling tweet period. When our rage spills into this kind of reactivity it helps no one.
Children have been raped in the detention centers. There is horrific news coming out this morning about abuse of teenage boys in a detention center in Virginia. And nobody knows where the girls are.
Yes, LP. And I found this earlier today – Migrant children sent to shelters with histories of abuse allegations
https://www.revealnews.org/article/migrant-children-sent-to-shelters-with-histories-of-abuse-allegations/
being drugged against their will, too.
separated from their parents, mocked, mistreated and likely abused.
remind me again how the GOP is the party of “family values”?!
I wouldn’t condone actually doing this to Barron, but I get the anger. I was just thinking last night that I understood how the victors of the Hunger Games were able to justify voting for a 76th Hunger Game held with the children of the capital. You see something like this happening, and you want there to be some sort of justice. Literally nothing that happens is going to be fair or just at this point, and realizing that makes people feel a little bit crazy and vindictive.
Again, nothing that happens going forward is going to resolve this situation. We may be able to stop the separations. We may be able to reunify most of the families. However, given the sketchy details that were taken by ICE/border patrol, some of those kids are not going to be located, and even the children who are reunified are going to have lifelong trauma issues associated with what happened to them. I’ve been telling my sister for several days that I hope Trump and Sessions burn in hell. I don’t even believe in hell, and I’m hoping I’m wrong because eternal torment seems like the only punishment that could even somewhat approximate the cruelty of what he’s done.
I’m well aware of claims of child sexual abuse at these “centers” and I am terrified of these children being sold into sex trafficking, it actually makes me feel ill. There’s no accountability for the location of these children and that is utterly terrifying.
Having said that, Fonda’s tweet was vile. I’m not a triggered right winger, I’m not more upset by what he said hypothetically than what is actually happening, but I still believe you don’t say things like that about children.
i honestly thought Peter Fonda was dead
LOL!!!!!
Omg thank you for this moment of levity! I’m cry laughing.
Seriously, kind of reminded me of that game Dead or Canadian? Love that Donald Trump, Jr. wants to make sure he gets the Roseanne treatment with some movie Fonda’s in which is supposed to be released soon. The one no one knew about or was going to see, and probably was going straight to video anyway. I wasn’t sure he was alive either. I also love that Don, Jr. thought Barron was younger than he was too. If I’m Barron that is fighting words with Jr.
Junior only cares about Barron when he can exploit him to feign outrage at others as he did with Kathy Griffin and the ridiculous lie that Barron was traumatized because he believed she had decapitated Trump because, you know, Barron spends all his time watching CNN. Video of the inauguration shows Junior nearly threw the kid down the stairs.
Peter Fonda gave trump’s cult some visuals and now they are screaming foul? I hope this scenario hunts them forever.
What he said was terrible but don’t forget that going after children is trump’s cult favorite game.
Pray for Barron? Nope! I will pray for the poor kids who are being separated from their families.
Barron will be his father’s son in near future. Just look at his siblings.
“What he said was terrible but don’t forget that going after children is trump’s cult favorite game.”
Yes- in more ways than one. While the right is expressing (understandable) shock and anger about these comments, let’s not also forget that angry males with conservative values often lead the charge in wishing rape on underage girls in the public eye- whether it’s outright stating that they hope it happens to them, Trump supporters fantasizing about how they’d coerce girls to do sexual things with them if they were directors or producers, or whether it’s suggesting that the girls are triggering/inviting sex crimes. I’ve noticed this trend for over a decade starting when I was a kid myself, and little noise is made about it- it’s often dismissed as ‘free speech’, ‘just being real’, the price of fame, or somehow the fault of the girls/their parents. ‘Family values’ and sometimes even ‘feminism’/saving girls are often used to justify this type of behavior. Other times, the fact that the girls/ their families are rich Hollywood Elites is used as an excuse for why saying things like that about them is no big deal. Where’s the outrage about that? Why is it ok when MRAs, Christians, and other angry men say things like that about female child stars and celeb spawn, but horrible when one guy says it about the president’s son? And women are complicit in it too.
They care more about words than actions. These are people that want Kathy Griffin off twitter for saying something about Melania the other day. Yet there are so many vile and awful troll and bot accounts on there, hiding behind a fake name and avatar. And they call us the snowflakes.
Acknowledging the potential for abuse is one thing. Wishing it would happen to a child, any child, went way too far.
I have been numbed by this whole children in cages situation, but honestly, it didn’t cross my mind that they would be and are being sexually abused. I can’t even. I was just very tearful and discouraged about it. But I won’t lose faith – it IS time to pray and to act. Prayer works and so does action. We cannot give up. We must keep the faith and keep trying.
I was watching a documentary about the (in)famous Warwick Castle in England recently and they showed a scene of the dungeon and a place that was notoriously the WORST place one could go. It was a cage in the floor of the castle, beneath the latrine (yuck!) but the biggest deal was that once you went there, you were forgotten. I think it’s name is something like “The Forgotten Place.” Once people put you in that cage and you were forgotten, that was it.
We cannot forget, we must keep asking questions. We must not allow scripture twisters (Sessions) to normalize the abnormal. We must not allow the fact that many immigrants are black people and yet that is often hidden be used to desensitize and manipulate the black population to not stand in solidarity. We must not let the news cycle dictate what we remember or forget. I STILL want to know where the rest of the girls are from the Nigeria incident years ago. As a global society, we forgot them. We cannot do that here.
Very good post. Agree
As outraged as people are at Fonda’s words, that will never happen with Barron Trump. It IS happening with immigrant children right this second. I’ll save my outrage for someone who really needs it.
That’s precisely how I feel. It’s way past ‘going high’ o’clock with this despicable moron and his equally contemptible family.
Exactly. I can’t believe the outrage is about someone tweeting about it rather than the reality.
I can’t believe that people aren’t more outraged and disgusted by it, because it’s Barron Trump it doesn’t matter as much? It is sickening what is happening on our borders but if this had been said about any other child, regardless of who their parents are, what color they are, where they live, rich or poor – people would lose their GD minds over it. Is this what our country has become? A 12 year old boy is fair game now?
Why are some people excusing this? It is NOT ok to wish sexual abuse on any child or Person, and it is not ok to separate children from parents. You can’t say Trump is guilty so it is understandable what Fonda did, why can’t people say wrong is wrong on BOTH sides. What does it say as a country when we wish/allow any person to be abused or make excuses. Decency is an individual trait, not handed out by political party.
Because, apparently, being nasty to Trump and even to his family somehow makes the world a better place.
I am deeply disappointed in Peter Fonda. If he *wanted* to say something else than what he did, he could have said it. I would think he is articulate enough to express his “true” thoughts and feelings.
Because it’s a distraction from the horrifying reality that is our country right now. Some actor tweeting his outrage in an unpalatable way is not in any way the moral equivalent of what’s happening at our borders.
It looks like everyone’s condemning it. Understanding the anger behind something said or done and pointing out some of the hypocrisy in those reacting to it isn’t the same as condoning how the anger was expressed.
There are some people saying they will save their outrage for the plight of immigrant children. While I agree and I will too, I also think Fonda should face consequences for this, like a twitter suspension or ban. Only because I think that it’s a pretty awful thing to say about any kid. Now if he wanted Trump to be put in a cage with predators, that’s fine. And yeah maybe it’s because I think Twitter needs to be better about this kind of rhetoric. I also think James Woods should get a suspension too. Old men tweeting bs is not an important issue (unless it’s Trump ruining relationships with other countries etc).
Meja: Well said. What 45 is doing to these children is horrific and grotesque and grievous, unimaginably cruel, and I understand Fonda’s outrage well. However, the instant he mentioned Trump’s son specifically and envisioned pedophilia on him, he went too far. That doesn’t mean I’m not much more appalled for the immigrant children that this is actually happening to, just that pedophilia is nothing to EVER speak of lightly, or to wish (even theoretically) on any child in the world.
Where are the little girls?!?!?! I am enraged again today!!!!!
I only will pray for Barron to grow up and be a better person than his family is. Depise the money and power. We can only hope.
Unlikely.
Fonda’s tweet was horrible.
It was bad and posted out of anger… Yet what was depicted is what is currently happening to children that have been sent to those camps. So while I’ll save my outrage for them, not for a tweet.
There is absolutely no justification or understanding why Fonda said what he said. It was nasty, it was vile, it was ugly and it was undeserved.
Agree totally.
Am I outraged? No. But am I inclined to defend Fonda or see him as an ally? Nah.
Fonda really likes constructing sexualized revenge fantasies – he also tweeted about Kirstjen Nielsen. Specifically, he repeatedly called her a “gash” who should be stripped naked in public and whipped by passersby while being filmed.
I’m not angry on Nielsen’s behalf nor am I going to indulge any Trumpster’s disingenuous outrage over those tweets. I’m judging him as a fellow left-winger. And I will always distrust any man whose first instinct, when justifiably angry at a woman, is to express that rage with misogynistic slurs like “gash” and violent sexual humiliation revenge fantasies – in anger veritas.
Like….something’s not quite right here, so while Trump voters can take their hypocrisy elsewhere, I’m not caping for Peter either.
Very well said! I agree.
That was definitely too far. Kids in the public eye (although it seems to be girls more often than boys) are already regularly targets of comments suggesting that they somehow either should be raped or are responsible for triggering another person’s decision to rape. and that needs to stop period, especially after #MeToo. The fact that there are so many children who grow up being targets of that is sadand needs to change. That’s never okay. That said, it’s also predictable that many deplorables and deplorable apologists are more angry about this being said about the most protected white male child in the world than they are about the migrant children actually being exposed to this treatment.
We’re on the same page. Also his tweets about Nielsen were pretty misogynistic. Calm down dude. Ultimately, I think social media needs to reign this stuff in. This is not a free speech issue, especially if they’re violating the tos. I think this is a distraction that the right will run wild with, but I also do not agree with posters saying it’s coming from a place of anger and they get him and it’s fine. This kind of talk doesn’t solve anything, and I’m angry as hell but I don’t wish harm on children. I think this horrible administration SHOULD think “what if” this was my kid though.
Fonda should’ve counted to ten (or a million) before tweeting. Had he voiced his opinion in a less threatening manner we would be applauding him now. The deplorables have enough ammunition, whether it be real or not, and Fonda just gave them another excuse to voice their hateful view on immigration.
When will we awake from this nightmare of a “government”?
Yeah, I’m with y’all. I mean, I understand the rage. But woooo, this is too far. He could have asked how the Trumps would feel if Barron were taken from them.
Why did he have to say “pedophiles”? It almost seems like he’s buying into the Trumpian argument that all immigrants are criminals.
No. He’s referring to the sexual abuse suffered by countless immigrant children that’s currently going on in numerous gov-funded US detention centres at the hands of the adults who’re supposed to be taking care of them.
Nothing whatsoever to do with immigrants being pedophiles.
I don’t agree with the pedophile part. I understand why he said it, though that doesn’t excuse wishing sexual abuse upon him. The Trumps flaunted their family as they tore others apart. Fuck them.
This administration brings out the worst. I’ve said horrible things the past year-and-a- half. I’ve been flooded with thoughts and feelings I’ve never had. Hate was never a part of my life, but I loathe now. Despise. So while he should’ve never tweeted that about another’s child, I completely understand.
WOW!!!! These comments are disgusting. Everybody saying that they “don’t condone” what Peter Fonda said but understand why he said are disgusting. Political party doesn’t matter here, just because you hate Trump doesn’t mean that is okay to wish him or his family awful things. Nobody in their right mind would defend Peter Fonda or understand why he said and the only reason he is apologizing is because the first lady called the secret service on him. Threats should be taken seriously no matter what is their political party.
It’s human nature to want the ills one distributes to be a recipient of said ills. Eye for eye and all that. If you don’t understand the difference between condone and understand and then launch a bit of shade of your own, nothing’s been gained. What he said was hateful. Yes. Let’s leave children out of politics. But wait. What’s happening right now at our border? Could it be the abuse of children at the hest of political maneuvering? So it’s quite understandable how this can anger a person into poor retaliations. We are definitely disgusting. The subject matter is disgusting. What’s happening is disgusting. This administration is disgusting. Congress is disgusting. The Republicans are disgusting. Complicity is disgusting. So yeah, I get it.
I’m with you, Gaby. Grown-ass adults taking no responsibility for their own decisions/actions, instead, blaming them on their emotions getting out of control – like a toddler would.
Thank you!
Nope I agree. I’m quite shocked and I’m trying to be diplomatic in my replies. I am angry and feel ill over this, but I don’t say or write things like that. That’s vile. Plus I also read he said awful things about Pres Obama. I think he has some anger issues.
He should not have said that.
Now the deplorables can fixate on the mean Hollywood left.
He did worse in 2011 with Obama.Of course,no one seemed to car about the awful insulting things that were said about them