Donald Trump’s attacks on the media have actor Alec Baldwin, who plays Trump on Saturday Night Live, wondering about his own safety. “I wonder if a sitting President exhorting his followers that my role in a TV comedy qualifies me as an enemy of the people constitutes a threat to my safety and that of my family?” Baldwin tweeted Sunday night.
You want to be able to say that that’s an over-the-top concern, but it came after Trump tweeted “Nothing funny about tired Saturday Night Live on Fake News NBC! Question is, how do the Networks get away with these total Republican hit jobs without retribution? Likewise for many other shows? Very unfair and should be looked into. This is the real Collusion!” and, minutes later, “THE RIGGED AND CORRUPT MEDIA IS THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!”
”Retribution” and “enemy of the people” are not words that should be thrown around lightly, but there we are. This also comes just days after a Trump supporter attacked a BBC cameraman at a Trump rally, yelling “Fuck the media!” And just months after media outlets and Trump critics were targeted with mail bombs. So it’s hard to dismiss Baldwin’s concern, however outlandish it feels to take seriously a movie and television star’s fear of threats based on his appearances in a TV comedy.