Susan Sarandon: Bernie Sanders supporters silent for fear of Hillary backlash

Ah, Hollywood. Is there no end to the treasure trove of stories you generate each and every time the Los Angeles elite dip their toes into the political pool? This weekend we learned something new about the fight currently going on between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton, along with the internecine battles between their more famous supporters. Out in La-La Land, long time liberal activist and celebrity pot stirrer Susan Sarandon has a bone to pick with the establishment. She’s a committed supporter of Bernie Sanders and hopes to see him win the Democratic nomination this summer. According to the movie star, plenty of her fellow rich and famous personalities are Feeling the Bern as well, but you won’t hear about it because they are in hiding, fearing reprisals from the entertainment industry and Team Clinton. (Fox News)

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Susan Sarandon says some famous Bernie Sanders fans are nervous to voice their support for the presidential hopeful because they fear backlash from their Hollywood pals – or from Hillary.

“You know, there’s a lot of people I’ve talked to who are afraid,” she told The Hollywood Reporter. “They say ‘I am definitely supporting him, but I’m afraid to come out’ because either I am woman and I don’t want to get shamed — because that has been a big part of what the response has been — or they say, ‘I am just waiting to see what happens.’

For this article, Fox talked to former G.W. Bush staffer Brad Blakeman and he offered a condensed version of why this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

“Hollywood is a town of hypocrisy and contradiction. They’ll leave their mansions to protest, fight against the second amendment but be surrounded by gun-toting security guards,” Blakeman told FOX411. “They tout the importance of free speech but afraid to do it themselves for fear of political retribution from the Clintons and retribution from their own community.”

Much like minority communities, the Democrats have taken Hollyweird for granted since before many of you were born. It’s just assumed that the glitterati will always fall in line for the Democrats, and for the most part they certainly do. Every film, television series and awards show is riddled with liberal talking points and either oblique or overt slams of conservative values and the GOP in general. You will be endlessly lectured on the dangers of global warming and the need to compost your dinner leftovers by people who fly in private jets and keep fleets of gas guzzling limousines busy around the clock. As Blakeman notes, nearly every one of the Beautiful People who show up on the big screen will support any gun control effort that comes down the line, but don’t try taking the Glocks out of the hands of their security guards. And boy oh boy are they on board with the Black Lives Matter movement. That is, at least until one of those black lives wants a job co-starring with them or working as an executive who greenlights big budget projects in Hollywood.

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And if you want to go against the latest Candidate of Destiny selected by the establishment? Better watch your back, or the Clinton dynasty will be coming for you, at least in the view of Sarandon. The question which comes to my mind, however, is what does anyone in Hollywood have to fear from the Democrats in general or the Clintons in particular? In terms of a balance of power, this is one of the most unequal ones imaginable and none of it is on the side of the politicians. What would they do if a bunch of movie stars all backed Sanders? They rely on the left coast celebrities for massive donations and endorsements which might influence star struck fans. In return, Hollywood gets little if anything of substance. It’s not as if Washington could get away with clamping down on or significantly regulating the television and film industries any more than they do now. There’s no retribution coming if they fail to toe the line.

Perhaps it’s been going on for so long that the stars just do it out of generational habit. But the perception is more powerful than the reality it seems, and most of Hollywood knows to stay out of Hillary’s way. I suppose they deserve each other.

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