Liberals in Hollywood just got some pretty bad news about the most recent televised Academy Awards ceremony (3 hours of televised Trump bashing by celebrities in borrowed jewels). The numbers are in, and it appears America isn’t interested in Hollywood’s vile anti-Trump remarks or their embarrassing, hypocritical social commentary. The 2017 Academy Awards viewership numbers were the worst they’ve seen since 2009.
So is liberal Hollywood actress Jennifer Garner taking a big risk with her career when she publicly announces her desire to work with President Trump on issues of child poverty? Or, is Garner’s willingness to put the children she’s so passionate about helping before her own career just an exception to the typical, narcissistic liberals in Hollywood?
Jennifer Garner has not given up on Donald Trump’s Washington.
The 44-year-old actress spent the weekend lobbying the town’s pillars of power to support early education for poor rural children. She spent Friday on Capitol Hill meeting dozens of top staff members. On Saturday, she delivered the keynote address before the annual National Governors Association winter meeting here. A potential sit-down with Ivanka Trump, who is advocating for more funding for child care, fell apart because of scheduling conflicts, but Garner remained optimistic about a face-to-face discussion soon.
Other Hollywood liberals have shunned the new commander in chief — notably during Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony, when many jokes were told at President Trump’s expense. But Garner, a true-blue Democrat who campaigned for Hillary Clinton last year and held a fundraiser for Barack Obama in 2008, is taking a unique approach: pushing a cause that would benefit the new administration’s political base.
The West Virginia native has long worked to bring assistance to poor, rural communities in desperate need of it. She has no plans to change that just because most of those communities went big for Trump in last year’s election. In fact, she sees an opportunity to hold the president accountable for the pledges he made to the country’s rural working class.
While other celebrities merely attach their names to charities to promote themselves, actress Jennifer Garner is actually very involved in helping poor children in her home state of West Virginia.
According to a study by British academics, when celebrities lend their names to a good cause, they are usually the main beneficiaries
“I’m looking forward to helping him make good on what they saw as promises, a mandate from him, that he was going to make their lives better,” Garner said in a 45-minute interview with The Washington Post.
That makes Trump’s presidency a psychological test of sorts for some members of the Hollywood elite, who can either demonstrate their true commitment to the causes they push — or expose their charity work here as more about bolstering themselves.
Very much in the former camp, Garner acknowledged that some of her friends “want to turn their back to this administration . . . [and] just wouldn’t even want to engage.”
Not her. “If he’s willing to help the poor kids who got him elected, then let’s do it. They certainly think he’s going to,” she said.
She grew up solidly middle class, but she knew plenty of poor children who started elementary school behind and never caught up. They lived in the same sort of communities that Robert F. Kennedy, Shriver’s uncle, visited in the mid-1960s along the Mississippi Delta, shaping the ideas of his 1968 presidential campaign.
Garner returned home to West Virginia last year to help raise money after devastating flooding in the state. Reliably Democratic during her childhood, West Virginia ended up giving Trump his largest margin of victory — something she could see coming by talking to people in economically depressed areas.
“People felt like Trump really understood them, that he was going to come in and create jobs for them,” she said. “They felt like they needed something to just turn everything upside down.”
It’s that level of despair that leaves Garner willing to deal with Trump when some of her friends want to offer nothing but resistance. She may even be willing to meet the president.
“Send me a ticket to Mar-a-Lago. I’m ready to go down and have a steak and a good chat,” she said, only half joking about the prospect. “I really think it’s great, if he’s willing to help the poor kids who got him elected.” – Washington Post
We applaud Garner for her courage and her true commitment to poor children in her home state of West Virginia.
Watch this short clip explaining why Garner’s so passionate about helping these kids in West Virginia:
