Bryan Cranston has shared his views on the slogan “Make America Great Again”.
The four-word phrase was popularised by Donald Trump during his campaign for the 2016 presidency.
Since then, it has been enthusiastically adopted by fans of the businessman who cite a desire a return to a version of society they deem better than current times.
During a televised interview on Sunday (26 February), the Your Honor star gave his thoughts on the phrase and offered an example of why it may be considered offensive.
“When I see the ‘Make America Great Again’ [slogan], my comment is: do you accept that that could possibly be construed as a racist remark?” he began his point to CNN host Chris Wallace.
“Most people, a lot of people, go ‘how could that be racist?’
“From an African American experience, when was it ever great in America for the African American? When was it great? So, if you’re making it great again, it’s not including them.”
Cranston continued: “It’s to teach us, in the ‘woke’ world, to accept the possibilities that our privilege has created blind spots for us. Maybe I haven’t seen what’s really happening yet, in all my years.”
This conversation was sparked by Wallace making reference to another recent conversation Cranston had with political commentator Bill Maher about critical race theory – an exploration of how social interactions, politics and media are affected by conceptions of race and ethnicity.
Cranston said that he believes the US has never fully owned up to its wrongdoings when it comes to slavery and the systemic racism that followed it.
“It’s 400 f***ing years that we’ve dealt with this, and our country still has not taken responsibility or accountability [...] for the history of the systemic racism that’s in this country,” he said in January.
Last year, the six-time Emmy winner spoke out about confronting his white privilege after the killing of George Floyd in 2020, and the resulting protests, telling the Los Angeles Times: “I’m 65 years old and I need to learn. I need to change.”
