Yes, Roseanne Barr’s Character on the Upcoming Reboot Is Indeed a Trump Supporter

Though we were initially really excited about the brand new Roseanne reboot, everything we hear about it makes us less and less optimistic. Roseanne Barr herself has gone off the deep end in her conspiracy-laden support for Trump, but actors and characters have different beliefs all the time. (After all, pretty sure James Earl Jones isn’t an evil, planet-destroying dictator.) However, it looks like Roseanne Conner will share her actress’ love of the current President.

At a Television Critics Association (TCA) panel on Monday, Barr revealed her character voted for Trump. She said:

In [Roseanne], I’ve always tried to have it be a true reflection of the society we live in. I feel like half the people voted for Trump and half didn’t, so it’s just realistic. And, in fact, it was working-class people who elected Trump, so I felt like that was very real and something that needed to be discussed and especially about polarization in the family and people actually hating other people for the way they voted, which I feel is not American.

While some working class people did indeed vote for Trump, the truth is that Trump’s support could be much better drawn along racial lines rather than class lines.

Her statement at the TCA panel was the main focus of questions from the assembled critics. When she was asked about reconciling previous storylines where Roseanne Conner was an outspoken anti-racist with Trump’s xenophobia, she said:

Well, that’s your opinion … he says a lot of crazy shit … I’m not a Trump apologist. There are a lot of things he’s said and done that I don’t agree with, just like there are a lot of things Hillary Clinton has said and done that you don’t agree with. Nobody is brainwashed into agreeing with 100 percent of what anybody says.

Barr clarified that she voted against Clinton over the debunked claims that the Clintons solicited funds for a Haitian hospital that was never built. In her recent Twitter rant, she referenced the mess the (thoroughly debunked) Pizzagate conspiracy theory devolved into. Barr said that by voting for Trump, she was voting against the (imaginary) child sex trafficking ring Hillary Clinton was involved in.

We’re wondering what Sara Gilbert and Sandra Bernhard think of this, considering they’re returning to the show. Especially as it sounds like the much-lauded gender-fluid child being added has been criticized — and not just by One Million Moms.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Sara Gilbert said the character, Mark, was “too young to be gay” and that he is not transgender. (Gilbert is an out lesbian herself, which makes her comment about “being too young” particularly baffling.)

The idea that children are too young to know their gender identity or whether or not they’re gay is a myth perpetrated by Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminists, or TERFs. Roseanne has been open about her transphobic beliefs.

The more we hear about the Roseanne reboot, the more it sounds like perhaps it should have stayed back in the ’90s. But, hey, as this week’s Entertainment Weekly cover points out, at least the chicken shirt is back! That’s something, right?

 

Featured image courtesy ABC