‘The Clintons Are Like Herpes’ And Other Political Pearls Of Wisdom From Tim Allen

I don’t know why I never thought of Tim Allen as a conservative-Republican-type of guy. It’s just never been on my radar. Though now that I think about it, it should make total sense to me. His career in comedy has been based on the inherent differences between men and women – but never pitting us against each other, like we’re natural enemies or whatever. I guess that shouldn’t be a solely conservative idea, but liberals and social justice idiots have made it into one. So I guess conservatism it is!

His newest show, Last Man Standing, is about to air its 100th episode, which is a huge feat in television. And it’s not one I’ve actually watched, though it sounds like something I might enjoy. The premise is that Allen’s character is a super-manly dad in a family of all girls (which, my dad has four daughters and one son, so I can certainly understand that family dynamic). His character, Mike Baxter, espouses conservative political views which sometimes clash with at least one of his daughters’s. But it doesn’t sound like they’re constantly at logger-heads with each other. It’s typical family life – meeting challenges together with heart and humor. Again, something I’m going to have to check out when I get a minute (in, like, ten years).

Tim Allen was interviewed by The Hollywood Reporter about the show’s upcoming milestone and he had a lot of interesting things to say about the show. But given that politics play a role in the show, of course they asked Allen about his own views. Some of his opinions match mine – such as wanting a party to actually do something about higher taxes instead of just complaining about it. And he is certainly no fan of the Clintons. Though some of his opinions differ from mine – he’s a little more accepting of Trump, though he’s not completely on the Trump bandwagon. Regardless, this was a fun read. Some excerpts (and a little bit of language, but nothing too awful) –

How much is playing this right-leaning character an outlet for you to express your own political views?

It’s getting more and more comfortable. These guys know me so well that they’re writing stuff that is exactly what I would’ve said. It’s a marvelous thing when you have lib­eral people writing for [a show like this]. I believe Stephen Colbert was like that. He was pretending to be a conservative, I think. Someone said that. I never got that, but maybe I didn’t watch it enough.

 

Has the line between you and your character blurred over the years?

It definitely has. If you go see my stand-up at the Mirage in Vegas — I’m on a concert tour this year, as I have been for 30 years — it tends to be very angry about self-reliance. I’m not going to say it’s conservative, but it certainly is not left. For most of my life, I’ve been taxed above 38 percent. When you’re a young guy working the road and literally close to half of what you make goes to people who don’t help you at all but just bitch about it the whole time, that’s where I come from. I come from “no taxation without representation,” and it manifests itself in very peculiar points of view.

 

[…]

 

What riles you up the most?

Unearned responses, unearned praise, unearned income: I have opinions about it. When you watch the debates, on both sides you see clowns who say shit that ain’t ever going to happen, but lately one party is the free shit party. They are just telling people they’re going to get all sorts of free shit. When you say you’re going to get free education, free health care — f—, free brown loafers — of course everybody’s going to say yes to that. But you don’t mean it. That’s how you rack up debt, and debt is killing us. Whatever party is going to get us out of debt is my party.

 

[…]

 

Who scares you?

Well, we asked the female writing staff if they’d vote for Hillary just because she’s a woman, and they all said yes. So then the question was, “So if Sarah Palin was the female?” They all choked and they had to say, “Oh God, yes, we’d vote for her.” I didn’t quite buy it. I don’t think you should vote for somebody just because they’re tall, thin, yellow, green, whatever. Bernie Sanders, as nice a guy as he is, none of that shit’s going to happen. And Trump can’t send everybody to Mexico or whatever the f— he said. But give that guy the roads, bridges, infrastructure, power grid — just have him fix that shit for four years. He’s good at that. And he’s a businessman so he understands how debt load works. Forget the stupid shit he says about immigrants. That’s just ignorant. But he might be able to do the stuff that really needs fixing.

 

So you’re not opposed to Trump?

I’m not opposed to anybody if their workload matches their bullshit load.

 

Why has the show gone after Hillary but not Trump?

It’s a little surprising to me. We have a very liberal writing staff, so I’m surprised they haven’t taken a shot at him. But we’re not sure he’s going to last, whereas the Clintons are like herpes: Just when you think they’re gone, they show up again.

As far as unexpected conservative celebrities go, we could do a heck of a lot worse than Tim Allen (he’s freaking Buzz Lightyear, for crying out loud! And Commander Taggart!)