“Those Were the Days”: Celebrating 50 Years of Norman Lear’s Timeless TV Classic ‘All in the Family’
‘Those were the days’: Celebrating Norman Lear’s TV classic ‘All in the Family’ at 50
“All in the Family” brought Archie Bunker to life as one of television’s most memorable right-wing characters, but Rob Reiner believes the January 6 attacks would have been a breaking point for the patriotic patriarch, leading him to reject Donald Trump.
In a CNN interview with Jim Acosta on Saturday, commemorating “All in the Family” creator Norman Lear’s 100th birthday, Reiner reflected on Lear’s New York Times op-ed. Lear argued that while Bunker might have initially supported Trump, he would have been horrified by the attack on Capitol Police during the Washington D.C. insurrection. Reiner agreed completely, noting that Lear “expressed it perfectly.”
Reiner elaborated, “I think Archie would have been very upset seeing insurgents beating police officers. Discovering Trump’s central role in the event would have driven him to abandon Trump, much like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger,” referring to the two Republicans on the Congressional committee investigating Trump’s involvement in the attacks.
On “All in the Family,” Reiner portrayed Michael Stivic, Archie Bunker’s liberal son-in-law. Their frequent political and generational clashes mirrored the societal tensions of the 1960s and ’70s. Archie’s derisive nickname for Michael, “meathead,” has even been used by Trump supporters against Reiner, who has become one of Hollywood’s most vocal critics of the former president on Twitter.
