Out promoting his new film “The Hateful Eight,” longtime libertarian Kurt Russell opened up again about his politics, this time to the Daily Beast, where he pointed out an obvious fact: that Bill Maher is nothing close to a libertarian. “I’m not a Bill Maher libertarian,” Russell said. “That’s faux-libertarianism. He doesn’t know what it is. I like him, and he’s a nice guy, but seriously, that’s not libertarianism.”
He continued:
The other thing I’ve found is that a lot of liberals in Hollywood are faux-liberals, and a lot of Republicans in Hollywood are faux-conservatives. When I was a young guy, I was finding myself not quite being able to see the things that were going on and buy into a political culture. I didn’t know what to do, so I finally said, “Why don’t I go back and see what the Founding Fathers were all about, and see how that stacked up.” Well, I found them and I found libertarianism. They were pretty radical guys, and damn smart, and I just believe in that old-time stuff and think they had great ideas.
Years later, I had the wonderful opportunity to go to the Cato Institute’s 20th anniversary and spend some real time with some amazing people. I met some great people there, and that cemented it for me. I felt, guess what, there is a place where I can have a conversation and not be laughed at or smirked at.
Ever since Hollywood Elsewhere’s Jeff Wells pressed Russell to talk about gun control, now that he’s out of the closet, the longtime star sounds like he’s enjoying his political liberation.
During a 2010 appearance on Bill Maher’s HBO show, Andrew Breitbart used Maher’s vigorous campaigning for ObamaCare to expose this same truth. “You’re officially not a Libertarian anymore, right,” Andrew said to a stunned Maher. “I mean this [ObamaCare] position runs so far from the libertarian position — so you admit that you have more of a European Socialist-leaning perspective on this issue.”
The look on Maher’s face is priceless.
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