Actor Kevin Costner, who backed Pete Buttigieg during the 2020 Democrat primary, has thrown his star power behind Rep. Liz Cheney as she faces an increasingly uphill battle in the Republican Wyoming primary.
“Real men put country over party,” Liz Cheney said in a Twitter post on Monday as she shared a photo of Kevin Costner wearing an “I’m for Liz Cheney” T-shirt.
Even with the Yellowstone star’s endorsement, the former vice president’s daughter has a long way to go if she hopes to win the Republican primary against her opponent Harriet Hageman, who holds a commanding lead of 52 percent over Cheney’s embarrassing 30 percent.
Costner’s endorsements have not exactly carried much weight politically in the past, considering he went all in for Mayor Pete Buttigieg during the Democrat primary.
“The strength he describes isn’t the kind that limits compassion in the name of America,” Costner said of Buttigieg in 2019. “It’s a man who not only understands how the world looks at us, but how history will and how we ought to look at ourselves. And maybe most importantly, I see Pete as a man of his moment and maybe of his time.”
Democratic presidential candidate former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg arrives on stage after being introduced by actor Kevin Costner (R) at a Get Out the Vote rally at Exeter High School February 10, 2020 in Exeter, New Hampshire. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Earlier that year, without mentioning President Trump by name, Costner expressed dismay over the state of American politics, arguing that our selfishness has transformed the country away from its former greatness.
“The political landscape is unrecognizable to me, and shame on us for being in that spot,” the actor told Variety. “That could change overnight, not because of a vote, but because people say, ‘I want to try to be more than about myself.’ That’s the definition of public service.”
Costner went on to say that the American experiment will always be great, while conceding that it will wane if politics continue down this path.
“This is the greatest experiment in humankind: America,” he said. “This great idea about America still exists, it’s still here. People still want to come here, but we’re not first in hardly anything that matters and we have an inflated idea about how we are. We exaggerate about what we are. We are everything that’s great and we are everything that’s human. And our humanness and our level of selfishness is overtaking our chance to be great.”