Documentary filmmaker Ken Burns tears into Donald Trump in Stanford Speech
Ken Burns has learned quite a bit about the history of America during his almost four decades creating award-winning documentary films. Since graduating from Hampshire College, the longtime resident of Walpole, New Hampshire has dedicated a substantial portion of his life to offering viewers comprehensive looks at our country’s history, most famously for his Emmy-winning nine-part 1990 documentary, The Civil War.
That could be why Burns felt comfortable leaning heavily on the words of Abraham Lincoln to tell the graduates at Stanford University’s 2016 commencement that the candidacy of Donald Trump represents a low point in the history of American politics.
“For 216 years, our elections, though bitterly contested, have featured the philosophies and character of candidates who were clearly qualified,” Burns said. “That is not the case this year. One is glaringly not qualified.”
Burns never actually said Trump’s name anywhere in his lengthy speech. But specific descriptors of the candidate as one who “insults veterans, threatens a free press, mocks the handicapped, denigrates women, immigrants and all Muslims” and “took more than a day to remember to disavow a supporter who advocates white supremacy and the Ku Klux Klan” made plain who Burns was referring to.
“Do not think that the tragedy in Orlando underscores his points,” Burns said later in the speech. “It does not. We must ‘disenthrall ourselves,’ as Abraham Lincoln said, from the culture of violence and guns. And then, [as Lincoln said,] ‘we shall save our country.’”
https://www.boston.com/culture/education/2016/06/13/ken-burns-tears-donald-trump-stanford-speech
