If you didn’t know where Ricky Schroder stood on the political spectrum before last year, don’t be ashamed. It’s been ages since Silver Spoons, the sitcom that made his name. That all changed in November, when it was revealed the former child actor had joined the likes of Scott Baio as ‘80s stars who had gone full-rightwing. First he helped bail out Kyle Rittenhouse, the teen who shot two protesters to death late last summer. And this weekend he posted a video of him harassing a Costco employee who was simply asking him to wear a mask when entering their premises.
Schroder got hell for the video, with a lot of the blowback involving a Hollywood player, even a fallen one, pestering someone just doing their job. After his name went viral, and not in a good way, he tried to douse the flames, offering an apology that amounted to “sorry, not sorry.”
The not-quite-mea culpa came towards the start of what a 7 ½-minute video that finds him sitting at an outdoor table, offering a meandering précis on thoughts that appear to be largely shaped by rightwing media sites. He addressed the video, which finds him pressing his smartphone camera close to the Costco employee, who patiently explains that the company still requires customers to put a simple piece of cloth over the face due to a still-going once-in-a-century pandemic.
“I was trying to make a point to the corporate overlords and I’m sorry that I had to use you to do it,” Schroder told the employee, who he turned into an unwitting social media hero for putting up with a belligerent former celebrity. “I’m not upset with you or anybody in the position like you have, who works for a living. I understand you were following your laws and rules. I was trying to make a point to the corporate overlords and I’m sorry that I had to use you to do it. And if I hurt your feelings, I apologize.”
But he wasn’t that sorry. “I do think that independence for medical tyranny is more important than hurting people’s feelings,” he said. “I want us all to go back to the way it was. I don’t want this COVID reality they want, these COVID passports. I just don’t want it. And neither should you.”
There was more — a lot more. Schroder, who seems to regularly record similar videos on his Instagram page, had some thoughts. They ranged from single mothers (which he blamed on “feminist-liberal-socialist policies”) to police (“back the Blue!”) to a, um, long dissertation on Rhodesia, which he described as a “place where whites live in fear.” He told “the black community” that they should listen to Candace Owens.
Schroder also repeatedly gushed about the ‘80s, when things were better, he claimed — or at least when he was famous and made lots of money. He painted it with the same nostalgic brush Donald Trump uses to whitewash the ’50s, with the exception of the “crack-filled streets in the inner cities.” He then said, “We’ve gotta kill all the drug dealers,” albeit just “the big drug dealers.”
But most people, including the Costco employee he accosted, probably didn’t make it that far. Still, if you ever wondered what the guy whose breakthrough was a movie where no less than Jon Voight played his dad thinks about Marxism, well, now’s your chance.
(Via The Wrap)