Rob Reiner was the first person I ever saw on television stand up to a bigot.

And fifty years later, he still was. Though now the bigot from Queens was no longer his father-in-law, a foreman on a loading dock, but Donald Trump, the President of the United States.

Reiner had cut his teeth on battling with a white supremacist while playing the loveable liberal Mike “Meathead” Stivik, making him perfectly poised to do battle with Trump.

There is one big difference between the two men from Queens.

Deep down, Archie Bunker had a heart.

He was capable of humanity. He would never have written as deranged and grotesque a comment about the unspeakable tragedy of a violent death of a beloved actor/director as Donald Trump did on Truth Social about Rob Reiner.

If Archie ever penned such a sick missive, his wife Edith would have told him to stifle himself.

All In Our Families

Baby Boomers first met Rob Reiner in our living rooms during the 1970s. All in the Family was not just another show. It was arguably the most important show of that decade.

Where were you on the night of January 12, 1971? Specifically at 9:30 pm EST.

You may be scratching your head at what seems like an obscure date, but if you are a certain age, that chilly Tuesday night changed TV forever.

Groundbreaking

That was the night  All in the Family premiered, and the American TV landscape was forever altered. For the first time, Americans heard the words “hebe, coon, and spic” said on national TV, by a red, white, and blue bigoted man from Queens.

And were introduced to a 24-year-old, mustached Rob Reiner with a full head of hair playing Mike Stivic, the epitome of 70’s liberal counterculture.

As a 15-year-old, this groundbreaking show would be all anyone ever talked about the following day at High School. Accustomed to bland TV fare like My Three Sons, Green Acres, and Petticoat Junction, this show had teeth.

There had been so much anticipation for this controversial program that no one knew what to expect. The switchboard operators for CBS were on high alert, waiting for the switchboard to light up like panic time at Mission Control.

All in a Tuesday Night

That Tuesday night, my parents, older brother, and I settled in the living room to watch the new show on our recently purchased RCA color TV. At last, we had broken the black-and-white barrier and could watch the world in living color.

We rarely watched television shows together as a family. Normally, after dinner, we each spun off in our own orbit to watch our program of choice, each in their own room with their own portable TV set, gratis of my grandfather and Edelstein Pawnbrokers. But like watching the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, this was a TV event.

At 9:30 we turned the dial to CBS just as the end of Hee Haw. This cornball show from fictional Kornfield Kounty never got any airtime in our Jewish Long Island house. After the fadeout to the show, the station identified itself with its trademark eye and went to commercial.

Then a disembodied voice launched into an unexpected kind of pitch as a disclaimer:

“The program you are about to see is All in the Family. It seeks to throw a humorous spotlight on our frailties, prejudices and concerns. By making them a source of laughter, we hope to show – in a mature fashion- just how absurd they are.”

The warning had the feel of the recent surgeon general warning that appeared on the side of cigarette packs – the following show could be hazardous to the emotional health of the sensitive viewer.

The look on my parents’ faces said it all. What in the world were we getting into?

Those Were the Days

The cast of All in the Family: Rob Reiner as son-in-law Mike, Gloria’s Sally Struthers, Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker, and Edith played by Jean Stapleton

What came on next was the pilot of All in the Family.

Things were said for laughs that had never been heard before on an American television comedy. Said mostly by Archie Bunker, a flag-waving, John Wayne-loving, lovable, blue-collar bigot, bemoaning  a fading America

Long before Donald Trump, no one represented the silent majority of fading white male patriarchy than Archie Bunker, that other sexist, racist, xenophobic from Queens, N.Y.

Bellowing, snorting, and mocking, Archie tilted nonstop at his own self-proclaimed enemies – anybody who wasn’t a white Anglo-Saxon and Protestant.

“Feinberg, Feinstein- it all comes to the same thing, and I know that tribe.”

Or “Let the spades and spics go out and hustle, just like I done.”

The verbal gunplay didn’t end there.

His liberal son-in-law  Mike, with whom he feuded in endless culture clashes, was called a “dumb polack,” and like her “meathead husband,”  he referred to his daughter Gloria as a “weepin’ Nellie pinko.”

As Michael Stivik, Reiner was the pivotal foil to Carroll O’Connor’s bigoted conservative character Archie Bunker.

His somewhat daffy wife Edith, wasn’t considered worthy of serious discussions and was consistently  told to “Stifel yourself.”

Her remarks were innocent but no less shocking in their innocence. When Archie made reference to “black beauties,” Edith reflected and, with a bit of pride, said, “Well, it’s nicer than when he called them coons.”

And this was all in the very first 30 minutes.

When the show was over, there were no tidal waves of righteous indignation as expected, and it didn’t score well on the Neilson scale at the initial airing. But it gathered steam and ratings went up. The show moved to a permanent Saturday night time slot where it led an unstoppable lineup including MASH, Mary Tyler Moore Show, Bob Newhart, and Carol Burnett.

Silent Majority

Archie Bunker became a powerful spokesman for those whom President Richard Nixon had termed the “Silent Majority.”

The precursor to today’s MAGA.

Resentful, Archie was fed up with intellectuals, women’s libbers, bleeding heart liberals, outsourced jobs, and other elites intent on messing up a way of life that was working pretty well. White male entitlement was being challenged, beginning its slow decline.

This blue-collar worker from Queens grappled with the big issues of the day- affirmative action, gay pride, women’s rights, the sexual revolution, and his railing at elites has become the leitmotif of American politics ever since. Mike clashed with him over every issue.

“I’d explain it to you, Arch, but first you’d have to move our brain ahead two centuries.”

“I’m being very irrational. That is the way I get when I’m not being told the truth! My eyes bug out! My fists start to clench and I just feel like hitting something

Just as Archie Bunker pined for the good ol’ days, Trump has fetishized the Good Old Days not just in rhetoric or sentiment but in policy that aims to take us back to them.

All in the Family was a satire.

Donald Trump is no joke.

Character

That progressive political sensibility followed Rob Reiner into his personal life. The acclaimed filmmaker was a political activist who used his fame to advocate for progressive causes, becoming an outspoken critic of Trump on issues from free speech to immigration.

Reiner’s character was the moral conscience of All in the Family.

In his own life, Rob Reiner exemplified character.

He wanted us to stand up to hate, to be kinder. He stood up for equality for all communities. And decency. He wanted us to be our better angels.

He made us think, made us laugh, and made us better.

None of which can be said of the man who occupies the Oval Office.

Donald Trump is the real meathead.

RIP Rob and Michelle Reiner

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