Ken Burns suspends “long-standing attempt at neutrality” to completely put Trump under pressure

Filmmaker Ken Burns dropped his trademark political neutrality during his graduation speech at Brandies University in Massachusetts to warn about what would happen to the United States if former President Donald Trump were to recapture the White House.

“For almost 50 years now, I have been conscientiously and consistently practicing maintaining a conscious neutrality in my work. I avoid advocacy whenever possible and try to address all my fellow citizens,” the documentary filmmaker explained to the audience at the May 19 ceremony, the footage of which has attracted a great deal of attention on the Internet.

Burns later admitted that he had been forced to “abandon my long-standing attempt at neutrality” because there was “no real choice this November.”

Watch Burns’ full speech here:

“The only options left are to continue our fragile 249-year-old experiment, however flawed and weak it may seem, or face the entropy that will engulf and destroy us if we go the other way,” the historian warned.

Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate who has been impeached four times, is “the opioid of all opioids, a simple cure for what some believe is the solution to our myriad pains and problems,” Burns said.

But with Trump in office, “we will face an even bigger problem, a worse disease and addiction,” he predicted.

“Don’t be seduced by a simple equation. Nothing in this equation is equal,” Burns said. “We are at an existential crossroads in our political and civic lives. This choice couldn’t be clearer.”

On Tuesday, Burns told MNSBC’s Nicolle Wallace that he felt compelled to use the address to speak out about this “existential” moment in U.S. history because the stakes have never been higher.

Watch the interview here:

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