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Is parting such a sweet sorrow?

By Russell Grenning - posted Tuesday, 15 May 2018


Well Shakespeare's Juliet certainly thought it was and she told Romeo that while bidding him a good night.

For one brief shining moment we believed that Hollywood A-lister Matt Damon was shifting with his family to Australia and that he had accepted that leaving the USA was a sweet sorrow but a sad necessity. That distinguished journal of history "The Daily Telegraph" (Sydney) – quoting a story in the equally authoritative "New York Post" – said that "a top Hollywood source" claimed, "Matt's telling his friends and colleagues in Hollywood that he's moving his family to Australia for a year" and this was because he simply loathes President Trump.

Sadly for his Australian fans this yarn was a furphy. Damon's publicist very quickly dismissed it adding that he had not purchased a home here in the Byron Bay area – another claim in the he-is-shifting-to-Australia yarn.

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Before the last US Presidential election, Damon campaigned for the Democrat candidate and loser Hilary Clinton. He never lost an opportunity to bag Trump including an interview on the Channel Seven program, "Sunrise" when he was on a publicity tour to plug his most recent movie.

He described Trump as "too petty and thin-skinned" and that it would be a "disaster" if Trump won. In fact, Damon wondered out loud where Trump would get the necessary votes saying that Trump had only won "about 13 million" (Trump won more than 14 million) votes in the Republican Party primaries. He said that the losing Republican candidate in 2012 Mitt Romney "had about 62 million votes" and Damon concluded, "I don't know where the other 50 million votes are going to come from." It seems that Damon doesn't know the difference between political party primaries and an actual real election.

Well, the votes did come and Trump won just under 63 million votes, the biggest Republican vote ever beating George W Bush's record of just over 62 million votes in 2004.

Damon has always been a Democrat Party loyalist but his grasp of politics has always been somewhat shaky. Prior to the 2008 President election which he thought the Republican candidate Senator John McCain might win (he didn't, Obama won easily) and that there was "a really good chance that Sarah Palin (then Governor of Alaska) could be president and that is a scary thing" Damon predicted that McCain had only a one in three chances of not surviving his first term which would mean Vice President Palin would get the top job.

Just as well you don't have to be a political scientist to make action movies.

A very long list of so-called celebrities announced prior to the presidential election in 2016 that they would leave the USA if Trump won. Presumably they thought that these dire threats would drive voters away from Trump but demonstrably the result showed that millions of people didn't mind one little bit if these self-important "stars" quit the country. It was one way of say "good riddance".

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Most of these threats came from people who are little-known in the USA and unknown everywhere else but it was a cheap and effective way to get their names up in lights because they were given extensive coverage in the pro-Hillary Clinton mainstream media. If all of them had made good on their "promises" then Hollywood would have been a virtual ghost town.

Quite a few nominated Canada as their preferred bolt hole in the event of a catastrophe. If the exodus had happened Vancouver, Montreal and other Canadian cities would be full to bursting.

Hardly surprising is the fact that all were prominent supporters of failed Democrat candidate Hilary Clinton.

High on the list is Whoopi Goldberg who, prior to the election of President Trump, said she simply could not believe that he would win and, if he did, "Maybe it is time for me to move, you know" adding, "I can afford to go."

She didn't and still lives and works in the USA and never loses an opportunity to attack Trump and even refuses to say his name because she thinks the name "Trump" shames the word "President".

Barbra Streisand describes Trump as a "Fake President", a "narcissistic fraud" and much worse. In fact, one of Trump's lesser known alleged sins is that he is making Streisand gain weight – we know this because she said so in March.

Streisand has not made even the slightest move to leave the USA despite saying that she would if Trump was elected. What I couldn't discover is whether or not she was seeking some weight-reduction therapy or is still getting fatter and fatter. Shame Trump, shame.

At least actress Amy Schumer had the good grace to admit that her pre-election threat to leave the USA in the event of a Trump Presidency was "a joke" although nobody – including herself – considered it hilarious prior to the election. In a pre-election interview with the BBC, Schumer said she would need to learn Spanish because she would "move to Spain or somewhere" if Trump became President.

Miley Cyrus said she would "move out da country" if Trump, who she called a "f**king nightmare" won but she has also stayed put. Recently the "Daily Mail" (Australia) reported that Luke Hemsworth, brother of actor Chris Hemsworth who lives with his family in Byron Bay said it was unlikely that his other brother Liam who is now Cyrus' fiancée would move to Australia. Incidentally, Chris Hemsworth came here before Trump was even considered let alone elected.

Cher's planned move if Trump won was even more dramatic – her proposed new home was the planet Jupiter. As far as can be ascertained, she hasn't been investigating how to get there.

Black actor Samuel Jackson said before the election "If that motherf**ker becomes President, I'm moving my black ass to South Africa". He hasn't.

Former Barak Obama adviser and serial failed political candidate Reverend Al Sharpton told an audience again prior to the election, "I'm also reserving my ticket to get out of here if he wins. Only because he'd probably have me deported anyhow." He hasn't been deported and he hasn't left either.

There is a very long list of "celebrities" who said that there would leave if Trump won and as far as anybody can discover not one has.

And every one who said they would leave now studiously avoids answering the question: why haven't you left?

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About the Author

Russell Grenning is a retired political adviser and journalist who began his career at the ABC in 1968 and subsequently worked for the then Brisbane afternoon daily, The Telegraph and later as a columnist for The Courier Mail and The Australian.

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