Updated Dec. 15, 2025, 5:15 p.m. ET
- Filmmaker and actor Rob Reiner and his wife Michele were murdered in their home.
- Following their deaths, President Donald Trump posted on social media blaming Reiner’s death on “TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.”
This is no secret: hate isn’t learned overnight. Our president reminds us daily that it isn’t unlearned that way either.
The late Rob Reiner gave America Michael “Meathead” Stivic on “All in the Family,” one of our most important TV shows, long before he directed the iconic movies “When Harry Met Sally,” “This is Spinal Tap,” “Stand by Me,” “Misery” and “A Few Good Men.”
Clearly, the lessons Reiner, Carroll O’Connor, Jean Stapleton, Sally Struthers and a list of supporting stars (that included Sherman Hemsley and Isabel Sanford) taught on Norman Lear’s hit show have not been completely absorbed.
At the heart of them is that, despite our sometimes considerable differences, we are all in this thing together. Hate holds the innocent down and the haters in bondage.
That’s the opposite of the revenge, indecency and self-destructiveness preached by President Donald Trump, who, on learning about the chilling Sunday murders of Rob and Michele Reiner, posted the following on Truth Social:
“A very sad thing happened last night in Hollywood. Rob Reiner, a tortured and struggling, but once very talented movie director and comedy star, has passed away, together with his wife, Michele, reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME, sometimes referred to as TDS.”
An undiagnosed syndrome
Dissenting, as Reiner did when he called Trump “mentally unfit” for the presidency in 2017 isn’t a sign of a “mind crippling disease.”
Americans have a right and a responsibility to voice their opinions and challenge the powerful — politicians in particular.
But there is a life-poisoning disease at play.
I can only guess hate is the syndrome that made Trump (or someone working for him) type such demonic, jaw-dropping words after learning two other human beings were stabbed to death in their homes.
It should not matter that their son, a person who has struggled with drug addiction and homelessness, is now being held on $4 million bail in connection with their deaths.
It should not matter that Reiner was no fan of Donald J. Trump.
The syndrome that afflicts Trump is wholly inexcusable.
It may at times seem like it, but this isn’t The Upside Down and our president isn’t Bizarro from the DC Universe.
That so many inexcusable things have happened since Trump was re-elected does not somehow make his heartlessness toward the Reiners any less vomitous.
Dancing on someone’s grave isn’t cute, no matter who is wearing the tap shoes.
Errors that made Archie roll his eyes
As when All in the Family came out, some people today see Archie Bunker as a “lovable bigot.”
Some supporters describe Trump in similar terms or dismiss his actions as him just being scampish him.
In a famous interview with Dick Cavett, Carroll O’Connor said he saw Archie as an “unhappy guy” with “a poisoned” unfulfilled life. He was discussing the Sept. 12, 1971 New York Times article “As I Listened to Archie Say ‘Hebe’…” by Laura Z. Hobson.
“People may laugh at him and enjoy him, but he’s not really making it in the modern world at all, and you rarely see him happy about anything,” O’Connor told Cavett, the legendary TV host. “The main thing that makes him happy, of course, is this volume of errors. Errors that he’s grown up with. His racism and his bigotry. Those are errors that were put upon him, and he was learning things at his mother’s knee. He’s grown up with these beliefs and these misconceptions, and they really are now poisoning his life.”
Bigots and sexists are still bigots and sexists, but thanks partly to Donald Trump, they are emboldened and not nearly as harmless as O’Connor’s Archie Bunker, a thorn in the side of his liberal son-in-law, played expertly by Reiner.
What they are is, sadly, more unhappy and poisoned than ever. They are crippled.
“You must look at Archie as a man who could be getting a lot more out of his life if he didn’t have these burdens on him and these things that have poisoned his life,” O’Connor said in that interview.
The bigots, sexists and homophobes are tragically being spoon-fed rat bait. This shouldn’t be.
If All in the Family taught us anything, it should have been that liberals and conservatives are not mortal enemies.
They, and everyone sitting around them, deserve a seat, even when that seat is being denied.
The fact is that America’s past was not as great for everyone as the reruns would lead you to believe.
Rerunning America
I wasn’t born when All in the Family premiered, and little more than a toddler by the time it went off the air in 1979. I caught the show in reruns like many in my generation, absorbing the groundbreaking storylines about racism, abortion, rape, religious bias, women’s rights, divorce, and yes, homosexuality.
Remember the surprise and ultimate denial, on Archie’s face when he realized that it was his good friend, not Meathead’s, who was gay in the Feb. 9, 1971 episode “Judging Books by Covers?“
We could all laugh about it because it was all in the American family. Our family is growing more distant due to the destruction of the principle that, despite the pain, held us together.
Despite their considerable differences and occasional contempt, Archie and Meathead loved each other.
Meathead wasn’t Archie’s enemy any more than upwardly mobile George and Louise Jefferson, played by Sherman Hemsley and Isabel Sanford, were.
It was all in the family and still is, despite the often ‘us-against-them’ narrative being pushed by those wielding power.
Hate is still hate because mortality still exists. We know right from wrong even when there is so much wrong.
It is still wrong to hate or oppress someone based on race, gender, political affiliation, sexuality, or religion.
We are all worthy parts of the family.
I am still convinced we will eventually get that.
Amelia Robinson is the Columbus Dispatch’s opinion and community engagement editor.
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