Cynthia Nixon says Donald Trump and the pandemic have exposed ‘retrograde’ white supremacy in the US

Cynthia Nixon

Former Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon has criticised Donald Trump’s “retrograde” approach to handling the rocketing rise of white supremacy in the US.

Actor and activist Nixon opened about her hopes and concerns for the upcoming election in the US.

She said to Grazia: “So much of the election of Donald Trump and the pandemic has exposed not only how deeply conservative a country we are, but how retrograde we are, particularly when it comes to white supremacy.”

The 54-year-old said that she is “worried” that Trump is “deliberately trying to provoke unrest and be seen as the law and order candidate and that will scare people into re-electing him”.

“I am hopeful,” she said. “I cannot imagine we would re-elect him. But I could not imagine we would have elected him in the first place.”

Various activists have questioned Trump’s policies and decisions, especially when it comes to the LGBT+ community.

These policies vary from banning transgender people from enlisting in the army, to him urging the Supreme Court to not protect LGBT+ employees under a longstanding act that prohibits sex discrimination.

After the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg Trump is poised to nominate a new Supreme Court justice, who could tip the balance of the court firmly in favour of conservatives.

Before Ginsburg’s passing Trump released a shortlist of candidates, with many on the shortlist having discussed in one way or another their homophobic and transphobic views.

One of the leading candidates is Allison Jones Rushing, who has worrying links to an anti-LGBT+ hate group.

The Trump administration has also shown discrimination and intolerance toward multiple other minority groups and movements. For instance, his continuous ignorance toward the Black Lives Matter movement (BLM), which he suggested has divided America.

When asked about the BLM movement, Trump said: “The first time I heard it I said, ‘You have to be kidding”.

“I think it’s a very, very, very divisive term. There’s no question about it.”

Nixon ran for governor of New York for the Democratic Party in 2018. Her policies reflected her advocacy of LGBT+ rights and the Black Lives Matter movement. However, Nixon lost to Democratic incumbent Andrew Cuomo.

She is currently starring in Ryan Murphy’s new Netflix series Ratched – playing a queer political firebrand. She recently told PinkNews that “the overlapping biography can’t be a coincidence”.