By Gabriella CiuffetelliColumnist

The last week has been a whirlwind of news. Between hurricane devastation, health care reform and escalating tensions between North Korea and the international community – it’s easy for the average American to feel as though they’re getting hit with sensory overload. But what is also apparent is that the not-so-average Americans, namely celebrities, still just don’t get it – and they’ve used each of the aforementioned topics to prove that point quite squarely.

Jimmy Kimmel’s recent health care crusade provides perhaps the most striking example of Hollywood’s disconnect from the public. In his fight against the GOP’s efforts to repeal Obamacare, he has delivered passionate monologues against the Graham-Cassidy bill; he even tweeted Cassidy’s contact information, urging people to speak up.

Jimmy Kimmel is neither a politician nor a physician like Sen. Bill Cassidy, who, ironically enough, said any repeal bill must pass the “Jimmy Kimmel test.” In fact, it has been revealed that Kimmel got his talking points from Democratic leadership, launching his tirade without actually consulting a single Republican.

Similarly, Kimmel is certainly not the only person to have a child with health problems. It is absurd for him to act as though there aren’t many people whose struggle to provide care for their children has only been exacerbated because of Obamacare. A simple Google search can reveal that these people exist and for him to simply sweep them under the rug is incredibly condescending.

Similarly, comedians Michael Ian Black and Sarah Silverman politicized Hurricane Irma. Silverman tweeted a graphic with the caption “Don’t pray – vote for a gov’t [sic] that believes in science,” while Black took the time to go on a massive rant in which he called all Republicans “royalist[s]” who use their faith as an excuse to “disregard the … scientific method.”

While Black’s idea that people can’t be at once faithful and believe in science is misguided (as if there are no secular Republicans or religious Democrats), these two stories once again show celebrities refusing to present the whole picture.

The simple, scientific fact of the matter is that global warming does not cause hurricanes. There may be a case to be made that rising temperatures and sea levels have exacerbated the effects of extreme weather, but celebrities (aka non-scientists) are either missing or refusing to make that important distinction.

At the heart of these examples is the fact that celebrities are getting a free pass to engage in “truthiness” so long as they’re critical of President Trump and/or the Republican Party while doing so.

For example, look at celebrities like John Cusack, Rosie O’Donnell and Cher, just to name a few, who condemned the president for calling North Korean leader Kim Jung-un “rocket man” (and rightfully so). But all of a sudden, Kim fires back, calling Trump a “dotard” and Hollywood has found a way to make light of an impending security threat that they were gravely worried about just 24 hours earlier.

And perhaps the worst part of it all is that they know they’re being unfair, but just don’t care. Entertainer Chrissy Teigen summed up Hollywood’s smugness problem when she tweeted, “Uhhhhhh. Yeah. We know.” In response to a tweet (which wasn’t addressed to her) that read, “I don’t think liberals understand that when they trash talk Trump, they’re also trash talking the millions of people who voted for him.”

Clearly celebrities haven’t gotten the memo that this type of blatant disdain for those on the other side of the political aisle is what got Trump elected in the first place. And now it is fueling even more anger and determination in the alt-right … but I guess those retweet counts make it all worth it.

Now, that is not to say that celebrities shouldn’t be vocal about topics they care about. The First Amendment is a beautiful thing. But what they keep missing is that it becomes increasingly dangerous to spread misinformation when you have a larger, more impressionable audience listening to you.

These problems are only exacerbated now by the fact that the Trump presidency has made it fashionable for Hollywood to be both liberal and condescending – and frankly, it’s just as tiring to watch celebrities engaging in such petty, party politics on Twitter as it is to see elected officials do it on C-SPAN.

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