WASHINGTON — Actress and activist Jane Fonda said during an online event last week that the coronavirus was "God's gift to the left." She made the remark while expressing how the virus has opened people's eyes to what she said was President Donald Trump's true character.
Fonda's remarks came during a conversation she had with Maurice Mitchell, the national director of the Working Families Party, a political party that describes it's as fighting "for workers over bosses and people over the powerful."
During her very last question of the interview, Mitchell asked Fonda for her opinion on the "concept of maybe a political realignment, a social realignment, and the ending dying of this patriarchal system and possibly the beginning of something regenerative."
"I just feel so lucky to be alive right now," Fonda responded. "Aren't we all so lucky to be alive in a moment when the decisions we make can make the difference between hundreds of millions of people living or dying?"
She added that half of a degree change in the weather can kill millions of people. People we can stop that from happening, she said and declared that the world is at an existential crossroads and voting can decide what happens to humanity.
"I just think COVID is God's gift to the left," Fonda remarked with a chuckle. "It's a terrible thing to say, I mean, I think it was a very difficult thing to send down to us, but it has ripped the bandaid off who [Trump] is and what he stands for and what is being done to average working people in this country."
Trump has been scrutinized for his administration's response to the virus that has infected more than 7.6 million people in the U.S., including himself, and killed more than 211,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
"We can see it now. People who couldn't see it before," the Academy Award winning actress said. "You know, they see it now. We have a chance to harness that anger and make a difference. So, I'm just so blessed to be alive right now."
Throughout the hour and a half long conversation, the pair discussed how to encourage everyday people to get out and vote and its importance.
Fonda has been an activist for most of her life. Her most recent feat included standing on the U.S. Capitol steps and getting arrested every Friday in January 2020 to protest climate change.
