In a charitable attempt to put Piers Morgan’s commentary in perspective, today’s Good Morning Britain welcomed straight-to-DVD human Steven Seagal, looking to get some expert thoughts on the controversy surrounding the ongoing protests in the NFL from a man shaped like a football. The goatee-smudged Seagal—who these days actually looks more like Jim Belushi trying to “lay low” in China—appeared in his now-standard uniform of Mandarin-style shirt, dangerously overtaxed glasses, and hair dipped in souvenir oil from On Deadly Ground, where he set about decrying various things as un-American in front of the Moscow skyline the Russian citizen now calls home. It was more unflinching, uncompromising tough talk from the guy who sometimes gets paid to deliver it to some Bulgarian extra, and it all raised some important questions. Namely, why the fuck are we listening to Steven Seagal again?
“I believe in free speech, I believe that everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, but I don’t agree that they should hold the United States of America or the world hostage by taking a venue where people are tuning in to watch a football game and imposing their political views,” Seagal imposed his political view of this, the worst hostage situation since that one he stopped on a boat or whatever in 1992, which somehow sentenced us to 25 years of geopolitical analysis from a guy who has lied about working for the CIA and fighting the Yakuza, proclaimed himself one of the world’s “foremost experts on swords” and a reincarnated 17th-century Tibetan monk, and—and we simply cannot state this enough—obviously, obviously wrote his own IMDB bio.
The warrior for free speech, BUT… continued: “I think it’s outrageous, I think it’s a joke, it’s disgusting. I respect the American flag. I myself have risked my life countless times for the American flag and I don’t understand or agree with this kind of behavior. I think it’s an outrage,” added Seagal, presumably referring to the many other times he put his life on the line against America’s enemies, which have, indeed, numbered in the dozens, according to your father-in-law’s DVD collection. Or maybe Seagal is talking about his work as a reserve deputy sheriff on his reality show, Steven Seagal: Lawman, where he proudly served alongside Joe Arpaio in protecting the American flag from Mexicans and puppies. How dare these NFL players protesting police brutality take a knee, when Steven Seagal worked side by side with some of the worst perpetrators of that police brutality to bolster his own massive, America-sized ego?
Regardless, the man who has for years courted Vladimir Putin with the same romantic tenacity that’s seen him slapped with several sexual harassment allegations, wheedled his way into becoming the off-putting face of Russia’s weapons industry, and, finally, been granted Russian citizenship after “asking quite insistently and over a lengthy period”—that Steven Seagal, the one who up and decamped the U.S. for Russia like the productions of so many of his shitty movies, he still has thoughts about what does and doesn’t constitute American patriotism, and somehow we are still indulgently listening to them, like a prostitute trapped inside Seagal’s dojo while he dicks around on blues guitar.
To Piers Morgan’s base-level credit, after Seagal rambled on about the “ton of enemies within,” and “leftover Obama-ites,” and other assorted people with “this other agenda” attempting to overthrow American democracy, Morgan asked Seagal how he could square those red-blooded patriotic views with his loyalty to Putin. Especially with regards to Russian interference in the 2016 election, and especially while Seagal sat there in Moscow looking like the poorly rendered villain from a Tom Clancy CD-ROM shooter.
“Let’s be really honest, Piers,” Seagal said, rubbing his nose with patriotic fervor. “Every country is involved in espionage… However, for anyone to think that Vlad-ee-meer Poo-tin had, uhhhhh, anything to do with fixing the elections or even that the Russians had that kind of technology is, uh, uh, stupid. And uh, we have a situation where really all of this is happening from, in my opinion, astronomical propaganda, and this kind of propaganda is really a diversion from, you know, creating a diversion so that the people of the United States of America won’t really see what’s happening.”
Speaking of cheap political diversions from the sad reality of things, the interview wrapped up with Morgan asking about Seagal’s latest movie, about which even Seagal himself seemed caught off guard that anyone would actually be interested. It’s called Attrition, by the by, it stars Seagal as a guy named “Axe” who’s out to rescue a “Thai girl with mythical powers,” and Steven Seagal is a viable voice opining on the most important matters of the day. Life continues to be a sickbed basic-cable fever dream.