Celebrating Dick Van Dyke’s 100th birthday and his political endorsements.
The multitalented actor, dancer, comedian, and star of stage and screen Dick Van Dyke was born on Dec. 13, 2025, which means that on Saturday, he celebrated his one-hundredth birthday. « You know,” he said Friday, “I played old men a lot. And I always played ’em as angry, and cantankerous. It’s not really that way. » In his case, it really isn’t, which is as striking as his longevity: Dick Van Dyke, after all, is very likely the world’s oldest Bernie Bro, even older than Bernie himself, and so one would expect him to be as angry, self-righteous, and arrogant as leftists are today. And while he is to a degree, his good-natured personality can’t help but keep breaking through. That’s not to say, however, that he has any political wisdom remotely commensurate with his years.
Back in Feb. 2020, when he was a comparatively callow 94 years old, Van Dyke released a video in which he announced: “I’m Dick Van Dyke and I’m very enthusiastic supporter of Bernie Sanders.” This was sad to see, coming from a man whom so many of us had come to love for his work on The Dick Van Dyke Show, Mary Poppins, Bye Bye Birdie, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the rest.
After all, celebrity endorsements may not be as powerful or vote-getting as those who rely on them wish they were, but they wouldn’t be a recurring phenomenon of our political culture at all if they were completely ineffective. People naturally want to be on the same side as those whom they love and admire, and so celebrity endorsements will likely be with us for as long as there are celebrities.
