Raised to Be a Democrat

Harrison Ford was born in Chicago on July 13, 1942, to an Irish Catholic father and an Ashkenazi Jewish mother. When he was asked, as an adult, which religion his parents had raised him to follow, Ford quipped: “Democrat.” “We had no catechism,” Ford said of his religious upbringing. “Instead we were given Democrat instruction; to be liberals of every stripe. I don’t judge what other people do. At least I try not to ever judge what other people do unless they do it in my face.”

Schooling

Ford never achieved better than a “C” average at Maine Township High School East, which was located in the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge, Illinois, where he graduated in 1960. He then attended Ripon College in Wisconsin, where he took a drama course in his senior year because he thought it would raise his weak GPA and help him to meet attractive girls. Due to his poor academic performance, however, Ford was expelled just days before his would-be graduation ceremony in 1964.

Draft Dodger

After failing out of college and struggling to gain work as an actor, Ford dodged the U.S. military draft as a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War. According to the Notable Names Database (NNDB): “When [Ford] was required to appear before the draft board and explain his stance, he instead feigned general nuttiness in a performance that convinced his interrogators he was not military material.”

Film Career & Enormous Wealth

After some years of bouncing between minor acting roles and carpentry work, Ford appeared in the 1973 film American Graffiti, a role that enabled him to develop relationships with directors Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas. He was later cast as Han Solo in Lucas’ 1977 blockbuster, Star Wars, which made Ford one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. While the movie was being filmed, the 35-year-old Ford had a romantic affair with 19-year-old co-star Carrie Fisher. He reprised his Han Solo character again in the iconic Star Wars sequels, The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Return of the Jedi (1983). Ford gained further critical and commercial success from his performance as the titular character in Lucas’ original Indiana Jones trilogy, consisting of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989).

By the end of the 1980s, Ford had established himself as one of Hollywood’s most popular actors. His success in film would continue for many years. As of August 2023, Ford’s movies had grossed a combined $4.23 billion in box-office revenues. Moreover, he had amassed a personal net worth of approximately $300 million.

Leftist Democrat Supporter of

With his accumulated fame and fortune, Ford over the years has become a vocal advocate for the Democratic Party and an array of leftwing causes. He met personally with then-President Bill Clinton at an August 1995 dinner, and again at a February 1998 dinner in honor of British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the Clinton White House.

In 1997, Ford enlisted Bill Clinton’s support when preparing for his role as the fictional President James Marshall in the upcoming film Air Force One. At a birthday party for Mr. Clinton, Ford asked the president if he (Ford) and his fellow filmmakers could be permitted to take a tour of the real-life Air Force One jet, and Clinton agreed.

In the 2000 presidential race, Ford supported Democrat Al Gore in his race against Republican George W. Bush. He also contributed $1,000 to Gore’s campaign — which was then the maximum limit for an individual donation. The year prior, Ford had given that same amount to the presidential primary campaign of former New York Democrat Senator Bill Bradley.

In April 2013, Ford visited the Barack Obama White House for a screening of his latest film, 42, a biopic of Jackie Robinson’s career as the first black player in Major League Baseball. “I want to thank Harrison Ford—I’ve wanted to say that for a while,” First Lady Michelle Obama remarked at the reception. Later that month, Ford, during an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, said that he thought President Obama was doing a “wonderful job.”

Stance on Gun Ownership

While on a trip to Spain in 2003, Ford stated, “I’m very troubled … at the fact so many people in the United States carry guns. It obviously contributes greatly to the crime problems we have … gun laws should be strengthened.”

Supporting Roman Polanski

In November 2009, Ford signed a letter calling for the release of disgraced filmmaker and child rapist Roman Polanski. Written in French, the letter (translated) read, in part: “Aged 76, survivor of Nazism and Stalinist persecutions in Poland, Roman Polanski risks ending his life in prison for acts which should normally be prescribed in Europe. We ask the Swiss federal justice system to immediately release him and not transform this brilliant filmmaker into a martyr for a legal-political imbroglio unworthy of two democracies such as Switzerland and the United States. Common sense, as much as honor, calls for it.”

Deriding George W. Bush

During an April 2013 appearance on the television program Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Ford told Kimmel that he had “never believed anything” that former President George W. Bush said.

Thoughts on Donald Trump, “Climate Change,” & “Science”

When receiving an award from the left-wing nonprofit organization Conservation International (CI) in November 2017, Ford used the opportunity to attack President Donald Trump for his alleged failure to take seriously the dangers of anthropogenic climate change. “We face an unprecedented moment in this country,” the actor expanded. “Today’s greatest threat is not climate change, not pollution, not flood or fire, It’s that we’ve got people in charge of important shit who don’t believe in science.” Having supported CI for 26 years, Ford also denounced politicians inclined to let “political or economic self-interest denigrate or belittle sound scientific understanding of the causes and effects of human pressure on the environment.”

While speaking at the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco in September 2018, Ford urged those in attendance to “stop giving power to people who don’t believe in science, or worse than that, pretend they don’t believe in science for their own self-interest.” Hosted by then-California Governor Jerry Brown, the event also featured appearances by Al Gore and Alec Baldwin.

Ford again blasted President Trump’s stance on climate change during the World Governments Summit in Dubai in February 2019. “Around the world, elements of leadership—including in my own country—preserve their state and the status quo, deny or denigrate science,” he said. “They are on the wrong side of history.” Ford further stated that environmental degradation was the “greatest moral crisis of our time,” warning that those “least responsible for nature’s destruction will suffer the greatest consequences.” He also called out the Trump administration when he said, “This current government is bent on dismantling all of the gains we’ve made in the protection of the environment, in human health.”

In an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in February 2020, Ford referred to President Trump as a “son of a bitch.” Moreover, Ford and Kimmel mocked Trump’s use of the phrase “perfect phone call” when describing a 2019 telephone conversation he had conducted with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy – a conversation that ultimately led to Trump’s first impeachment. During the same program, Ford also noted that his upcoming film, The Call of the Wild, dealt with climate change, and he asserted that “nature doesn’t need people, [but] people need nature.”

While promoting The Call of the Wild in Mexico City that same month, Ford praised then-teenage environmental activist Greta Thunberg for her “courage” and “fortitude” in drawing public attention to climate change. He also commended Thunberg for her “role in representing the interests of young people.”

In an October 2020 interview with Time, Ford warned: “The climate crisis is real—the weight of scientific evidence is overwhelming…but evidence can be ignored, it can be manipulated. Leaders who choose to make climate change a divisive issue do it to protect the entrenched economic interests who profit from behavior that destroys our planet. It’s selfish. It’s short-sighted. It needs to stop…This shit is going to kill us.”

Condemning Trump’s Immigration Policies

In February 2020, Ford insisted that the United States needed to institute a “complete reform” of the Trump administration’s “ludicrous” immigration policies. America should “invite people into the country” and “[n]ot keep them out,” he explained. “This is the history of America, it depends on immigration.” “Our position in the world is tenuous because of our lack of moral leadership, basically,” Ford also told reporters, adding: “Science is being ridiculed by people in ideological campgrounds. They are refusing the wisdom, the discipline of science, in favor of a political point of view. And that has to stop. And I believe young people throughout the world know that it has to stop and are capable and willing to make the sacrifices to make that happen.”

Private Jet Flights

In August 2020, Ford, a licensed pilot, flew his 19-year-old son Liam off to Amherst College on a private jet — notwithstanding the actor’s frequent warnings that carbon emissions were major contributors to potentially catastrophic climate change.

In November 2022, Ford was photographed once again piloting one of his private jets — an $18.8 million Cessna Citation Sovereign — from New York to Tennessee to pick up his mother-in-law, and then on to Los Angeles to celebrate his wife Calista Flockhart’s 58th birthday. Soon after the plane landed in L.A., Ford and his wife and mother-in-law boarded an SUV that drove them to the birthday party.

Supporting the “Centrist” Joe Biden for President

In a 2020 Zoom video call with former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Ford endorsed Democrat Joe Biden for U.S. president, citing the need for a new leader committed to tackling the dangers of climate change and “restoring the natural world.” “The man’s a centrist,” Ford said of Biden. “He believes in coalition, he believes in consensus—that’s the Democrat Party.”

Lauding Dr. Anthony Fauci

Just one day prior to Election Day 2020, the anti-Trump Lincoln Project partnered with Ford to produce a video which suggested that President Trump was planning, if re-elected, to fire Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). In the video clip posted to Twitter, Ford claimed that Fauci had “served the American people tirelessly, honorably, and selflessly” during the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.