Seth MacFarlane has made himself fabulously wealthy by pushing people’s buttons. The 42 year-old multimillionaire was at the helm of some of the most successful and offensive pieces of programming to grace television in the last 15 years, including Family Guy, American Dad, and The Cleveland Show. MacFarlane is also a liberal, having appeared at a Los Angeles rally to endorse Bernie Sanders in October, and an outspoken atheist. So it should come as no surprise that he would be the one to try and temper the vitriol that’s spewed from the pro-Bernie crowd towards the Vermont Senator’s current opponent, Hillary Clinton. In the process, he offers some words of wisdom about how liberal culture can truly combat a GOP that’s gone completely off the deep end.

In an appearance on the Jason Rantz show to promote his upcoming jazz performance with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, MacFarlane voiced his disapproval.

‘I actually am one of the people who has been a little disappointed at the way that, not necessarily the campaign, the supporters of the campaign have treated Hillary,’ he told his interviewer. ‘I think she’s been treated a little harshly by the left.’

Rantz addressed the topic of how MacFarlane reconciles his politically incorrect humor with the easily offended left-wing that makes up the majority of his viewership. And that’s where the kid gloves really came off.

MacFarlane threw criticism at the left’s hair trigger for taking offense, and pointed to Donald Trump’s success as an unfortunate side effect of that sensitivity.

‘You take somebody like Trump. Trump exists I think for two reasons… …this guy is the result of a lot of bigotry gone wild. On the other hand, my side, the left has gotten a little unreasonable when it comes to separating the trivial from the profound.’

MacFarlane cited Kim Davis and religious freedom laws as example of serious human rights issues where liberals should be upset and should speak up, but then added,

:On the other side of the equation you have people like Justine Sacco who was the woman who got eviscerated on Twitter because she tweeted a joke about AIDS that liberals didn’t like. And I do think that that outrage came mostly from our side, from the left. And she was destroyed based on something that she just tossed off and what the conservatives would argue and I would agree with them in this instance is that “hey you know what you may not like it but it’s freedom of speech.” You don’t destroy somebody for that. She was not infringing upon anyone’s rights. At the end of the day the only person who got trampled on was her.’

MacFarlane continued, telling Rantz that he believes liberals must learn to distinguish between “things that truly count as profound injustices and… things that just kinda piss you off but you gotta get over it.” He made the point that when liberals fail to pick their battles as a party, they “look unreasonable,” which has led to the strength and following that people like Trump have enjoyed in recent years.

Featured image courtesy of Gage Skidmore on Flickr. Available under Creative Commons license.