The Sopranos’ Michael Imperioli compares the HBO series with real-life politics, says the characters “would probably be Trump supporters.”

Actor Michael Imperioli has been revisiting The Sopranos universe while promoting his new projects, and naturally, the talk has turned to where the show’s characters would be in today’s political climate. While discussing the apparent divergence between his own brash political opinions and what the fictional criminals would think if the show were airing in the 2020s, Imperioli, renowned for his role as Christopher Moltisanti on the classic crime drama, shared his thoughts.

The actor is currently starring in The White Lotus and is not shy about his political views, that he’s a Democrat. That transparency gave way to a fun intellectual exercise: In today’s America, politically, where would Tony Soprano and his gang land? The actor suggested that the majority of The Sopranos characters would end up supporting Trump.

Read on to know what exactly Michael said.

Here is what The Sopranos’ Michael Imperioli has to say about comparing the HBO series with real-life politics

US immigration policy is a big political mess right now. The federal government, as well as several states, are squabbling over tighter border security, asylum rules, and deportations, mostly on the US-Mexico border.

In an interview with The Independent, Imperioli hinted that a good number of characters from the cult show would wind up backing Trump, regardless of the conflicting immigrant narrative that shapes the majority of their characterization within the series.

"The show is about the American dream, especially through the eyes of immigrants," Imperioli told The Independent. "I think that would be one of the big themes if it was made today: the current climate in the U.S. and what they're doing to immigrants. The fact is that these characters are all immigrants, but I think a lot of them would probably be Trump supporters, oddly enough."

Lawmakers and courts in the US are grappling with challenges of what to do with unauthorized migrants and new arrivals who apply for asylum. It has become a lightning rod in national politics, with figures like Donald Trump and Joe Biden offering sharply contrasting remedies.

Amidst this, Imperioli also highlighted a historical fact that gets buried when people talk about immigration in the United States.

"When Italians came over — and people forget this, or they don't want to see it — a lot of them were undocumented."

Imperioli’s comments highlight a key point of The Sopranos. The conflict between identity, assimilation, and the American Dream. They often celebrate their culture while living out ways of thinking that sometimes are at odds with that culture.

The subject of contemporary politics and the Sopranos world has been raised in the past. The series creator, David Chase, has in the past joked about how some characters may feel about Trump’s presidency. In a 2019 interview with The New York Times, Chase joked that A.J. Soprano (Robert Iler) might have a place in the administration.

"Whether he thought he was a good president or not — I don't know that Tony thought much about that question at all, with anybody who was in office. But I know Tony would have thought Trump was penny-ante, in terms of his lying and presentation.".

Imperioli has even satirized the political idea before. In the 2020 election, he shared memes and jokes on social media featuring Sopranos characters to vote for Biden. One of the posts pictured Trump at the show’s notorious strip club, Bada Bing.

"I just thought I'd try to have a sense of humor with it," he explained. "Taking these memes and the politics and just trying to say, 'The Sopranos are woke now, and they're campaigning for Biden.'"

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That’s just one small sample of how The Sopranos still inspires chat, even after all these years. Imagining how these individuals would react to the politics of the current age, he points to some of the show’s subliminal messages about immigration, identity, and the American dream. But their discussion shows the series is still a shining example of how the Sopranos world can still say so much about the culture, even decades later.

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