The war against the Trump inauguration goes on
Now Jennifer Holliday pulls out of her inauguration gig, apologizing to the LGBT Community for her “lapse of judgment” in agreeing in the first place.
This sort of thing is becoming more and more common. It’s “you’re either with us and do what we say or you’re against us and we’ll try to destroy you” for bastions of leftist open-mindedness such as the LGBT community (but not at all limited to it; this type of thinking is rampant on the left).
In reporting the story, the Daily Beast’s Kevin Fallon has this to say:
There’s no separating the booking of any of these stars from the fact that performing at the inauguration””any inauguration, sure, but especially this one””is a political act.
He doesn’t bother to say what’s so “especially” political about the act of performing at this particular inauguration. But let’s not worry about that, because I take issue with the entire statement. Any performer is free to choose to perform or not perform at any inauguration if asked, of course. If Hudson doesn’t want to do this for any reason whatsoever, that’s fine with me. But I disagree with the notion that performing at an inauguration is a political (as in partisan political) act.
Maybe it has become one. Maybe it always was, for all I know. I can’t say I’ve followed this particular issue at all. But it shouldn’t be.
Performing at a party convention—now, that’s a political act. That indicates support for that party and that nominee. But an inauguration is by definition for all of us. Once a president has been elected—and this was drummed into us kids when I was a child—that president would be president of everyone. We would unite ranks around that president in order to assure all the factions in the country and the world that we were living up to our motto of e pluribus unum.
Those days are gone. At least, they’re gone on the left. Does the right do this? I can’t recall it. When Obama was inaugurated, did anyone drop out? Or did he (or whoever does the inviting for these things) only invite Democrats?
You know the answer without even looking it up, of course (here’s a list, though). Thing is, most performers are already on the liberal side and would be (and were) very happy to perform for Obama. Not so for any Republican, and certainly not so for Trump.
[ADDENDUM: Apparently, Jennifer Holliday tried very hard to set down the principle I described in the post:
Holliday on Friday had defended the decision to sing at the inauguration, telling the Associated Press that she saw the performance as “singing for the people.”
“I didn’t see it as singing for Trump; I saw it as singing for the people on the mall,” Holliday said.
While Holliday voted for Hillary Clinton, the actress received scrutiny after the Inaugural Committee said Friday that she would be among several performers at the “Make America Great Again! Welcome Celebration.”
“It just really made my heart drop to my feet,” she told the news service.
“How could I have this much hate spewing at me, and I haven’t even done anything? I guess it’s not like those old days when political views were your own and you had freedom of speech. … We live in a different time now and a decision to go and do something for America is not so clear-cut anymore.”
Holliday wasn’t just shocked at the hate she received. She was intimidated, and she recanted.
What a sad story. You know what? I give Holliday points for at least trying. Not everyone can keep being a profile in courage against the mob.]
Everything is political to leftists. Non-political does NOT exist.
“an inauguration is by definition for all of us” neo
That was once true. Once the left rose to dominance of the democrat party, it ceased to be true. Trump is such a potential threat to their agenda that they’ve dropped all pretense.
As far as the left is concerned, societal protections are only for them and those willing to convert to their ideology. Anyone opposed or unwilling to convert is an irredeemable deplorable.
irredeemable: adj.
1. “not able to be saved, improved, or corrected”
2. ‘beyond redemption’
Trump, being so divisive, I can see why the left sees this as a kind of holy cause. Ive wondered if a Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz or even a Mitt Romney presidency would have been treated in this matter. Probably not this severely maybe, but then again, Im not to sure. The problem with Trump is that he doesnt handle these things with any grace or dignity. What we needed was somebody who could rise above and articulate Constitutional matters and the rule of law and why, across the widening political divide, those things matter. We dont have tnat guy.
It’s been ugly and it’s going to get uglier. I don’t see how the current polarization can works itself out.
It seems things are heating up and something serious will blow apart further down the line. Then, while we pick up the pieces, we might reassess.
There are real Reset Buttons in history, but they usually are not pleasant.
There is no reason for the inauguration to be a massive, spectacular affaif. It seems to me it should be a more humble and somber affair.
Recently, Nicole Kidman was attacked just for making generally supportive statements of Donald Trump, regarding the Presidency and its role as an institution, just for a simple expression of wishing him well.
And on YouTube, you can now watch Emma Stone, Natalie Portman and other celebrities sing “I Will Survive” (produced by W magazine):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTYidWBC8-4
(Remember that “Yes We Can” chant with other celebrities when Mr. Obama was first elected?)
And there’s also the example of Meryl Streep’s speech from the Golden Globes last week, attacking Mr. Trump.
There must be some psychological thing going on here for those on the Left, with the belief that they are always morally in the right, and that they are entitled to be validated in their beliefs from their peers, with dissenters shunned and marginalized.
But from the numbers alone in any election, most celebrities should realize that half their audience won’t share most of their beliefs, and that while a little discussion is fine, it can get tiresome to politicize everything. (Taylor Swift is one example of a major celebrity who stays out of politics.)
Anyway, these things will pass, and I’m looking forward to next week’s inauguration. In the meantime, it is fun to read the Twitter feeds of certain liberal celebrities, to see their reaction to the man who will soon be their President.
Sorry, Harry, but unless you get off your butt and fight a real civil war, with real bullets and real dead bodies and real destruction of all our infrastructure, against President Trump, Abraham Lincoln will always remain America’s Most Divisive President.
See the ADDENDUM at the end of the post.
Harry The Exremeist Says:
January 14th, 2017 at 4:38 pm
Trump, being so divisive, I can see why the left sees this as a kind of holy cause. Ive wondered if a Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz or even a Mitt Romney presidency would have been treated in this matter. Probably not this severely maybe, but then again, Im not to sure.
* * *
Mitt Romney had binders of women; of COURSE no woman would want to sing at his inauguration!
“Sorry, Harry, but unless you get off your butt and fight a real civil war, with real bullets and real dead bodies and real destruction of all our infrastructure, against President Trump, Abraham Lincoln will always remain America’s Most Divisive President.”
Who says some time down the road its not going to come to that? I dont see the pendulum swinging back the other way until then, so it probably doesnt matter that Trump lacks class or composure, but it sure would have been better if our side picked a leader with a moral underpinning.
Harry:
You wanted our side to have someone with “grace or dignity . . . who could rise above and articulate Constitutional matters and the rule of law.”
You are delusional if you think the Left values grace or dignity, or listens to articulate reasoning.
No CptRusty, you’re right, they wont. But there’s a center that will if we had somebody more Reaganesque and less Foghorn Leghorn.
Harry:
less Daffy Duck. Foghorn Leghorn is the Majority Leader.
Neo, I’m old enough to remember the Sixties and early Seventies and at first this seemed to be a replay of those unfortunate times, but lately things have gotten so hateful and ugly that they go far beyond the bounds of my comprehension. Suddenly good people whom I have known and respected for years have morphed into hate filled monsters wishing destruction on anyone who disagrees with them. Others claim to be so traumatized by Trump’s win that they cannot function and withdraw into “safe spaces”. You are trained in psychology. WTF is happening? Why has Trump’s election sparked this range of responses?
I too would prefer a President who could express themselves with reasoned articulation. But I wonder if that is what we really need most at this moment in history, given where the left stands in reaching its goals. Angry, irrational people make mistakes. They go too far and reveal what they are actually about. And Trump’s expressed contempt for them enrages them far beyond Bush’s frat boy persona.
A Mike Pence, who responds calmly with reasoned articulation will never lead the left into making mistakes. And ultimately, enough LIVs reaching a tipping point and finally seeing the left for what they truly are… is the only hope this country has for avoiding the cliff ahead.
Obama’s approval rating currently stands at 57%…
Id rather have Pence as President. Unfortunately Donald will suck the air out of that room as well.
O, and for Tattered, Lincoln rose to the occasion. Thats why that guy’s so revered and righteously so.
I was standing and talking today with two friends whom I do not see very often. Friend #1, who has known me for over 40 years, mentioned that I had voted for Trump during the course of the discussion.
Friend 2 looked me straight in the eye and said, “I don’t think we can be friends.”
In their minds, battle lines are being drawn. Sad.
I too would prefer a President who could express themselves with reasoned articulation. But I wonder if that is what we really need most at this moment in history, given where the left stands in reaching its goals.
GB: Good question. I don’t have the answer.
I can imagine scenarios where Trump emerges as the 21st Century Churchill.
But I can also imagine scenarios where Trump plays his hand so badly Elizabeth Warren is hugely elected in 2020 and we are back to where we were in Obama’s America.
The future’s not set. There’s no fate but what we make for ourselves.
–Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Lincoln — hands down — was the MOST despised president-elect.
Think about that.
Which says far more about the then mind-set in the South than it does about Lincoln’s character. It is impossible to believe both in the countries founding principles and in Christian principles while also being a supporter of slavery. To do so takes a massive level of self-deceit.
So Andrea Bocelli has now pulled out of Trump’s inauguration due to death threats!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4120970/Opera-star-Andrea-Bocelli-backs-singing-Trump-s-inauguration-receiving-death-threats.html
It’s really on Obama, as President, as the leader of the left and as the guy who was elected in large part on his soaring rhetoric for unity, to call this stuff out and tell people to chill.
Not that I expect him to.
G. Britain,
You will recall that when Mr Trump left the stage after his victory speech, the song playing was the Rolling Stones’ “Can’t Always Get What You Want.” . . . (but if you try some time, you just might find, you get what you need).
Prophetic.
I’m surprised that anyone here thinks there is still a center. Rockefeller Republicans are now RINOs; Reagan Democrats are now Deplorables.
As neo has quoted many times:
“Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
Talk about prescience!
Well, we won’t find out what Trump will actually rise to, until it actually happens.
Abraham Lincoln had to fight a war. Trump will probably only need to demonstrate his willingness to let the feds open fire on the angry mobs a few times and ignore the pearl-clutching hysteria of the media until they implode.
I hope the outrageous comments and actions of the left make the LIV / middle sit up and take notice. These people are both buts and SCARY.
There will be plenty of fine entertainers that will ignore those that use the “bull whip” of the master to get what they want, and perform.
Let the weaklings, the cowards and those who put politics over country leave and be happy for it.
The left is reacting more intensely than ever. And Trump is way outside the norm. But he’s not outside their norm, which is the really interesting thing. He’s a rude dimwitted liberal crony insider.
I sometimes think that he was elected primarily for the Supreme Court, and the left realizes it. Then again, it’s hard to see any sense of proportion in their reactions as a rule. Maybe they’ve been seeing race and sex everywhere for so long that they believe that anyone who doesn’t say exactly what they say is a villain. Trump is not a racist, although he’ll probably govern as one. Trump isn’t a sexist, he’s a misogynist dog. There’s a difference.
Also interesting, and hardly discussed, is that the Dems have given up on class. It’s all race and sex for them. They not only failed to tag Trump as a rich person, they didn’t even really try. Their nastiest accusations about him were that he’s not really rich, and an unsuccessful businessman. Granted, they were being tactical, but still, it’s like they really dropped Marx for Marcuse.
When did the practice of celebrities playing at inaugurations really start?
” Not everyone can keep being a profile in courage against the mob.” – Neo
Seems we are now living between two mobs. Anyone sticking their neck out one way or the other will receive loads of “hate” from one or the other.
During this election cycle, wonder what percentage of the spam comments on this blog were from left vs right mobs.
.
“Also interesting, and hardly discussed, is that the Dems have given up on class.” – Nick
Astute point.
obama probably didn’t need to, and clinton probably had no credibility (with the outsized speaking fees she/bill got, etc).
Cost the dems the rust belt, and likely the source of their mid-term loses in Congress.
A GOP candidate should have walked away with this. trump didn’t.
As a percentage of eligible voters, clinton shed more voters than trump did with the gop (trump received a lower percentage than McCain did in 2008, despite some those dem rust belt voters going to trump).
Dan McLaughlin has a detailed series to explain… here is his 3rd of 4 articles on the topic…
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/443801/real-reason-trump-won-democratic-turnout-decline
@Nick –
“But Trump saw, or stumbled into taking advantage of, an opening spotted by only a few political analysts …
That opening was the fact that Democrats were taking for granted their above-national-average support from non-college-educated outstate voters in their determination to build a new, “ascendant” majority of blacks, Hispanics, single women, and Millennials. They figured that outstate Obama voters were locked into the Democratic party and didn’t need any special attention. Turns out they weren’t and they did.” – Michael Barone
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/442651/how-trump-won-democrats-created-midwestern-opening-white-voters
I think Barone overstates the case by saying “the familiar partisan lines of the past 20 years have been redrawn”, as it was really who lost the most expected voters this election.
In 2020, if percentage of eligible voters is up for the dems, will the gop who didn’t vote in 2016 return home, to compensate? And, will the dems who voted for trump be happy and stay, or return home in 2020?
Big Maq – Yeah, maybe if they run a Bernie or Warren next time, then class warfare will be moved to the front burner again.
It’s like they screwed up their timing in the last 8 years. They were planning on running on race for 2008-2016, then switching to sex. But the health care / contraception thing made it big in 2012 and exhausted itself. Then BLM grabbed the headlines, and the blacks decided that they didn’t want to play nice give up the Victim of the Week status. Trump’s criticism of Muslims and Hispanics kept race as the big topic. Washington and New York were running around asking why their scripts were saying “race” when they expected them to say “sex”. After all, it was Hillary’s turn. How does “race” help her? And Trump wasn’t engaging in ant-black racism – even more confusing, he was talking about stricter immigration, which black people aren’t necessarily going to complain about.
That left the Democrats and the mainstream media trying to sell Hillary as the Great Black Hope, and it sounded ridiculous. The two whitest people in America ran against each other, and it was about race? They were so relieved when Megyn Kelly and Billy Bush opened the door for them to talk about sexual discrimination. Even Hillary Clinton had enough political instinct to realize that the biggest sexual topic of the election, drag queens in women’s bathrooms, wouldn’t sell.
Sorry. I got long-winded there. Maybe the Dems willl go back to making everything about class in 2020. We’ll see how they approach 2018. I’ve got a feeling that they rode the tiger too long with racism, though, and short of Cory Booker getting the nomination, they’ll never get the kind of turnout they saw in 2008 and 2012.
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@Nick – I think you will like this analysis – the conclusion from another series (by Sean Trende & David Byler of RCP):
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2017/01/20/how_trump_won_–_conclusions_132846.html
Key Points:
“Clinton’s loss is, in many ways, the result of a process that unfolded over the course of multiple decades…
… a progression of candidates that are increasingly urban and urbane. This played well in the mega-cities and enabled Democrats to win large cities. But it probably hurt them everywhere else.
… This hurts the Democrats’ chances in the Electoral College, and kills them in the House and Senate.
… why Republicans were able to win the Electoral College while losing the popular vote twice in the past five elections, and why they were able to win a healthy House majority while (narrowly) losing the popular vote in 2012
… the place where the Democratic coalition is growing the most does them the least good, electorally speaking. … But if it causes problems in the Electoral College, it wreaks havoc in the Senate, House, and state legislatures
… Democrats were once able to win rural areas, and send large numbers of members of Congress from these places. That was in part because they focused their message on these areas, and tolerated culturally conservative Democrats
… You cannot … understand Donald Trump’s nomination without also understanding the influx of Jacksonian Democrats into the Republican Party.
… But for much of the Obama administration, these members were forced to take a series of tough votes that rendered the Blue Dog Democrat a near-extinct species.”
.
There is a great chart called “Voting Trends in each CBSA Division – United States”, which shows each presidential election since 1988, and what percent vote the dems received, dramatically showing how dems have skewed urban.
Class probably explains a big part of that skew.
.
My main critique of the analysis is that something similar needs to be done for the GOP, as it is not purely the GOP’s gain at dems’ loss.
BOTH sides had very low turnout, and that is a testament to the “health” of both parties.