Meanwhile, Still in North Korea
The Kennedy Center "Honors" get a Trumpian makeover.
Via Deadline: Donald Trump Says He Will Host The Kennedy Center Honors, Unveils This Year’s Recipients.
As usual, any “sir” story is almost certainly an utter fabrication.
In regard to the honorees and their selection.
The honorees this year will be George Strait, Michael Crawford, Gloria Gaynor, Kiss and Sylvester Stallone.
Unlike past selections, in which honorees were selected by a committee, Trump said that he was “about 98% involved” in the selection and “turned down plenty.” “They were too woke. I had a couple of wokesters,” he said today.
Personalism strikes again.
By October 2026 he’ll give himself the medal of freedom, and have Congress 1) give him the Congressional Medal of Honor, and 2) make up an even greater award, with a huge monetary prize, to be bestowed upon him and then never gain to anyone else.
Any moment I expect Rod Sterling to appear, ala, Max Headroom and explain all this.
My take is that the point of the story is “I didn’t insist on this, they demanded me”
Because it’s so great to be demanded. Maybe it’s even true in some way. Someone cooked up this idea and pitched it to Trump. They told him he would have great ratings and it would be fun. Oh and here’s a couple of things to sign. Nothing that important…
I had to look up Michael Crawford on imdb and I am still not sure what he is famous for. But I suspect someone had to call the potential nominees to make sure they would actually show up and maybe that’s how we worked our way to Mr. Crawford.
Wait a minute, is Trump actually Billy Crystal hosting? It’s bad enough he would be in the president’s box, but on the stage hosting. OMG. Your lane, [sir].
I think Trump does deserve a performance award. He’s convinced so many people he cares about them, when the only person he cares about is himself.
@Joe:
He originated the role of “The Phantom” in “The Phantom of the Opera” on Broadway. He was quite good, as I saw him perform the role in Los Angeles in 1990.
Note that that was a long time and feels like an old man picking things he liked when he was younger.
Like, if I was Dear Leader, I would want to honor the Alan Parsons Project and Tom Baker, to pick two off the top of my head.
Trump’s understanding of “the arts” is “things he liked once”–he probably thinks “Cats” is the pinnacle of The Theater.
Is the Kennedy Center subject to FIOA requests? (I’ve been very confused about its relationship to the government ever since Trump started treating it like part of the government.)
I think the artists rejected for being too woke should wear this rejection as a badge of honor, but how can they do that if we don’t know who they are?
Let’s just call this what it is…a fascist regime.
Centralized power.
They’re pouring troops into our cities on farcical grounds. And threatening more.
Taking over cultural institutions, including also the Kennedy Center.
Waging a massive propaganda campaign against the opposition (Obama Schiff et al,) using the intelligence apparatus and based on on farcical grounds.
Using the power of the state to extort and exert control on institutes of higher learning.
They have a content monitor installed at CBS. You know it won’t be the last.
Erasing entire populations.
To call S. Miller aggressively nationalistic is ridiculous understatement.
Look at the company they keep. Trump’s about to surrender a huge chunk of Ukraine to Putin.
It’s a fascist regime. Maybe not the worst in history…yet.
@Daryl:
They’re on the spectrum.
@Steven L. Taylor:
The entire presser felt like an old SENILE man riffing on topics that comforted him, including grass and construction decisions. The Dems pushed Biden offstage for far less incoherence.
In this case at least, it took only a few moments before Trump let slip that the “they” asking “sir” was a ringer…
@Steven L. Taylor:
BTW Michael Crawford also features prominently in the Pixar movie Wall-E. He’s singing “Put On Your Sunday Clothes” in the movie clip from Hello, Dolly! that everyone’s favorite trash robot plays over and over.
Thankfully for Mr. Crawford, Trump’s anti-woke screening wasn’t fine-tuned for guilt by association so as to catch that Crawford’s co-star in Hello, Dolly! was the ultra-woke Barbra Streisand.
@Daryl: This is not fascism. It’s totalitarianism. Trump wants to abolish the private sphere completely, leaving every aspect of society subject to his arbitrary intervention, whether that be how museums present history or how they sweeten Cocal Cola. The end objective is that nobody risks doing anything without checking if it conforms to the preferences of the State.
For us BBC watchers, Michael Crawford is best known for playing Frank Spencer in the sitcom Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em.
He’ll spend more time working on his Kennedy Center speech than on any policies he’s made so far.