\n<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been 48 hours since organizers unveiled the lineup for the \u201cFreedom 250\u201d concert on the National Mall, and nearly every featured musical act has dropped out.<\/p>\n
Morris Day & The Time say they were never confirmed for the kickoff to The Great American State Fair, while the other acts all posted some version of the same statement.<\/p>\n
Martina McBride said she \u201cwas assured this was a nonpartisan event,\u201d while Bret Michaels said the event was described to him \u201cas a celebration of our country through music and a chance to honor \u2026 hardworking Americans from all walks of life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, what was presented to us as a celebration of our country has evolved into something much more divisive,\u201d Michaels added. Rapper Young MC offered a similar excuse, saying he was \u201cnever told about any political involvement with the event\u201d and expressed his desire to \u201cperform in D.C. in the near future at an event that is not so politically charged.\u201d<\/p>\n
What a load of bullshit.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t expect famous musicians to embody courage and patriotism, but even by celebrity standards, this is an egregious display of both ignorance and cowardice. These artists didn\u2019t pull out because the concert was politicized \u2014 they politicized it by pulling out.<\/p>\n
The bigger issue is that the event would have been politicized no matter what the artists did. Had McBride and Michaels and the lot stayed on the bill, it would have sent a message to Americans about the importance of separating patriotism from politics. Instead, their actions worsened the problem they pretended to lament. It\u2019s unfortunate, and it\u2019s embarrassing.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s break it down.<\/p>\n
I want to start here, because this is the subtext of the entire debacle. The artists were happy to sing on the Mall until the media and Democrats started deeming it \u201cTrump\u2019s concert,\u201d at which point they promptly ran for the hills. The real issue, of course, is that they don\u2019t want to be associated with Trump (more on that later). But because they want to seem like they\u2019re above the political fray, they simply say that they want to remain \u201cnonpartisan.\u201d<\/p>\n
People love to say this, and it always makes them sound stupid. You can\u2019t touch politics and remain nonpartisan. Bipartisan, sure \u2014 it\u2019s possible for people with different party affiliations and ideologies to work together, and good when they do. But nonpartisan? To quote the 21st century\u2019s sleepiest president: Come on, man.<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t even a commentary on our divisive political age, <\/i>though it\u2019s certainly gotten harder to play at nonpartisanship over the past decade. Partisanship is literally built into the foundation of this country. The Constitution? A document born out of a brutal political struggle. Washington, D.C.? Declared our nation\u2019s capital after a backroom trade between warring factions. Even George Washington\u2019s Farewell Address<\/a> \u2014 where Washington famously cautioned Americans to avoid \u201cthe enterprises of faction\u201d \u2014 is a partisan document. Alexander Hamilton wrote the speech with an eye towards Thomas Jefferson and James Madison\u2019s nascent Republican Party. Washington wasn\u2019t warning Americans to avoid political parties as a rule; he was telling them they should all be Federalists<\/a>.<\/p>\n So, even if a celebration is associated with a particular party or politician, that doesn\u2019t make it bad. But as luck would have it for our roster of stars, that\u2019s not even a thing they needed to worry about.<\/p>\n Donald Trump is a divisive and partisan figure. The former is a matter of perception: if Democrats could get over themselves, he would be seen as the opposition rather than the enemy. But the latter is an indisputable fact: Trump is an elected official and the head of the Republican Party. In that role, he is inherently partisan, no two ways about it.<\/p>\n But Trump isn\u2019t just the leader of the Republican Party. He\u2019s the President of the United States. As ultraliberal President Jed Bartlet says in \u201cThe West Wing,\u201d \u201cI’m the President of the United States, not the president of the people who agree with me.\u201d<\/p>\n So it is with Trump. Partisanship is just one part of a presidency. The other, more important part \u2014 leading the nation and all that \u2014 was perfectly reflected in this concert. Trump is right to mark the 250th anniversary of American independence with, as John Adams once wrote<\/a>, \u201cpomp and parade, shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations.\u201d<\/p>\n Now, Trump will almost certainly make some kind of political speech at the concert. Of course he will. Would it be better if he stuck to patriotic platitudes and avoided potshots at political foes? Of course. But that\u2019s not who he is, and that’s not what our politics is like these days. But even a presidential display of partisanship is not enough to drown out the broader message of the concert. That\u2019s the entire point of this country \u2013 the republic looms larger than, and outlasts, our petty squabbling.<\/p>\n It\u2019s also, to a certain extent, the point of live music. Conservatives take it for granted that their favorite artists hate them, and they go to their concerts anyway. You can sit through a rambling Springsteen monologue about tyranny if it means getting a roaring \u201cTenth Avenue Freeze Out.\u201d Liberals, having enjoyed cultural hegemony for so long, can\u2019t conceive of this. And so these artists \u2014 none of whom are really famous enough to pass up a national stage \u2014 chose to stay home rather than play nice with the president for an afternoon. That\u2019s unpatriotic and stupid, but it\u2019s also just really, really lame.<\/p>\n Just because partisanship isn\u2019t inherently bad doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s all inherently good. And one of the worst expressions of partisanship is when people let their political priors blind them to objectively good things. We see this all the time when politics and entertainment intersect.<\/p>\n Before acts started pulling out of the concert, people were talking about the upcoming UFC fight on the White House lawn. Construction began on the Octagon this week, and liberals naturally took to social media to say that this was an affront to democracy.<\/p>\n If I thought that these critics were arguing in good faith, I would say that a bare-knuckle brawl on the White House lawn is the perfect distillation of American democracy. But of course, these critics aren\u2019t arguing in good faith. It\u2019s not about keeping the White House free of spectacle, or else they would have been furious when Joe Biden turned the lawn over to a bunch of half-naked transvestites. It\u2019s about opposing anything that\u2019s even a little bit affiliated with Trump.<\/p>\n Republicans have this problem, too. It was dumb to pretend it wasn\u2019t awesome when Obama played basketball with Kevin Durant<\/a>. That was awesome! It was an incredible American moment, just like Dubya telling the White House press corps to \u201cwatch this drive<\/a>.\u201d A UFC fight on the South Lawn, a concert on the National Mall: these are incredible spectacles, and it\u2019s objectively cool that the president is involved. It would be cool if the president was a Democrat; it would be cool if the president was a different Republican.<\/p>\n Some things are too enjoyable to let politics get in the way. It\u2019s why there are conservative Grateful Dead fans and liberals who love \u201cYellowstone.\u201d It\u2019s why Martina McBride didn\u2019t object when Americans turned her song \u201cIndependence Day\u201d \u2014 written from the perspective of a woman fleeing domestic violence \u2014 into a patriotic anthem in the wake of September 11.<\/p>\n The song\u2019s writer, Gretchen Peters, has complained about the song\u2019s new life, making it known that she donated her royalties from Sean Hannity\u2019s show (which famously used \u201cIndependence Day\u201d as its theme song) to Planned Parenthood.<\/a><\/p>\n Not so McBride, who famously performed the song while flanked by two giant American flags at Farm Aid in 2001, shortly after attacks on the World Trade Center.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The singer would subsequently say that she had \u201cmixed feelings about\u201d that performance, because she doesn\u2019t \u201cwant to take away from what the song is really about.\u201d But she was very clear about the reason she leaned into a patriotic interpretation of the song when she did.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were all so raw \u2026 and trying to have solidarity and pulling together as a country,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen I realized that the words to that chorus, \u2018let freedom ring,\u2019 kind of mirror what we were all feeling at the time, I made that decision to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n Some things are bigger than politics. Americans understand this. The president understands this. There was even a time when Martina McBride understood this. It\u2019s a shame that she and her fellow performers lost sight of this truth.\u00a0 But hey, there\u2019s still time: maybe Trump can get Morgan Wallen<\/a> or Ella Langley.<\/a><\/p>\nThere\u2019s Nothing \u201cPartisan\u201d About The National Mall Concert<\/b><\/h3>\n
Everyone Needs To Be Cool About Cool Stuff<\/b><\/h3>\n