I missed this when it came out in 2020…
Yesterday the video was brought to my attention by one of the jazz musicians who created it and who is recycling the thing again in anticipation of the 2024 election. I am long-time friends with a couple of the people involved in the video. They are kind, smart and rational about most things.
Observations:
- This is what Trump Derangement looks like, but it usually doesn’t sound as good.
- Jazz is notoriously hard to write coherent lyrics to, but not that hard. The only lyrics that really fit well are the ones from the original song. (They should have asked me to help—I write better parodies than that. Much better. Much much better.)
- I also could have helped with the direction. That guy in the middle can’t keep his hate from twisting up his face. You see, in order for satire like that to be effective and professional, it needs to be performed completely straight, as a pure musical performance. The only one of the three singers who understood that is the young woman on the right. (I’m not sure what the story is with the woman on the left. Yikes.)
- This is why performance artists, musicians and singers should keep their political views to themselves. Their analysis tends to be embarrassingly shallow, but makes up for that by being unshakably adamant without substance.
- Note that the campaign they were supporting at the time was itself a lie, as is the one they are supporting now.
- Naturally the group references the Washington Post’s phony Trump lie database, which I reviewed here. Maybe 10% of the “lies” on it are really lies. The song uses a similar standard: if Trump said it, it’s a lie.
- The song ratifies several Axis Big Lies, like Joe and Kamala’s favorite, the “very fine people” myth. I would normally stop listening after blatant double standards like that: the lyricist signals to all that he can’t be trusted.
- Most of the “lies” in the metaphorical blizzard are campaign promises that never were met (all campaign promises are contingent on future events: the issue is whether they are made in good faith) and trivia, typical Trump bloviating. Who cares if Trump says “his polls are the best”? These people, obviously: it drives them crazy. Kamala Harris saying Joe Biden was mentally fit didn’t, however.
The video was screened for me last night, and I had the opportunity to explain to some of its proud creators what was wrong with it, ethically, logically, factually and artistically.
I demurred.
Ethics Alarms 
Needs more cowbell.
Musical performance artists serve at the mercy of the powerful elite. They have to depend on the beneficence of others, mostly wealthy “patrons of the arts,” but behind them, the government. All they can see is the Dems supporting NPR and PBS, and the arts. Trump, and any Republicans are the enemy. They assume Republicans will cut off their life’s blood: public funding for the arts. And they don’t understand where money comes from and how an economy works. They’re all at the AOC level of economic sophistication.
This reminds me of talking to a woman college classmate who teaches art (oil painting) at UC Davis. She was going on and on about George W. Bush, the then President, reciting all the usual essentially Communist claptrap academics spout. Then she mentioned in passing she’d been on sabbatical in Italy for a school year, staying in a Florentine palace that had been turned into an artists’ holiday facility funded by some Rockefellers! Why do the well to do feed the unwitting hands that bite them? The mind boggles. Why do guys who make a lot of business give money to their now revolutionary colleges that are indoctrinating students to destroy capitalism?
God, that video is horrible.
I decided not to watch the video because I don’t believe their is any instructive value in listening – be it in song or lecture – to a perspective that is well known. They hate Trump. We know that so this is just a way to virtue signal that they are the good and knowledgeable and those who like Trump are unsophisticated rubes at best and bigots at the worst. Those who rely on the patronage of others for their livelihoods are in no position to lecture us on fair share. I just learned that members of the National Symphony are threatening a strike because they cannot survive on 175K per year in the DC region. If that’s the case then move; but not to my neighborhood.
I don’t need to beat that horse any further. We have far more serious issues to deal with such as the impact of an east and gulf coast shutdown of the ports because the ILA bosses want a 77% wage increase over the next 6 years. They were offered a 50% wage increase. A crane operator makes $300K a year now. This is all on top of a natural disaster emergency. The ILA boss said he will cripple us if he does not get his way. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo says she has not been focused on the potential strike and deferred reporters to Secretary. Buttigieg who is all but absent on this matter.
Now we have Iran shooting ballistic missiles into Haifa and Tel-Aviv and Biden’s answer was that he supports an Israeli cease fire.
there not their first sentence. When AI learns grammar it can auto correct. And, if I see one more statement that something “be like” I am going to scream.
What are the chances of those in the group who know you seeing this post?