My Facebook friends are almost unanimously calling for audiences to boycott Kennedy Center performances because they hate Donald Trump so much, and view his name being added to the Kennedy Center facade a just cause to…What? Destroy the arts in order to save them?
The boycott, which is taking hold because D.C.’s arts patrons are overwhelmingly wealthy, woke Democrats, is certain to have negative effect on audiences and artists. The National Symphony Orchestra, to name one boycott target, is hanging by a thread financially already. It has no other venue open to it. But the boycotters literally don’t care. Their aim is to grandstand, signal their virtue, and declare their intractable opposition to the elected President of the United States.
Artists are also engaging in this destructive and illogical protest. The Cookers, an “all-star jazz septet that will ignite the Terrace Theater stage with fire and soul” and a New York dance company canceled scheduled appearances at the Kennedy Center on New Years Eve, so as with the annual Christmas Eve jazz concert hosted by Chuck Redd that also canceled at the last minute, audiences looking forward to the event are being punished as proxies for the hated POTUS. How these protests have any impact on President Trump has yet to be explained.
The Cookers, in a statement, said, “Jazz was born from struggle and from a relentless insistence on freedom: freedom of thought, of expression, and of the full human voice.” Oh. Doug Varone and Dancers, a New York dance company, announced that it was canceling two performances in April. Varone, the head of the company, said it would lose $40,000 by pulling out, but that “It is financially devastating but morally exhilarating.”
I would love to be in a debate with these self-righteous jackasses. When did the name of a building or theater have any substantive effect on what went on within it? Ethics Alarms has taken a clear stance regarding Trump’s politically inept willingness to have his name stamped on the building, but the hypocrisy of these “moral” protesters is spectacular. Has any artist since the Center was opened expressed qualms about performing in a venue honoring a serial adulterer, a President who jeopardized American interests by having sexual liaisons with a foreign spy and mob boss’s mistress, and who has been credibly accused of Epstein-like sex abuses by alleged victims? Trump is a narcissist, but JFK was a sociopath.
Richard Grenell, the Kennedy Center’s chairman, said yesterday that “Boycotting the arts to show you support the arts is a form of derangement syndrome.” Indeed, these are the usual suspects who allowed the Angry Left to eviscerate the President’s inauguration and the various inaugural balls by intimidating artists, leaving the celebration of what should be a bi-partisan day honoring democracy to B and C- list artists and celebrities.
So go ahead, children, gut the live performing arts some more with your tantrums. They are already suffering in the wake of the pandemic and the streaming addiction. Run the Kennedy Center out of business with your spite, taking chunks of desperately needed income from performing groups in the process. Most patrons of the arts in the D.C. area are progressives, Democrats, and your fellow Trump Deranged. Good plan!
As long as it makes you feel better.
Ethics Alarms 
I saw this on Facebook and was tempted to comment that THIS is what they are talking about when they talk about TDS. A stupid name change and people lose their minds.
It is stuff like this that almost makes me wish Trump adds his name to the Ronald Reagan airport and BWI; hell, LAX, O’Hare, JFK, LaGuardia, and MSP. That would cripple air travel for them.
-Jut
This almost makes me wonder if this was deliberately done to provoke such frothing-at-the-mouth, self-destructive reactions. These people hate Trump so much they’re willing to take a $40,000 hit? What self-inflicted wound would they fail to deliver, were Trump attached to it?
The real question is: what is Trump doing in the meantime while the MSM and progressives are chewing on the carpet in their angst?
I have no doubts about the existence of TDS. It shows up regularly in the social and national media I peruse daily — mostly WAPO and WSJ with a bit of FB.
But, there is no doubt in my mind about the existence of a contra-syndrome I have difficulty defining. It pops up right after Trump does one of the stupid, egotistical, things he does regularly. In this case, he sticks his name up on the Kennedy Center. Why? There is no good explanation. But, there is a reaction. And, that reaction promptly is labeled TDS.
So, how to label that reaction to the anti-Trump reaction? Can’t be Trump Defense Syndrome because TDS already is taken. Maybe, TBT. But, ‘Trump Being Trump’ is just an unethical rationalization to excuse execrable behavior. How about, NoImp, for Nothing Important? Not quite as good as, ‘Nothing to See Here’, no real zing to it.
While I await a better shorthand description for the castigation of those who oppose an opposition to Trump, I’ll just go with TAKS, which seems to fit as often as not. Calling out those afflicted with TDS might not be actual Trump Ass-Kissing, but it sure is close.
Who here has defended Trump’s stupid renaming of the KC? It’s not defending Trump to suggest that burning the place to the ground isn’t exactly a reasonable or ethical response. Nor has anyone I’ve read here suggested that this episode is in the same Julie Principle class as making what Trump says or how he says it a constant source of news cycle fury. Yes, “Trump Being Trump’ is just an unethical rationalization [when used] to excuse execrable behavior.” Agreed. However, Trump Derangement prevents making reasoned distinctions between annoying, unpresidential behavior (like the KC fiasco or saying mean things about Rob Reiner) and objectively substantively damaging behavior. Pointing out the distinction to the Trump Deranged isn’t defending Trump of “kissing his ass.”
My struggle for understanding continues. Some attacks on Trump do seem deranged, as do some attacks on those who oppose him. So, on the one hand we have TDS; on the other we have ???
One thing we do have for sure is the 2-year-old ego getting the attention it craves all the time.
I think the reason you are having trouble is that we are not defending Trump, we are criticizing his critics for their pettiness and lack of circumspection.
it is like everything he does is treated like a Constitutional Crisis. It gets tiring.
then, the lack of circumspection. The Left were scholars on the 25th amendment except for the 4 years Biden was in office. Hypocrites!
I don’t have a problem criticizing Trump, but apart from his boorish overbearing and uncivilized demeanor, he is not too much different from most politicians. Or, most Presidents.
another reason I like Trump is that he deliberately trolls people who have wallowed in misery for the last 10 years. As they seem to be determined to be miserable over every single thing he does, I am pleased tgat he obliges them. The Democratic Party has sold nothing but fear for the last 10 years. The base bought it. They can live with it.
-Jut
I get your point, Jut, but this really goes back to Chuck Redd’s cancellation, and now some others. To come down hard on Redd, and now the others who have canceled performances at the Kennedy Center, is akin to saying a strong, dramatic response to Trump was not called for. And, why would that be? Are we to think a lesser response would have garnered enough attention? Or that Trump’s action wasn’t at a level demanding a strong reaction? To shrug and move on in the face of boorish, overbearing, and uncivilized behavior is pretty close to condoning it. To place the focus on the opposition to Trump, even when that opposition is excessive, is to remove the focus from Trump’s self-serving behavior.
I understand that ‘The show must go on’, but, I also understand, as Carlotta did, who the real disrupter was, and so: “Well, until you stop these things happening, this thing does not happen.”
It’s using a bazooka to swat a gnat, and not caring about collateral damage. See my protest checklist. This one fails spectacularly.
I’m somewhat pleased you think of the current occupant of the White House as a gnat. Somewhat, because that’s a more noble insect than I would have chosen.
Now now, you know better. The gnat is the KC renaming.
The art and the artist are one.
Touche!
Here is what I think the issue is: Is putting Trump’s name on the Kennedy Center of the same import as, say, sinking a terrorist speedboat full of illegal drugs?
I would say not. But if you react the same to both incidents, then you are effectively saying you’re just protesting in order to protest, that none of the protests mean anything.
It’s the boy who cries wolf story, which is fine until the actual wolf really does make an appearance.
You are correct, sir! (As your sidekick Ed always said…)
Aw, geez, I was trying to be the shining Johnny who breaks down a door with an axe, not that other one whose paid sidekick renders support with just a bit of a wink.
Let’s just pick anything we want less of and slap the Trump brand on it! He’ll get whatever ego boost he seems to need from seeing his name everywhere he looks, and we can use TDS to shape behavior and improve the world!
Speculating now…
Want people to eat less junk food? Label everything that qualifies as TRUMP BRAND snacks and watch sales plummet! Worried about the impact of plastic straws? Call them TRUMP straws to encourage people to switch to biodegradable alternatives. Forever chemicals that seem to have a whole list of bad effects, including disrupting reproductive hormones so it’s harder for women to conceive? Let’s call them TRUMP FOREVER chemicals!!
Brilliant!!!
Second!
PWS
Love the humor, but the strategy just might work …..