If there’s one thing that Donald Trump loves it is the adulation of those who once depised and rejected him. He gloats in a particular way about those people, whose company he ironically prefers to those who have loved him since the get go. And there is a perfectly logical reason for that: the people who loved Trump to begin with are clearly fools. The people who know what a swine he is, are people of reasonable judgement. So for people of judgement (yes, J.D., Mr. Cultural Heroin, we’re talking about you) to do a 180 and embrace his bullshit, Trump is enamored. They have a special place in his *heart.* He knows that they’re self-serving phonies just like him and he never lets them forget it.
Turns out that both Carrie Underwood and the Village People hated Trump to begin with. But they’ll both be performing at the Inauguration. And once again, folks, like the swallows returning to Capistrano, bookings at D.C. hotels are way down for the Inauguration and the musical talent is somewhat limited because none of the top people want to show up to honor this guy, anymore than they did in 2016 when the likes of Elton John, Céline Dion, Andrea Bocelli, and Garth Brooks reportedly told him to buzz off.
“We are announcing today that VILLAGE PEOPLE have accepted an invitation from President Elect Trump’s campaign to participate in inaugural activities, including at least one event with President Elect Trump,” Victor Willis, a founding member of the group, wrote on Facebook, arguing that the event would be an opportunity to bring the country together. “We know this wont make some of you happy to hear, however we believe that music is to be performed without regard to politics.”
That is in spite of the group’s legal history with the former president. Willis himself issued a cease and desist letter to Trump in 2020 after the Republican presidential candidate refused to stop playing “Macho Man” and the “Y.M.C.A.,” calling Trump’s repeated use of the song a “nuisance.” (Willis later defended Trump’s use of the song, claiming he didn’t “have the heart” to tell Trump to stop dancing to “Y.M.C.A.”)
The Village People were among dozens of artists who sued Trump for playing their music without permission (or compensation) at his campaign rallies. Other offended artists included Sinéad O’Connor, The Beatles, Adele, Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Guns N’ Roses, Leonard Cohen, Queen, Prince, Pharrell, the Rolling Stones, The Smiths’ Johnny Marr, Rihanna, Neil Young, Linkin Park, the late Tom Petty, and Aerosmith frontman Steven Tyler. […]
Underwood, meanwhile, is expected to sing a rendition of “America the Beautiful” at Trump’s ceremony. The country music star has skirted political labels for years, but in 2017, she took an open jab at Trump during the Country Music Awards, parodying her song “Before He Cheats” to include a controversial line about Trump’s incendiary social media habits.
“And it’s fun to watch, yeah, that’s for sure/’til little Rocket Man starts a nuclear war … and then maybe next time, he’ll think before he tweets,” Underwood sang alongside Brad Paisley.
I’m wondering if they’ll play Theme From Titanic at the Inauguration. That would be truly prescient if they did. And who will be there to hear it, you ask? Good question. Because from what we know, even the protesters are sitting this one out.
Hotel bookings are way down ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration next week, and applications for protest permits are also off pace compared to the last time he took office.
The president-elect’s first inauguration sparked furious protests that led to violence and arrests in January 2017. This year the National Park Service has fielded far fewer requests for permits and law enforcement officials don’t anticipate trouble managing any crowds that do converge to oppose the incoming president, reported the Washington Post.
“The ‘Never Trump’ universe was bigger then,” Patrick Mara, chairman of the D.C. Republican Party, said of the last time Trump was inaugurated.
No, the Never Trump universe was not bigger. If anything it’s bigger now. It encompasses a lot of the world. What’s changed is that in 2016 there was a feeling that a fluke had taken place and we were beside ourselves that such a mistake could have happened. In 2024 this was no fluke. Half the electorate is fully this tuned out and this deluded to allow a second Trump term to ever happen in the first place. That’s the message. We are still in shock.
Authorities say there have been no specific security threats ahead of the inauguration, which is classified as a “national special security event,” but D.C. police will be fully activated all weekend — meaning that officers will be on duty starting Friday for as long as they’re needed. They’ll be joined by about 4,000 officers from around the country and up to 7,800 National Guard troops — down from the 25,000 troops deployed for Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021, two weeks after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The largest demonstration planned for next Monday, the “People’s March,” estimated in its application that 50,000 people would attend their protest. The Park Service is still processing several other permits, but no one is expecting anywhere near the roughly 470,000 demonstrators who showed up in 2017 for the Women’s March, the Post reported.
If this is starting to depress you, don’t let it. 2017 was a very different time. We were enraged and we were outraged. So the numbers showed that. Right now we don’t know what to think. Yes, there is some resignation that people feel, but more importantly there is a sense of waiting for the other shoe to drop. We don’t know what will happen. It won’t be until Trump is actually in office that things will leave the realm of the speculative and the rhetorical and we’ll know what we’re facing in real time.
Until that time, depend upon the American zeitgeist to be one of resigned apprehension. And know that that can change on a dime. If there is one thing we learned in 2020, when Trump was basically in a coasting pattern towards reelection until COVID hit and Americans began dying like flies, the only thing to be sure of is that there’s nothing to be sure of.
And when this flop Inauguration occurs, will Trump’s new press secretary lie and say it was the biggest Inauguration crowd of all time? I guess we’ll find out soon enough.
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Calling Sean Spicer…please revisit how our eyes deceive us.
“everything’s a little upside down…
as a matter of fact, the wheels have stopped.
What’s good is bad, what’s bad is good…
You’ll find out when you reach the top…
You’re on the bottom” Bob Dylan
With the giant inauguration slush fund the rich buttlickers have provided, I imagine a large part of the crowd will be more of those paid extras Trump always has around him!
You betcha!