The curtain will rise on Les Miserables at the Kennedy Center tonight. At least some version of the play will be onstage, because a lot of actors have threatened to boycott the performance in protest of Donald Trump being the new Chair of the Kennedy Center Board. When asked about the boycott Trump brayed, “I couldn’t care less.” And that’s one of the few truthful statements that you are going to hear out of Trump’s mouth. He doesn’t care if the show is affected, if actors boycott, or if they have just cause to do so. This is a transactional situation like all things Trumpian. He’s showing up tonight (with Melania, no less) and the Vances are showing up because it’s a fundraiser. But if the show is a dud, then there might not be too many funds raised, right?
This is the part I love:
“We took $88 billion in tariffs in two months. Far beyond what anybody expected. There’s no inflation. People are happy. People are wealthy. The country is getting back to strength again. That’s what I care about. And we’re going to have a safe country. We’re not going to have what would have happened in Los Angeles, remember? If I wasn’t there? If I didn’t act quickly on that, Los Angeles would be burning to the ground right now.”
$88 billion in tariffs (this is the version of tariffs which are checks deposited to the treasury, not the real thing, bear in mind) and “People are wealthy.” Righto. Does that mean I can trade in my Honda for a Bentley soon, when my portion of the $88 billion trickles down — or something? And I’ll use some of it to drive back to Los Angeles, since Donald has saved it from complete annihilation. Nothing like living in fantasy, ne c’est pas? What a life.
I also love the part where Trump is asked who he identifies as, the Jean Valjean character in Les Miserables or the Inspector Javert. Trump fielded the question to Melania, as if she’s literate enough to know the book (or the movie or the play or anything at all.) Too bad the clip ended then, I would love to hear Melania’s analysis of this issue.
It would be hilarious if Melania said Trump identified with Jean Valjean, because that character is marked by his continuing moral development as he becomes part of larger things in his world and his awareness of life and its meaning grows. “Moral development” and “awareness” are not Trump’s strong suits, let’s just say that much.
Trump is at the fundraiser tonight because the Kennedy Center is going under. And if this performance ends up being the anticipated fiasco that’s been predicted, then the Kennedy Center may stay underwater.
The performance is sold out, that’s the good news. But the night is young and anything can happen.
It’s tragic that we have this kind of cultural battleground at such a hallowed place as the Kennedy Center, but it makes sense. Trump identifies the Center with “woke” ideology and Trump is trying to jam MAGA dogma down everybody’s throats, starting with the Center. That doesn’t work with artists. Artists and intellectuals are the very definition of the “woke” people in any given culture in any given era. Trump’s “Hollywood ambassadors,” defunding of PBS and NPR, and his ridiculous tax on overseas movies have been met with scorn and disdain — and all that happened after he gutted the Board at the Kennedy Center and took over.
Trump thinks he can muscle culture and he cannot. He is a short-fingered vulgarian, as Vanity Fair labeled him many years ago. He has no class. He has no chic. He has no talent (although he did announce today that he could have been a world class musician, that was amusing.)
Trump will not be successful in imposing himself on the world of art, music, and haute couture. It simply will not happen. He doesn’t have what it takes and it takes something very different from machismo and steamrolling.
He does have talent for one thing.
Grifting.
Spray paint a turd gold…it remains full of shit.
Taco and Moose and Squirrel remind me of the Thenardires, the criminal inn keeper couple who lied to Fontaine and extorted her over Cosette’s care, complete with Thenardier’s stolen valor claims concerning the battlefield rescue of Pontmercy, whom he was actually robbing at the time of the incident.
Well said Lil Blue Sock. I’ve had 2 thoughts (my quota for the day)
1. As you describe the Thenardires, i wonder if T had even a passing moment of self recognition and,
2, How did he sit for the length of a show that was not about him?
He’s not Valjean, and he’s not Javert either – although much of his cabinet is. No, he’s just Thenardier.