Donald Trump celebrates pantheon Trump-approved Kennedy Center honorees
On Wednesday, the president returned to the Kennedy Center to make announcements about this year's honorees, showing off his vision for the arts institution that would fulfill the goal he promised earlier this year: to 'reflect the brightest STARS on its stage from all across our Nation.'
Trump is eager to leave his imprint on America not just through participating in legislation and budgeting but by changing what culture we recognize and celebrate and teach, across American museums, universities and beyond.
For colleges, he is brokering deals where he promises to withhold funding until the schools pay the government for various misdeeds he says they have committed, thereby earning a clean slate for some period of time. For DC, he brought in the FBI, military and tanks. For the Kennedy Center, it was even easier: he simply appointed a board that would name him as chairman.
'It's going to be a big evening,' Trump said, about the upcoming Kennedy Center awards evening. 'I've been asked to host,' he said, adding that he'd declined, but that the board had insisted. 'Next year we'll honor Trump.'
His 'STARS' turned out to be: George Strait, the record-setting country recording artist. Also, Michael Crawford, 'one of the greatest talents I've ever actually seen,' Trump said. He waxed rapturous about Crawford's roles in the theater, most notably in 'The Phantom of the Opera.' Trump gave a big lead up to an 'action movie icon and a friend of mine, a very unique man,' Trump said. That was Sylvester Stallone. 'He was very honored to be honored.'
Gloria Gaynor, singer of the great American gay anthem 'I Will Survive,' also made the list — 'an unbelievable song,' Trump said. 'One of those few that get better every time you hear it.' Ivana Trump agreed — this was the song, she wrote in her memoir, 'Raising Trump,' that she listened to in court with headphones during her divorce trial from Trump.
Also making the list: the legendary makeup-forward rock band KISS.
The president's love of culture has always been deep if narrow and has often turned to disco. A Spotify playlist of his 2020 campaign presidential rally songs brings together artists as diverse yet clustered together as Elton John, the Village People and Bachman-Turner Overdrive. That playlist also includes the Rolling Stones, who are among the many artists who have objected to Trump's endorsement of or use of their music.
Trump clearly adores the song 'Macho Man' and the brassiest of show tunes. This is the president who once allegedly had a fellow around to play him the song 'Memory' from Cats whenever he was too upset.
The experience of seeing 'Cats' is what Trump recalled, with great passion, in a meeting with Kennedy Center trustees in March, during which he pledged to bring Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals back to our nation's capital.
One funny thing about 'Memory,' that show's most famous song, is that it's famous because of Betty Buckley's performance, which Trump says he remembers with great detail. Buckley herself says she built that performance from following around women who were homeless. In doing so, she had a realization. She explained to the New Yorker: 'I began to follow homeless people—women my age, women who were like me—trying literally to interpret them. I was playing it pathetically—but what I saw instead on the streets were women really trying to hold on to their dignity, so their self-presentation was all dignity and grace.'
After announcing the honorees, the president offered some thoughts of his own about homeless people. As part of his plan to make Washington 'beautiful'—now that he has taken over the city's police department and dispatched federal officers and the National Guard — Trump said, 'We're going to have to remove the tents and the people that are living in our parks.'
'They're saying 'he's a dictator,'' Trump said of critics of his current approach to governance. 'Instead of saying 'he's a dictator,' they should say 'We're going to join him.'' The president promised more intervention in cities beyond D.C., including Los Angeles, Chicago and New York: 'Our whole country is going to be so different.'
'I don't want to call a national emergency,' he said, 'but if I have to I will.'
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