This Sunday, when upwards of 130 million people worldwide tune in to Super Bowl LX, the battle between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots will likely be dwarfed by media coverage of a Puerto Rican rapper named Bad Bunny. Known to fans as “The King of Trap,” he is expected to use this global platform for more stupid personal attacks on President Donald J. Trump and, especially, on our brave Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers.
The NFL has voluntarily devolved from our once-premier national sports franchise into a cesspool of anti-American slobs like Mr. Bunny whose primary function appears to be attracting teenage audiences whose idea of a concert revolves around “performing” (aka cursing) through songs featuring explicit language, slang, and mature themes…tearing down the very nation whose kids supply him with his multi-million dollar income.
We got a preview of what to expect during the Super Bowl when Bad Bunny hijacked another national TV audience during the recent Grammy Awards…using his Best Album acceptance speech to rant about deportation of Latinos, adding: “ICE out. We’re not savages, we’re not animals, we are humans and we are Americans … the only thing that is more powerful than hate is love, “ blah, blah, blah. The only thing more obnoxious in the past 10 days than viewers being hecktored by Bad Bunny has been aging rocker Bruce Springsteen trying to claw his way back into relevancy with a new ballad titled “The Streets of Minneapolis.” Ugh.
Which brings us to the sadly comedic schizophrenia of alleged artists trying to cope with the “Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts” in Washington, D.C. Literally the same day President Trump added his name to the outside of that Washington landmark, the mental breakdown of formerly rational entertainers erupted.
Cancellations rolled in…first one or two, then by the dozens. These fragile snowflakes apparently had such bad toilet training as children that the idea of even driving past a building with Donald Trump’s name on it sent them into tailspins of bedwetting and whining.
A sampling of those who raced to cancel upcoming performances in D.C. included:
- THE MARTHA GRAHAM DANCE COMPANY, which regretted “for a variety of reasons (CODE: Trump’s name affixed to the building) we are unable to perform at the Kennedy Center in April.” Spineless.
- THE WASHINGTON NATIONAL OPERA announced it was pulling up stakes after 55 years, due to what it called a "financially challenging" business model, which the WNO said was incompatible with its operations, “particularly following the renaming of the center to the Trump Kennedy Center." Wusses.
- MAGPIE, a self-described “folk duo,” cancelled their February 28 show, which they said “was going to be an evening of hard-hitting songs decrying the entire debacle of the fascist regime now running what’s left of the U.S. Government.” (I bet they’d have packed ‘em in for that fun-filled evening.)
- WAYNE TUCKER, a jazz trumpeter and composer, said he and his band “The Bad Mothas” (!) would not enter the Trump Kennedy Center doors.
Not to be unkind, but if this cadre of weepy artists refusing to perform included folks like “acclaimed banjoist” Bela Fleck…violinist Hsin-Yung Huang… Stephen Schwartz the composer of “Wicked,” and Latin Grammy nominee Sonia DeLos Santos (who stated she simply could not walk onstage because “as a woman of color and a Mexican-American immigrant, I believe this decision is an important example for younger generations”) they all might need to spend their down time reading John F. Kennedy’s “Profiles in Courage.” This ragtag band of bloviating leftists offers younger generations a profile, alright. A profile in Jell-O.
So faced with performers who refuse to perform and artists who will not practice their art, President Trump this week called their bluff and announced the Trump Kennedy Center will be closing for a two-year period during which much-needed repairs and updates will take place. The president suggested that parts of the center were hazardous…with “chunks falling from the ceiling.”
Since they wouldn’t perform there anyway, one would suppose closing the Trump Kennedy Center for repairs and refurbishing would be applauded by caring artists who would not want their fans to have chunks of concrete fall on their heads while swaying to the dulcet tones of Bad Bunny or Bela Fleck.
But one would be wrong.
Trump’s announcement prompted media jackals to attack him for putting members of the Washington National Symphony out of work. Washington Post columnist Philip Kennicott raced into print with a column headlined, “The Grave Risk of Trump’s Kennedy Center Shutdown.” The usual suspects at NPR and MS NOW rolled out poignant on-air interviews with musicians and stagehands who now face two years without paychecks. (Cue the violin music.)
So the Media-Artistic Complex—which embraces foul-mouthed “entertainers” like Bad Bunny performing at the now tarnished Super Bowl—once again validates the sadly typical D.C. mantra: Heads, liberals win…Tails, Trump loses.
But when you read or hear news items about how “Trump closed down the Kennedy Center,” kindly blame the rappers, the “accomplished banjoist,” and self-aggrandizing Washington National Opera fops who actually are responsible for pulling the rug out from under audiences in their pathetic succumbing to Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Tom Tradup is VP/News at Dallas-based Salem Radio Network; he can be reached at ttradup@srnradio.com
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