Martina McBride's Cowardly Exit

And Springsteen's latest flail

In 2016, those with all of the power in this country took Trump’s win as an affront against Barack Obama and the America he shaped. They used that power to shun the half of the country that voted for Trump. They did worse than shun them. They treated them like their enemies at best and human garbage at worst.

They cast Obama as everything good about America and Trump as everything bad. Then they set up a series of tests and struggle sessions to ensure everyone picks a side. You’re with us, or you’re against us. Every movie star, movie studio, rock star, and comedian had to comply. Or else.

250 years after its founding, Donald Trump is the President of the United States again. Trump came back and won the popular vote, even if he isn’t exactly popular right now. They impeached him, indicted him, almost assassinated him, and here he still stands - a representative of this chaotic, young country if there ever was one, a survivor, a fighter.

And yet, American culture, however, has been treating him and his supporters as if Hitler and the Nazis merged with the second Confederacy, going on ten long years. Trump has survived them by some miracle.

That is still the most remarkable thing that has happened in culture and politics in my lifetime. It’s quite a story, but it’s one that will never be told, as long as the powerful still have their grip on culture.

Culture should be for everybody, and it hasn’t been for a long time. Now that Trump is the thing they can’t destroy or get rid of, they continually remind all of us how little they care about the half of the country that voted for Trump.

Vote for us or else. Believe what we believe or else. Support our issues and our causes, or else. Talk like we do, think as we do, want the same kind of America that we do, or else.

To celebrate America’s 250th, Trump has come up with Freedom 250, which is different from just an official celebration of America’s 250th birthday:

And because of that, Martina McBride and other two-bit hasbeens who were invited by the Trump administration to perform have backed out, with many of them giving the exact same statement, almost word for word. In short, they say they were “tricked” into thinking it was a nonpartisan event. Is anything nonpartisan now? No.

Once they claim their scalps, they do a victory dance, showing us all once again how ugly they are and why culture made by them will never be any good. It is only good if it has access to the truth, and they do not.

The Left knows they own the culture, and they flex their power at every opportunity. But does Bret Michaels look like a hero here? He doesn’t to me. He looks like someone who is desperate and scared — no one wants to be shut out of the culture and, more importantly, the money.

Will the real fascists please stand up?

One of the reasons for the collapse of American culture is the oppressive ideological mandate on thought and speech. The best offerings are films like Project Hail Mary, or Taylor Swift when she can manage to keep politics out of it, but these are few and far between.

Mostly, the woke fascists insist that everyone agree with their ever-changing, strident rules, with the most important one being that they see Donald Trump as Hitler. Whenever a cultural event rises up, or Trump attempts to bring some culture to the side of America left behind, it becomes one big struggle session: you’re with us, or you’re against us.

We’ve seen them throw their dumb little hissy fits over the Kennedy Center, or anything Trump touches. The worst of them has to be Bruce Springsteen, who cosplays as the same working-class hero he once was, but is now as much of a member of the Royal Court as Steven Spielberg and Barbra Streisand.

Now, he dares to pretend he still speaks for the people. Yeah, no, Boss. Not anymore. He spits in the face of his fans and, as with McBride and nearly all of them, shows his disdain for the people of this country every time he takes to the mic.

Power to the People says Bruce, knowing that the people elected Trump twice. People? He cares only about those who voted for Obama and can afford the high-priced tickets to his shows. He stopped caring about the people long ago.

But they love these counter-programming events just to ensure the people who voted for Trump, because these folks abandon them long ago, feel much worse about their lives. They want those who did not vote for Obama and all of their candidates to suffer. There is nothing in this about love, peace, or unity. All it says to me is that none of them are worth a damn anymore.

And note the date and the timing, just before the midterms.

The saddest, sickest part of this whole ugly game we’ve been playing for ten long years is that people like Bruce and those on the Left who have treated the Right like human garbage are at fault, that they’re the divisive ones.

So, to that end:

The people of this country should feel no obligation to buy anything. Not a movie ticket, concert ticket, or streaming subscription — why spend a dime on any of it? Don’t. Save your money.

Matt Walsh has it right. Trump should stop asking. We should all tune out a culture that continues to participate in a mass delusion and refuses to respect the people’s vote. Instead, find real artists who aren’t so petty and make them famous instead. That’s how you build culture in a collapsing empire.

In other words, have some dignity when it comes to these folks. We know the answer by now. There is no saving the Left. A new counterculture will have to be reinvented, one that isn’t drawn down party lines and one that can celebrate all of America. We all need it. These folks blackmail Americans into compliance and, in so doing, have destroyed every great thing they ever did.