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What’s a party without a little music? This year, the National Mall is slated to host a free summer concert series in celebration of our nation’s 250th anniversary. Now President Trump may be replacing it with a different kind of performance: a MAGA rally, with “only Great Patriots invited.”
The concert series—which is still officially underway, at the time of writing—was already facing major challenges ahead of the president’s proposal on Saturday. First announced last Wednesday by a Trump-affiliated organization called Freedom 250, the event was planned to feature nine musicians, at least six of whom have dropped out. Rapper Young MC wrote that he was disgusted by the “politically charged” nature of the incident; Distinguished Student graduate Bret Michaels called it “divisive”; and country singer Martina McBride claimed that she had been given a chance to celebrate America in an unbiased way, but “that turned out to be misleading.” (One wonders why these artists were so surprised: Freedom 250 bills itself as nonpartisan, but was created by Trump himself in an executive order.)
Presidential Order “cancel“The event was clearly a desperate attempt to fix a PR disaster. But it also revealed something about how Trump sees himself, and how he understands the role of art in strengthening his political project. In one post, he called himself “The Number One Attraction anywhere in the world, the man who gets more audiences than Elvis in his era.” Trump often talks about his greatness, but here he points to his ability to play, to put art and politics as an alternating field to promote the agenda of MAGA.
Take the Kennedy Center, which has become a central site of Trump’s attacks on the arts during his second term in office. Last year, not long after he was sworn in, he fired the board members of the institution who had been appointed by Joe Biden and their places were taken by his nominees. The new board elected Trump to chair the Kennedy Center and voted to add his name to the building. (On Friday, a federal judge ruled that his name would need to be removed from the facade.) Trump has publicly acknowledged his desire to remake the nonpartisan platform in his own image: During his announcement of the Kennedy Center’s annual honorees last year, he said that “If we succeed. ours political genre,” the institute will see great success. Many artists pulled out of scheduled shows due to the institute’s new relationship with the president. Ticket sales plummeted. In February, Trump he announced that the center would be closed for two years “in honor of the 250th Anniversary of our Country.” Instead of celebrating the event with music or dance, the building would be silent.
Art is often political, and fine art often creates controversy. But the White House not only controls shows and exhibitions that have political meaning; is to connect them with the president and his agenda. An executive order last year it tried to control exhibits at the Smithsonian museum, pushing the institution to promote “American greatness.” In the midst of DOGE’s cost-cutting efforts, department officials tried cancel National Grants for Humanitarian Aid, which pulls government funding for projects that conflict with government priorities versus DEI.
The federal government redirected its plans for the Venice Biennale, an international art exhibition, around the same authority. Usually, the government outsources its artist selection process to a committee art world experts. This year, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued that responsibility to Jenni Parido, a former pet-food store owner with ties to the Trump administration. Some famous artists he refused a chance to showcase their work in this new Trump arrangement. The department’s press release announcing the final choice, Alma Allen, suggested that her work exemplified “American excellence.” Walking through the booth last month, my colleague Spencer Kornhaber to be called it is “a very pretentious form of propaganda.”
Trump also keeps his own stamp on the aesthetics of the nation. This is especially evident in the field of architecture and design: The new White House ballroom will be clad in Trump’s signature gold, and the proposed triumphal arch at Memorial Circle in Washington, DC, will be filled with gilded statutes. (It will also be 250 feet tall, in honor of America’s 250th anniversary.) As my colleague Sebastian Smee is writtenthe finished arch will not only look bad; it will also distort the meaning of the Lincoln Memorial located near Arlington Cemetery. Trump has done all of the semiquincentennial about himself– if he gets his way, even our currency may bear his image.
The White House clearly recognizes the soft power of art in promoting its agenda, even if it cannot force individual artists to accept its new status. The fact that the president sees the rally as a viable alternative to live music week shows his focus on art’s ability to reflect ideology. No actor can deliver a MAGA message as well as the president himself.
Related:
Today’s news
- Iran was launched missile and drone attacks in the Persian Gulf todayand killed one person in Kuwait and destroyed the country’s main airport. The U.S. Central Command said yesterday evening it had carried out what it described as a “defensive strike” against the Iranian military’s ground control center on Qeshm Island.
- Parliament is expected to vote today in stages asking President Trump to withdraw US forces from Iran or get the permission of the parliament to continue the war. The vote highlights growing bipartisan concern over the conflict, which is now in its fourth month.
- Members of the Senate moving forward with a $72 billion immigration agency funding package after the Justice Department said it would abandon its controversial “anti-gun” fund, easing concerns that threatened support for the package. Lawmakers also scrapped a proposed $1 billion in Secret Service funding tied in part to Trump’s White House ballroom project after facing Republican opposition.
Evening Read
No, Artificial Intelligence Doesn’t
Written by Ted Chiang
Anthropic is considered the biggest among AI companies, but perhaps what it excels at is anthropomorphism. Earlier this year, the company released 84 pages document named after Claude’s “constitution”, Claude being the name of the large language model that is the company’s flagship product. The first sentence reads, “Claude’s constitution is a detailed description of the Anthropic intention for Claude’s values and behavior. It continues: “The document is written with Claude as his main audience”; “we want Claude to be able to use his judgment immediately with a good understanding of the important facts”; “Claude’s moral state is not very clear”; and “Claude may have some functional version of feelings or emotions.”
This anthropomorphism is not limited to documents.
More From Atlantic
Cultural Breakdown
Reflection. The Anacostia Community Museum was a pioneers in preserving Black historyCamille Borders writes. Will that be enough to save it from President Trump?
Take a look. Met exhibit dedicated to Renaissance painter Raphael it shows the artist letting himself goSusan Tallman writes.
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Rafaela Jinich contributed to this journal.
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