The Party of One

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What began as a supposedly nonpartisan national celebration appears to have taken a sharp detour into campaign-country.

The event’s original lineup looked like a strange but entertaining playlist assembled by someone spinning a giant wheel of nostalgia: Lee Greenwood, Christopher Macchio, Vanilla Ice, Flo Rida, Fab Morvan (still carrying the Milli Vanilli banner), military bands, drum corps, and armed forces choruses.

     Then came the withdrawals.

One by one, artists including The Commodores, Morris Day & The Time, Martina McBride, Bret Michaels, and Young MC reportedly decided they would rather spend the weekend doing literally anything else.    

   Several states—including Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington—also declined to participate, citing cost concerns and discomfort with the increasingly partisan tone of the event.

 

     At some point, attendees may have begun realizing they weren’t being invited to a national fair as much as they were being recruited as scenery.

 

     With the exits piling up, the remaining roster began to resemble a game of musical chairs where most of the chairs had already left the building. Those still standing could reasonably be described as either committed performers, true believers, or people whose agents stopped answering the phone.

 

     Notably absent from the discussion are several names observers expected to see. Some may be touring. Some may have wisely scheduled dentist appointments. Others may have simply decided that becoming a political talking point wasn’t worth the frequent-flyer miles.

 

     In the end, President Donald Trump reportedly canceled the remaining concert schedule altogether and replaced it with what the event seems to have been evolving into from the start: a massive political rally headlined by himself.

Which raises the obvious question: If a nonpartisan celebration slowly sheds its musicians, loses participating states, transforms into a campaign-style rally, and ends with a speech by the politician at the center of it all—was it ever really nonpartisan in the first place?

 

     Sometimes the most revealing part of a concert is not who’s on stage.

It’s who left before the show started.

 

“At some point, attendees may have begun realizing they weren’t being invited to a national fair as much as they were being recruited as scenery.”