Tarnished Oscar Gold

“It's a political time, so I imagine the Oscars will look exactly like your Twitter of Facebook feed. Why should we ignore for three hours what we're talking about 24 hours a day?” – Lin-Manuel Miranda, “Hamilton” creator, in a guest column for the Hollywood Reporter on February 20, 2017

At the nexus of art and commerce, the movie business has always been about escapist entertainment. Today, that dynamic is severely undermined by actors making polarizing statements during awards shows. Naturally, everyone is certainly entitled to an opinion. Yet, sometimes it's wiser to keep a controversial view private if it's likely to alienate the public. After all, ticket buyers keep the whole industry afloat. Isn't this lack of civility equivalent to biting the hands that feed them?

Recall, the purpose of the Academy Awards is to celebrate the practitioners of the dream factory. Perhaps the best representation of this was Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers gliding across the dance floor in their “Top Hat” (1935) finery! Watching them, the audience could briefly forget about their Great Depression troubles. This Sunday, the glitterati dressed in designer duds for a three-hour spectacle should behave accordingly. Why then does Lin-Manuel Miranda encourage real-life banality to intrude?

Would someone read Lin-Manuel his Miranda rights: swear him—and his fellow travelers in La-La Land—to blissful silence just this once? Honestly, does anyone go to the theater to be lectured to? Historically, as today, people go to movies for many reasons: for vicarious experience, to learn something new, to have an emotional outlet or simply to be distracted from our social ills. None of the above include to feel irritated. Therefore, the Silent Majority speak loudly—with their feet—by avoiding the cinema. Likewise, the TV ratings for the Oscars has also fallen to the lowest point since 2008. Who isn't weary of the vitriol—the perpetual airing of grievances and political causes—by the rich and famous? And why should these truly fortunate complain, or target fellow Americans for holding a different perspective?

The statistics of erosion tell the tale. Only 9.7 percent of the population or 27.3 million people (read: 3 percent of adults in 2017) still go to the movies weekly. Compare that to 80 million or 65 percent of the population who went to the movies at the same rate during the Astaire-Rogers era. Of course, high cost and a plethora of modern options are contributing factors to the titanic decline. And exactly how does A-list divisiveness help?

In skilled hands, any successful movie message is accomplished with subtlety and persuasion. Even though the medium is fictional, the heart and the intellect are authentically moved. Actors function as living props in the enterprise of telling a story. Their talents are based on conveying other people's words. Without the safety net of a script to parrot, these professionals at make believe are lost. Ironically, they come off as hollow when they ad-lib. Thus, it's clear why their turned off viewership has dwindled—and their do-gooder intentions fall on their cradled Oscar's deaf ears.

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Audiences Abandon Hateful Hollywood

“I sincerely apologize for my lapse of judgment, ... for causing such dismay and heartbreak to my fans. … Regretfully, I did not take into consideration that my performing for the [Trump inaugural] concert would actually instead be taken as a political act against my own personal beliefs and be mistaken for support of Donald Trump and Mike Pence.” – cowed Broadway songbird Jennifer Holliday

To coin a new phrase, intolerant Hollywood is “Streeped” (rather than steeped) in liberal fascism. Tony Award-winner Jennifer Holliday had participated in presidential inauguration festivities since Ronald Reagan. That included four presidents, Democrats and Republicans alike. Why then the firestorm of criticism and n-word profanity for her agreeing to perform at last Thursday's “Make America Great Again! Welcome Celebration”? In 2017, how is singing at a pro-American event suddenly “offensive”? Yet, Ms. Holliday's dogmatic Hollywood overlords misconstrued her authentic patriotism as a public act of defiance. Their marching orders to her (and others) were unequivocal: perform for Trump and you'll never work in this town again. So, she didn't: Sieg Heil!

Hitting a crescendo in the polarizing Obama years, Hollywood—in absolute lockstep with the propagandist MSM—has been politically weaponized. Therefore, is it any wonder that an article last June in Vanity Fair reported: “2016 is on track to be Hollywood’s worst year for ticket sales in a century”? Hollywood's overt, anti-patriotism has made it radioactive to its middle America movie-skipping audience. You know, the salt of the earth folks populating the vast spaces outside of Democrats' cosmopolitan urban centers. This Silent Majority elected President Donald Trump. Those sick of being demonized by failed Democratic politicians as “deplorables”—and lectured to by Hollywood limousine liberals who “know better” than the rest of us.

To be fair, the underlying economics of this steady decline are complex. They include high ticket prices, a preponderance of sequels and reboots (read: a lack of original material) and a host of fingertip entertainment options including satellite TV, and paid streaming services like Netflix. However, the vital element not factored into any of these calculations is the widening left-right cultural divide.

A-list Hollywood actors are the best at playing make-believe. Essentially, these surrogates function as attractive movie props. Thus, they parrot the ideas of off-screen, invisible others. In cinema classic “Sunset Boulevard” (1950) character Joe Gillis (played by William Holden) admitted:

“Audiences don't know somebody sits down and writes a picture; they think the actors make it up as they go along.”

He's right. Actors convey the writer's words, feelings—and most importantly, message. That's why Hollywood types—when speaking for themselves—come off as condescending, entitled and phony. Even someone as exalted as Meryl Streep. Indeed, her Golden Globe anti-Trump rant disrespected and alienated millions of American voters. Further, her unwarranted criticism of the then President-elect showed a fundamental lack of fairness. And given her lack of good faith, what loyal American will spend hard earned dollars to watch her future films?

These Hollywood elites are very well paid visual placeholders in a story. Nothing more. Their power depends on their ability to fill increasingly empty chairs in entertainment venues. What has-been “Sunset” actress Norma Desmond (played by Gloria Swanson) called, “Those wonderful people out there in the dark!” Our modern-day equivalent to this character is the deluded, self-important Meryl Streep.

Her ilk will quickly discover that Trump's America is a new paradigm. Unfortunately, for regurgitating imaginary grievances, Ms. Streep is not the most atrocious example. That title goes to washed up actress and singer Madonna. At Saturday's misguided Women's March on Washington, the Material Girl provocateur publicly proclaimed she had “thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House.” In true Orwellian fashion—after understandable blowback—she clarified she had actually intended a 'revolution of love'. What two-faced Clinton style 'is'-word gobbledygook! Madonna's un-American totalitarianism is crystal clear.

Expressed anarchy is not free speech. It's a call to violence—inciting potential criminal acts—and advocating sedition. Consequently, the superficial shine is rapidly fading from loud-mouthed celebrity egotists. And only time will tell if anti-American know-nothings—exemplified by Streep and 'Madge'—will suffer forgotten Norma Desmond's fate. The new sunset is “Streeped” Hollywood: those marginalized for imposing themselves as ideologues instead of simply entertaining. These left-wing poseurs should stick to their prepared scripts (or sheet music). They need not play politics too, by spewing Hitlerian hate from the nearest MSM microphone.

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“Hamilton's” Burr “Assassinates” Pence

“The fundamental source of all your [read: progressive Democrats] errors, sophisms and false reasonings is a total ignorance of the natural rights of mankind. Were you once to become acquainted with these, you could never entertain a thought, that all men are not, by nature, entitled to a parity of privileges [read: God-granted rights and freedoms]. You would be convinced, that ... civil liberty is founded in that; and cannot be wrested from any people, without the most manifest violation of justice.” – Alexander Hamilton on February 23, 1775

What is it with the unfortunate intersection of troublemaking thespians and political leaders in American theaters? In this case I refer not to Lincoln and Booth, but to Vice President-elect Pence and “Hamilton assassin,” lead actor, Brandon Victor Dixon.

Recall, Mr. Pence is newly elected, not yet in office. He's paid a small fortune for Broadway theater tickets. He's out for the evening with family for a few well-deserved hours of entertainment. It's bad enough that the partisan New York crowd ungraciously boos him. Given this polarized environment, was it really appropriate for Dixon (playing the ironically “murderous” Vice President Aaron Burr) to add editorial heat by publicly calling Pence out? Now imagine if President-elect Barack Obama was in Mike Pence's “Hamilton” hot seat.

By invoking the heightened emotions of a contentious election, Dixon targeted the innocent man present with damning words: disrespecting Pence, Trump and the voters. Despite his lofty rhetoric, this actor's clearly manipulative behavior was unmistakably designed to incite political tensions:

“We, sir, are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us: our planet, our children, our parents or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights, sir. But we truly hope this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us.”

How is this not metaphorical character assassination? One somehow doubts Dixon would have slandered Barack Obama as he unkindly insulted Pence. If that did happen, identity politics obsessed liberals would be shrieking from the rooftops how close-minded (even racist!) the spokesman of the “Hamilton” cast is. (How dare they not give Obama the benefit of the doubt!) While everyone is entitled to an opinion, another American value is giving the new fellow a fair shake. Thus, Dixon's premature and wholesale condemnation is the only “alarming” element here. It's fascism in full flower.

For the record, arrogantly smug Obama said in January of 2009: “Elections have consequences, and at the end of the day, I won.” (Contrast that to Trump who tellingly said in his victory speech: “we won.”) The fact is that Barack Obama has been the most divisive president of the modern age. With overreaching executive orders he habitually ignored Congress and the rule of law, never considered the conservative perspective (populating the vast spaces between coastal urban centers), and never even pretended to represent the Silent Majority who has tapped Donald Trump to be the 45th U.S. president.

Apparently the “Hamilton” company is corrupted by progressive ideologues in desperate need of a crash course in Founding Father philosophy. They pay lip service to the value of “diversity” while rankly embodying intolerance. Today, poor Alexander Hamilton turns restlessly in his grave! His life is portrayed by a troupe of ignorant pretenders; led by “assassinating” actor Brandon Victor Dixon: the epitome of a rabble-rousing poser.

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'Foxy' Trump: Non-Binary President

Whatever the label, Donald Trump is as sly as a fox. (By comparison, the MSM's harebrained analysis of him and the GOP is as insightful as a squawking and confused Chicken Little.) As the political landscape rightful quakes with the People's voice through The Donald's brash persona, is the sky falling? Well, it is, but only for beltway insiders—of either party. For these polarizing, irresponsible spendthrifts who have transformed America into a 19 trillion dollar debtor nation with 93 million jobless—a dysfunctional mess—the “party” of the ruling class is over. The voters have nominated our first non-binary political candidate—since George Washington at the nation's inception—an “outsider” also not beholden to either side of the aisle.

In two hundred and twenty years we have come full circle to the Founding Father's sage warning about the factionalism of our then emerging two-party system. In his 1796 Farewell Address, Mr. Washington said:

“[Political party] serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption [read: Hillary Clinton], which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.”

What is crumbling is not the Republican party. (That authority ultimately resides with voters and elections.) What's “cracking up” is dead wood emblematic of House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI): entrenched elites who don't want a power vacuum created by an upstart. For further historical context, look to 1975: Ronald Reagan faced identical resistance in his unsuccessful insurgency campaign against sitting president Gerald Ford. Indeed, Mr. Ryan's shallow praise of Mr. Reagan is an example of the real problem that plagues Republican “leaders”: insulated powerbrokers who systematically (and hypocritically) pay lip service to disregarded conservative principles like fiscal responsibility and limited government. That went out the window when Mr. Ryan rubber stamped two trillion dollars of additional spending to the nation's Chinese credit card.

Actions, rather than words, are key because they demonstrate anyone's inherent character. This obvious truth is evident as readily in life as it is in politics. This is why Mr. Trump is a live wire when compared to traditional politicians empty rhetoric (read: Mr. Obama). With speechifying, progressives say its important to make unoffending noises about one's neighbors, but they consistently act in ways that are polarizing and destructive to our republic. Of this specific modern day development, George Washington foretold:

“However combinations or associations [ie, the Democratic Party] of the above description may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.”

If that isn't an indictment of the lawless, corrupt and anti-American Obama regime, perhaps this is an even more apt description:

“The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.”

Are we more free or less so under the disastrous Obama years? (Hint: check your Obamacare bill and bank account balance.) Has he not been considered an almost quasi-religious “savior” by his unquestioning party—and universally praised by the hard left propagandist MSM—despite a laundry list of domestic and international failures? Worse still is an administration that has done its best to consign the Constitution and the Bill of Rights to the ash heap of history. All for a pro-Castro fascist (an anti-JFK Democrat) to seize ultra-constitutional power under the banner of nebulous “hope and change.”

Not so fast. Mr. Obama has had a great deal of trouble with political tar baby that is the Second Amendment. Likewise, the foundational protection of The First Amendment is similarly intractable. Therefore, dissent is still guaranteed (despite NSA surveillance). That includes Mr. Trump's unpopular speech, bothersome as its tone is to some hypersensitive segments of our society. Yet, The Donald's independence from politics-as-usual is essential. Despite being criticized as a vulgarian, his bare knuckle style provides immunity from the vagaries of squabbling, out of touch political parties. Moreover, his track record of proven private sector success—and his Reaganesque pledge to “Make America Great Again”—are all that matters to the Silent Majority turbocharging this unconventional candidate's meteoric rise.

For the record, Mr. Trump's impolitic statements were a necessary strategy to distinguish himself from the pack of 16 other major contenders. Likewise, the same method will be a highly effective mechanism, the hammer to the nail of crooked Hillary's presidential prospects. As past is prologue, as savvy as any seasoned pro—and despite breaking every conventional rule—Donald Trump is the last man standing in what was a vigorous Republican contest. He masterfully achieved that little feat while simultaneously finessing two billion dollars in free advertising from a hostile (and hoodwinked) MSM. Only a fool believes these are flukes of a bigoted ignoramus.

Speak of which is Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson who incorrectly claims support of Trump is tantamount to seeing “lunacy dancing in high places.” His skewed perception is classical psychological projection. The dancing lunacy isn't the Trump phenomenon, it's literally Barack Obama's careless tango in Cuba. With no offense intended to the quoted words of obscure G.K. Chesterton, another brainy guy said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” That's what one gets from a Hillary Clinton presidency—and her promise of an Obama third term.

Who knew Mr. Trump would turn out to be a George Washington style “America/n First” patriot: unbound by the constraining weight of a close political affiliation? Therefore, our path out of the land of liberal looney tunes—which includes do-nothing Republican elites—is clear. In 2016, it appears the winning skill set of a U.S. president is a flexible outsider, a true-blue capitalist of considerable business acumen; a Manhattanite marketing genius. In this regard, this presumptive nominee ran a successful insurgency campaign within the umbrella of the Republican party. However, in contrast to either party's inherent pack mentality, The Donald stands unique: a no-holds barred fighter in this peculiar age of coddled Obama Pajama Boys. Speaking of an insufferable man-child, there is the Democrat-capitulating Paul Ryan, the poster boy for a Republican in Name Only (RINO). He and fellow travelers like the left's law-breaking Hillary and America's geo-political foes should beware. 

Twitter: @DavidHunterblog

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