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Kennedy Center Honors Continues Trump Momentum to Unify Americans Through Art
The incredible artists who were awarded Kennedy Center Honors Sunday night rose above partisan rancor and helped showcase the universal appeal of President Donald Trump’s valiant efforts to restore America’s cultural jewel.
Trump made history as the first president to host the Kennedy Center Honors, an event founded 48 years ago to give lifetime achievement medals to iconic artists.
I spoke with several of the honorees, who included actor-director Sylvester Stallone, singers George Strait, Gloria Gaynor, and Michael Crawford, along with rock band KISS. Each said that art is unifying, universal, and should be free from partisan tribalism.
“I think it’s nonsense,” KISS musician Paul Stanley told The Daily Signal about critics trying to vilify Trump and artists who accept Honors under Trump’s presidency. “And it’s almost embarrassing, because this isn’t a political event. This is a celebration of the arts, and I don’t believe that any other people who have gotten these accolades were asked who they voted for or what their political beliefs were.
“So, to suddenly spring on us the idea that that should push us one direction or another really, I think, eclipses the idea that the arts are what are being celebrated and what all of these people have brought to the public in their own way. I think everybody should just calm down.”
Before the show, Trump told the press the Honorees were chosen from a list of about 50 names. Trump also told The Daily Signal that next year’s Kennedy Center programming for the America 250 Celebrations would also include tributes to some of the country’s most prominent UFC fighters.
This year, under Trump’s leadership as board chair, Kennedy Center Honors raised a record $23 million—the highest haul for Honors ever raised and nearly double the $12.7 million raised last year under former President Joe Biden.
“I’m an actor. I’m non-political,” Crawford, most noted for playing the Phantom in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical “Phantom of the Opera,” told The Daily Signal. “[Trump]’s an enthusiastic fan of the music, and I’m here for the audience that has been kind to me since we’ve been in America.”
Crawford, 83, who is British, complimented America for its artistic vibrancy and “great freedom.”
“I saw the original cast of ‘West Side Story,’ and that changed my life, to see that energy,” Crawford said. “We didn’t do musicals like that in England … I love the freedom. But it took a lot of bravery to be like that in England. So, it was good when I got over here and worked in ‘Hello, Dolly!’ I had that freedom to be that way.”
“Good art isn’t political, and I think maybe what’s happened in the past is that it’s not been great art, not been great shows,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy told The Daily Signal before the Honors show. “It’s pretty hard-pressed to go, ‘We’ve got right-wing music.’ That doesn’t really exist. It’s just good music, and [Trump]’s looked to this facility, the Kennedy Center, and said ‘I want to bring in the best artists and the best shows.’”
Clearly, people are hungry for artistic programming that appeals to all Americans and veers away from woke partisanship like under Biden.
“I think no matter what the president does, people will try to criticize him, which is too bad,” Duffy continued. “If you love the performing arts, then you have a president who cares about it the way that he does, who wants to find donors to give to this facility and the Congress to give money to make it great, then you should celebrate that. But because he does it, they get angry. That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
“But again, I think the Left can’t wrap their heads around Donald Trump doing something for a facility that they actually like. They should just stop and say, ‘Thank you, Donald Trump, you are amazing. Well done.’”
Kari Lake, senior advisor to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, told The Daily Signal Trump is revitalizing the Kennedy Center for all Americans.
“Arts are a place where we can escape, where we can walk away, we can walk into a theater, we walk into a venue and we can turn off any animosity we have, let go of our politics and it doesn’t matter if you’re Democrat, Republican, American, another nationality,” Lake said. “You sit down and listen to Mozart. You listen to a symphony—you escape. And so that’s what it should be about.”
Carrie Sheffield is author of “Motorhome Prophecies: A Journey of Healing and Forgiveness” and program manager of Healthy Faith.
We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.
The post Kennedy Center Honors Continues Trump Momentum to Unify Americans Through Art appeared first on The Daily Signal.
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