When the roster of artists slated to play the Great American State Fair was announced earlier this week, D.C.'s reaction was simple: Why couldn't we get A-List talent?
Two days later, the question has changed: Why couldn't we even keep D-List talent?
The first to bust a move was Young M.C., the rapper best known for the 1989 hit "Bust a Move.”
"The artists were never told about any political involvement with the event,” he wrote on Instagram early Thursday, noting that SPIN had described the gig as "Trump-backed.”
More drop-outs followed. Morris Day, the longtime Prince collaborator who appeared in 1984's Purple Rain, declared that "contrary to the rumor, Morris Day & The Time will not be performing.” Milli Vanilli, the 1980s duo best remembered for a lip-synching scandal where it turned out they hadn't even sang their own song, declared that they had never agreed to perform in the first place.
The Commodores, the legendary 1970s soul act, were next: “Our music has always been our voice and we choose not to publicly affiliate with any single political party,” they wrote on social media.
The most painful hits came last. Country singer Martina McBride, who actually has fans in MAGA America, pulled out early in the evening. “I was presented with the opportunity to perform at a nonpartisan event but that turned out to be misleading,” she wrote in a long, somber statement.
And then came Bret Michaels, singer of the 1980s hair-metal band Poison — and a one-time winner on The Celebrity Apprentice. “Unfortunately, what was presented to us as a celebration of our country has evolved into something much more divisive than I agreed to be part of,” he wrote.
The internet has had a lot of fun with it, but the vibe may also feel familiar to Washingtonians: It’s not so different from what happened after Trump took over the Kennedy Center and acts started pulling out in order to not be associated with a once-neutral seeming institution that had now acquired a political charge.
Sure enough, Ric Grenell, who presided over the Kennedy Center during the artistic exodus, weighed in to slam McBride: “You’ve always been a woke lefty,” he wrote on X. In another post, he referred to the cancellations as “censorship.”
It’s not — though you can expect some political fireworks from one side or the other over Michaels’ claim that “concerns have been raised regarding the safety of my fans, band, crew, family, and myself, including threats that are completely unfounded and unforgivable.”
Artists have a right to associate with whatever political figure they want. But these particular artists’ choices are sad all the same. It used to be that playing at a big national institution like the Kennedy Center, or joining a National Mall festival designed to celebrate July 4, didn’t feel like linking arms with any political figure at all.
The Trump-era personalization of the capital’s symbolic core — the president was talking up his plans for the Mall even as the cancellations rolled in — has changed the dynamic so even hokey D.C. stuff now feels inextricably tied to the guy at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
That’s especially true for the Great American State Fair. Given that the festival is full of Make America Healthy Again content, it’s not hard to see why people would think of it as not just another bit of federal-city programming.
This change in the political valence of the Mall and its festivals, in the long run, is especially lousy for D.C. residents. We used to enjoy the benefits of capital-city events — sometimes with actual A-list stars — that you couldn't see in a regular American metropolis. Not these days.
Luckily, we can still see Vanilla Ice and Flo Rida, who as of this writing have not canceled.
