No Modern Celebs Could Be Bothered To Perform For America 250

Freedom 250 revealed its lineup of featured performers for The Great American State Fair on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. to celebrate America’s 250th birthday, and it’s … interesting to say the least.

The lineup includes a Lionel Richie-less Commodores, a Poison-less Bret Michaels, a guy with one song to his name, the state of Florida, and 1/2 of Milli Vanilli. Martina McBride is good, I guess.

For some reason, the promise at the bottom of the flier — “and many more!” — does not inspire much confidence.

To top it off, within 24 hours of the announcement, Morris Day and The Time, as well as Young MC, announced that they would not be performing after all, with Young MC specifically citing the “politically charged” nature of the event.

Just in case you thought that this might just be a rinky-dink sideshow to the real, government-sponsored celebration, no, Freedom 250 is the official public-private partnership working with the White House Task Force 250 and other federal entities to coordinate the festivities. And this is the best they could come up with.

While I’m sure there are some who are excited to hear their billionth playback of “Ice, Ice Baby” or watch Milli or Vanilli lip sync, it doesn’t take a music critic to recognize that the music industry is not sending its best to this event.

Rather than get some washed-up has-beens who haven’t been relevant in years, they could make the effort of getting some unknown artists who actually have conservative principles and real talent. They’re everywhere in Nashville. You can find them in any bar on Broadway or Music Row.

There are plenty of talented conservative performers who may not have the name recognition but are nonetheless itching at the chance to show their talent on a national stage and honor their country. If big-name celebrities aren’t willing to honor our country, then the Trump administration should have made the effort to find normal people who would and show off the homegrown talent that abounds in America.

It’s slightly concerning that they couldn’t even get an old reliable like Lee Greenwood or Kid Rock to headline, but, more importantly, it’s a national embarrassment that not a single modern, mainstream celebrity can be bothered to celebrate America’s 250th birthday.

It’s America 250. A-list, relevant celebrities should be falling over themselves to perform at this event, and they would be if a Democrat were president, assuming (and that’s a big assumption) a Democrat would hold a celebration at all.

Of course, it’s all about politics. No chart-topping star with leftist bona fides (i.e. virtually all of them) would be caught dead performing on the National Mall because “Orange Man Bad,” regardless of the significance of the event. Even the very few moderates or closet conservatives likely won’t take the risk of performing for the American people because they fear professional retaliation, simply because a Republican who has a mandate from the voters sits in the White House. The brand managers for these celebrities will no doubt post obligatory patriotic platitudes on Independence Day, but they’ll either point to America’s diversity as its strength or contain all the sincerity of Mike Pence’s latest National Review article.

The fact is, we have a large subsection of the population, including the vast majority of those who occupy the highest levels of entertainment and the media — institutions which play a vital role in molding our country’s perception of itself — who despise this nation and rue its impending birthday.

This sharp of a patriotic split between the American people, who by all accounts are excited to go all out on this extra special 4th of July, and the people who produce this country’s pop culture cannot stand. There has to be a reckoning between the American people who cry out for patriotic content and a media-entertainment complex that does everything in its power to demonize the United States. It can’t go on like this. Either patriots take back the culture, or the current pop culture regime will destroy the social fabric of the country. There are no other options.

Casinos in Biloxi, Mississippi, have better performers on a random weekend than the event to celebrate America’s 250th birthday does. Just let how insane that is sink in. It’s a stark reminder of how far we’ve fallen as a civilization.

The celebrations for the Bicentennial in 1976 look like they come from a different country, and in many ways, they do. Just look at this Coca-Cola ad from 1976 that you would never see today. Those days of easy Americanism, when patriotism and civic pride could be taken for granted, are long gone. Even though the economy was sluggish, we had just extricated ourselves from a defeat in Vietnam, and the public was reeling from the Watergate Scandal, America came together and put on a massive, inspiring show to mark its second century.

The near-complete disregard for the upcoming celebration by the left and the up to this point lackluster preparation by the administration reflects the apathy and disgust many of our citizens feel for the nation at this moment. The America 250 celebrations are a chance to reverse that trend, to remind us why America is great and why patriotism is a necessary good for our nation. In this precarious political moment we find ourselves in, we can’t let this milestone pass us by with a whimper instead of a bang. If we fail to honor our history and can’t manage to pull out all the stops to make this an unforgettable 4th of July, it might be a bellwether for where the country as a whole is headed.

Hayden Daniel is a staff editor at The Federalist. He previously worked as an editor at The Daily Wire and as deputy editor/opinion editor at The Daily Caller. He received his B.A. in European History from Washington and Lee University with minors in Philosophy and Classics. Follow him on Twitter at @HaydenWDaniel