The highly political Grammys all-time low ratings are why presidents don’t sing the State of the Union address: It makes your endeavor an example of rising to the level of your own incompetence. This straying-from-the-script phenomenon was well epitomized by Hillary Clinton’s pre-taped appearance at the music awards, where she joined others in reading excerpts from Fire and Fury, the Trump tell-all book that’s so much of a tell-all it even tells lies.
The failed ex-presidential candidate, ex-secretary of state, ex-senator, and ex-first lady — the only ex Hillary is not, ironically, given her husband’s continual infidelities, is an ex-wife — read a book passage about how President Trump liked eating at McDonald’s because he feared being poisoned. This evoked laughter from the audience, and not, presumably, because the tofu-and-tiara attendees fancy fast-food poison itself.
The 70-year-old Clinton’s reading, coming at the end of a video (shown below), was, “[Trump] had a longtime fear of being poisoned, one reason why he liked to eat at McDonald’s — nobody knew he was coming and the food was safely premade” (Note: The audience response isn’t heard in the following video).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjbysQgJ64Y
The laughter evoked by the poisoning story is interesting. While my history may be fuzzy, I do seem to recall that presidential assassination attempts aren’t exactly unheard of in American history. Given this, and that Trump is perhaps history’s most hated chief executive, why wouldn’t he be concerned about poisoning? (In fact, a commentator quipped before the 2016 election that if ex-NJ governor Chris Christie wanted a position in the Trump administration, he could become the president’s food taster.)
As for the Trumps, their taste for striking back when struck was apparent after the book reading, with Donald Trump, Jr. tweeting:
He’s not the only one to question the book’s veracity, mind you. The author of Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House, Michael Wolff, said himself that he can’t be sure everything in the tell-all is true. As Business Insider reported on the work’s release date, January 5, “Several of his sources, he says, were definitely lying to him, while some offered accounts that flatly contradicted those of others.”
Moreover, even some leftist sources, such as New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman, have said that some of the book’s “facts just don’t stack up,” as liberal CNBC put it.
It’s not surprising, though, that the leftist “Grammyrians” would use a scurrilous and suspect book to slam the president; the Left is infamous for having, to put it the way the Left would, a flexible relationship with the truth.
Just recently, for instance, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi characterized President Trump’s DACA (Democrat Annihilation of Conservative America) proposal — which leaves in place an immigration regime guaranteeing the non-white population’s continued growth — a blueprint to “make America white again” (I’d say you can’t make this stuff up, but Pelosi did).
How much Americans love having oh-so-erudite celebrities preach politics to them may help explain the Grammys declining ratings. As to this, Deadline Hollywood informs that the Sunday awards show “saw 19.81 million tune in to watch music’s supposedly biggest night. That’s down 24% from the final viewership of the February 12, 2017 Grammys.”
In addition, the Grammys had record-low ratings among the key 18-to-49 demographic, registering a 5.9 rating and being down 24 percent from last year’s Grammys. This is despite the show, unlike last year’s, not having had to go up against The Walking Dead series, which, belying its name, isn’t about deceased Democrat voters on election day. The popular zombie-apocalypse show doesn’t return for the second half of its eighth season until February 25.
But as the old Dutch saying goes, “We grow too soon old and too late smart.” Despite the NFL having demonstrated that a good way to become the corporate walking dead is to wade into divisive political issues, the Grammys nonetheless became the Slammys. Aside from Hillary and the other Grammyrians baleful book readings, Fox News reports that the night also saw “Kendrick Lamar taking the stage backed by a waving American flag flanked by a cadre of dancers dressed in military-like clothing. He performed his lightening [sic]-quick rap ‘XXX,’ which contains some political lyrics.”
Fox continued, “Camila Cabello had one of the more politically-charged moments of the night when she took the stage to make a plea in favor of Dreamers [Schemers?], referencing the debate happening in Washington D.C. over the repeal of DACA.”
“And Logic and U2 used their time on stage to slam Trump’s alleged ‘s—thole countries’ comment.”
But, hey, why not indulge politics? With the degraded state of modern entertainment — Hillary herself got a 1997 Best Spoken Word Album Grammy for It Takes a Village — many would point out that the Grammys couldn’t have possibly been about music, anyway.
Image: Screenshot of YouTube video by The Late Late Show With James Corden
