Can Someone Support Trump and Be a Theatre Fan?
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Editor’s Note: In our effort to broaden the discussion, I decided to allow this article to be published because it did not violate any of our publishing rules nor does it promote any hate speech. OnStage Blog has always been about publishing various opinions and will continue to do so as long as they are presented rationally and thoughtfully.
Last week, OnStage Blog detailed contributions from James L. Nederlander to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, raising the question of whether theatre fans, actors, and producers, should boycott his theaters. The theory behind the boycott is that President Trump’s candidacy, and possibly republican candidacies writ large, is uniformly detrimental to people of color and principles that theatre stands for; as a result, the theory goes, no one who supports the theater community should support President Trump or any of his financial backers.
I ask all readers to question the hypothesis that only Democrats, or more broadly, people who do not support the Trump agenda, can love theatre.
Please keep in mind that I did not vote for Trump in 2016 and will not vote for him in 2020. I want him soundly defeated in November. However, I am doing this exercise because I believe it to be extremely dangerous to accuse people who do not vote for a specific political party of not supporting theatre.
A Trump agenda can, in theory, support theatre in many ways. Here are five:
1) Lower Taxes. Trump campaigned and will likely continue to campaign on lowering taxes for everybody. Theatre performers can keep more money in their paychecks via tax cuts so they can support their communities as they see fit versus having tax money be filtered through endless bureaucracy. More individual spending power would certainly help the theatre community.
2) Jobs/Economy. If you believe Trump is the best candidate at helming the best economy possible and making wages rise, then that unequivocally would help the theatre community. More people employed would mean more people would have money to see Broadway and community theatre shows.
3) Healthcare. Trump promised and continues to promise, to end Obamacare. There are major disagreements with how to get affordable access to healthcare, I won’t argue which approach is the best one here, but there are arguments to be made that Obamacare is way too expensive an arrangement for people who don’t have employer-sponsored healthcare. Lower healthcare costs would certainly help the theatre community.
4) Energy. Trump continues to campaign on ramping up energy production, especially oil. He has acted on a few measures, including approving the Keystone pipeline and encouraging natural gas exploration via fracking. These measures have in part resulted in lower gas and heating bills for the entire country, including the theatre community. Paying less for energy going forward would certainly help the theatre community.
5) Terrorism. If you believe Trump to be tougher on foreign-born terrorists than his opponent, being tougher on terror would certainly be disproportionately better for the Broadway community, since New York City will always be a prime target for an attack. Being safe from terror would certainly benefit the theatre community.
I could go on, but there are multiple ways the theatre community could benefit from a Trump administration. To be clear, there are many other parts of the Trump platform that are harmful to the theatre community, and when it comes to race, gender, and sexual orientation, disproportionately so. Every voter will have different priorities, but different priorities do not necessarily mean they have a different intent.
Michael Jordan famously quipped “Republicans buy sneakers too”. In that light, Republicans can and do support the theater community, they may just do so in different ways than what many have in their heads as the only ways to support the community.
A boycott of a theatre house based on political donations implies a notion that there is only one political party that truly supports the theatre community, and that is a foolhardy notion.
The takeaway is simple; have a dialogue with your Republican theatre friends. Don’t assume the worst. Don’t assume there is only one answer.
Remember, even a pancake has two sides.