It’s difficult to ignore the fact that the public’s second time around with a Donald Trump presidency is decidedly less defiant than it was in January 2017. “Back then” (all of eight years ago), what would turn out to be the largest single-day protest in United States history (that is, until the George Floyd protests of 2020) ensued the day after Trump’s inauguration. Dubbed the “Women’s March,” it was estimated that between three and five million people, women or otherwise, participated in the organized peaceful protests across the nation. All with the intention/objective to “stand together in solidarity with our partners and children for the protection of our rights, our safety, our health and our families—recognizing that our vibrant and diverse communities are the strength of our country.”
Something that Trump didn’t recognize then, does not recognize now and has definitely never recognized at any point during his privileged, pig-in-shit life. However, when he was “elected” solely by the electoral college in 2016, the public at least had the advantage of being able to rebel “with a cause.” Because Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by a clear margin (approximately 48% to Trump’s 46%). Hence, the “carefree” ability to sport “Not My President” merchandise and storm the Capitol (albeit in a way far gentler than what happened on January 6, 2021). And also, for Madonna and Marilyn Minter, on January 19, 2017, to showcase their rage-induced chutzpah onstage at the Brooklyn Museum for an “in conversation”-type rap session with writer/professor Elizabeth Alexander and the museum’s director, Anne Pasternak.
At the time, it was clearly much easier to be self-consoling about Trump taking the reins, with Alexander stating early on in the conversation, “These kinds of crises of people’s inhumanity to each other, um, I mean, that is ancient, that is human history.” And yet, there is something entirely novel about Trump’s latest takeover in that, for the first time, it is laden with the most nefarious potential yet in terms of technological and environmental implications. Although humanity has been given multiple warnings throughout the still relatively “new” twenty-first century that their jig is going to be up if they don’t make some significant lifestyle changes, never have the signs of what it means to willfully ignore such warnings been so clear. With Trump in office for the next four years, the world’s “last best chance” at evading climate catastrophe feels as melted away as the Thwaites Glacier (a.k.a. what’s now being referred to as the Doomsday Glacier, for once it fully melts, sea levels will rise by an estimated twenty-five inches).
Sadly, this elevated climate emergency is going to far outweigh any concerns about women’s rights, trans rights and freedom of speech. However, in 2017, the rights of already marginalized groups remained top of mind when Minter remarked, “This is the most frightened I’ve ever been. I’ve never been frightened by my government before. I’ve been really angry at them and, um, I’ve watched, you know, Nixon and I’ve watched the AIDS crisis and, um, two Bushes and this is, like, the first time everything is really upside down and what I thought was happening was not happening. Like, the most qualified candidate that ever ran was beaten by the most unqualified candidate that ever ran because of misogyny. Baked-in misogyny.” The same held true when Trump ended up going mano a mano with Kamala Harris in the latest election. Harris, who never really stood a chance against Trump if even a white woman didn’t.
Madonna, who appeared in a black shirt that bore the word “FEMINIST” in all caps across it, tried to make sense out of the tragedy of 2016’s election results by saying, “In a way, um, I feel like it had to happen. I mean, unfortunately, we…I’m just as horrified as you are, but I do believe that, um, Trump was elected for a reason.” Let one pause here to say that: so, too, does Trump and his newfound fundamentalist Christian voting bloc believe he was elected for a reason: “the divine hand of God” [insert gagging noises here]. Madonna, at that time, however, tried to soothe people with the idea that it was “to show us how, um, lazy and ununified and lackadaisical and taking for granted we’ve become. Of our freedom. And the rights that we have as Americans and, I mean, I feel like people forgot what was written in the Constitution.”
Alas, right-wing zealots never forget the part of the Constitution that mentions “the right to keep and bear arms.” Oh yes, that they have memorized quite well. And of course everyone (especially lately) always seems to forget the preamble of the Declaration of Independence that goes, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” In the United States, that little assertion has always come with the tacit disclaimer: *unless you’re not white, you’re a woman, or you’re a broke ass. With Trump’s latest ascendancy, however, there’s not even going to be any pretending that that’s not what’s really going on.
What makes it worse still is the fact that, despite the small margin this time around, Trump actually did win the popular vote—making the overall feeling even ickier for those who can’t believe this could possibly be happening again. And, maybe, to a certain extent, this is why no one has it in them anymore to resist. Because they tried so hard to the last time and thought it might stick as a result. Case in point, during that 2017 “inauguration eve” conversation, Minter said, “I had a few days of grief [after the election]. Deep, deep grieving, and the only way I could feel any better was thinking, ‘Okay then I’m going to start doing activism again.’ And it took the burn out.” But “doing activism” these past few years has appeared to lead not only nowhere, but somehow, to a place even worse than where the U.S. was at in 2016.
At that moment, Minter could tell the audience, “Everybody I know is going to Washington.” To protest, to resist, to fight back. There was no such example of that fight at Trump’s 2025 inauguration (unless one counts the protest exhibited by Melania’s hat). What’s more, Minter posited that, at the very least, “Great art comes out of this kind of thing all the time.” No such great art was begat as a result of Trump’s first presidency. Instead, all the U.S. saw was a rise in TikTok supremacy, ergo a confederacy of dunces.
Madonna, too, kept putting her rosy spin on the election result with the insistence, “And, you know, they say it’s always darkest before the dawn and, you know, I feel like this had to happen to bring people together.” Even so, she managed to infuse the conversation with occasional nuggets of realism, including, “I feel like history is just repeating itself over and over and over again” and “If you don’t appreciate something, you’re going to lose it. That’s just a universal law.” In this instance, Madonna felt that what Americans failed to appreciate was their freedom—which is exactly how they lost it. By slowly, but surely becoming complacent, thereby allowing government not only to strip away more and more of their rights, but for a man like Trump to gain such ground in the first place.
During Trump’s first inauguration go-around, Gen Z had yet to “fully” come of age, which is why Minter still spoke solely of millennials when she mentioned feeling positive about the future despite the then (and now) current political outcome. She stated, “The millennials work together. The millennial women work together, not like—my generation did not. There was only one or two allowed in the system.” However, if Minter knew what was to come with Gen Z—and the fact that their kind helped put Trump in office more legitimately this time—she surely would not have been hopeful at all, wishing to leave the next generation stalled at millennials.
Elsewhere, Pasternak added to the overall thoughts on the “upside” of a Trump presidency with the notion that, “I think really remarkable art is going to come out of this moment. For better or worse, we’re inspiring a new generation of thinkers and creators and doers, and it’ll be interesting to see what comes out of this.” What came out of it was TikTok. And a generation filled with a total lack of thinkers and creators and doers.
Toward the end of the dialogue, when presented with an audience question that asked what revolution means to her today, Madonna said, “Never being complacent, fighting for the underdog, standing up for what you believe in. Um, never backing down…” Thus far, however, Madonna has been more mum than ever—uncharacteristically so, in fact—about such a political upset. One can hope, of course, that she’s biding her time to release an anti-fascist manifesto (à la secretprojectrevolution). That she’s going to react with art instead of social media posts. For that’s what the conversation at the Brooklyn Museum was all about: how art is the last and only bastion for a truly peaceful form of protest. A “tool,” as Alexander kept calling it, not only for coping, but for rebelling. As Minter stated at the time by way of advisement, “Fight back, don’t accept anything he does. He’s not my president.” But the reality is that none of the fighting or resisting done was able to stop this moment. This moment that so clearly reiterates that the U.S. was never the country that white folk tried to sell it as: a land of dreams, a land where everyone is equal and everyone can reach their highest potential.
In 2017 though, (white) people like Madonna could still attempt the optimism of a “silver lining” like, “I know this sounds really perverse, but he’s actually doing us a great service. Because we’ve gone as low as we can go, okay? We just have. So—” “We hope,” Minter interjects, not knowing how prophetic her “quip” would be. Madonna continues, “Right, but the thing is we can only go up from here.” Oh, if only she had known then how false that statement/hope would be. She concludes that the reason we can only go “up” is because: “We have two choices: destruction, creation.” Madonna, a great believer in light overcoming the dark, foolishly thought that capitalist America wouldn’t sell (and buy) the noose to hang itself. For it has never been more obvious that Americans, more than most nations, have chosen to seal their fate with destruction. And at this point, it seems that many who protested Trump’s reign in 2017 are throwing up their hands and asking, “Why fight it?” In other words, “Surrender Dorothy.”
