Rep. Joyce Beatty, an ex-officio board member, accused the White House of lying about having unanimous support to rename the Kennedy Center after Trump, saying she was “not allowed to speak or voice my opposition”

Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty is accusing White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt of misleading the public about the level of support behind renaming the Kennedy Center after Donald Trump.

Beatty, who has an automatic seat on the Kennedy Center board as a congressional leader, spoke out after Leavitt announced on Thursday, Dec. 18, that the board had just voted “unanimously” to change the name of the John F. Kennedy Memorial for the Performing Arts to the “Trump-Kennedy Center.”

“Be clear: I was on that call, and as I tried to push my button to voice my concern, to ask questions and certainly not to vote in support of this, I was muted. Each time I tried to speak, I was muted. Participants were not allowed to voice their concerns who were online, yet it was said at the end it was a unanimous vote,” she continued.

  • PerogiBoi@lemmy.ca
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    2 days ago

    Nothing is a big deal to Americans. They’re perfectly content with this and the online performative outrage is exhausting to everyone else in the world. They should just own their shit instead of pretending that they are appalled or whatever it is.

    • cygnus@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      Americans have been huffing their own farts for so long about their country being the ultimate expression of democracy that they came to see it as an immutable fact of life rather than something that needs constant tending, and now they don’t know how to do it.

    • Kirp123@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      It’s the feeling I get too. I read the news about Bulgarian government going down from protests, mainly led by young people. Serbs have been protesting against corruption in their government for a year straight and their country is basically a police state. Indonesians protested for months against their government trying to raise benefits for the House of Representative members. And many other protests around the world that last for months on end. Meanwhile Americans protest one day in summer when it’s nice outside, brag about the numbers of people that attended (very American thing to do I guess) then go home and act appalled online when Trump breaks another law.

      • frongt@lemmy.zip
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        1 day ago

        Because despite the fascism, we are, at home, still perfectly comfortable. Most of us can still go out to the movies, hang out in the park, have dinner with any number of friends, all without a second thought. That’s why most of us haven’t taken action.

    • Typhoon@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      I’ve seen a lot of excuses for why Americans can’t defend themselves like they’re exhausted after work, they have bills to pay, they have a family to take care of. Those are all important but I think they forget that every single person involved in protest throughout history has had those things to worry about. The War of Independence wasn’t fought by thousands of people with plenty of energy, all their bills paid for months, and a family doing fine.

      They keep waiting for a perfect moment when their lives are great to go out and protest. It will never happen. The perfect time to get in the streets was 11 months ago. The next best time is now.