A pop star is leader of the free world for a day.
For a few hours on Sunday, Ariana Grande, a 23-year-old pop star from Boca Raton, Florida, was the leader of the free world. The position has been open for months. Contestants ranging from German chancellor Angela Merkel to, improbably, Chinese President Xi Jinping have been auditioning for the job.
Two weeks after 22 people were killed and more than 60 injured in a terrorist attack at her “Dangerous Woman” concert in Manchester in the U. K., Grande returned to the city to hallow the ground and soothe the survivors. In the process, she rededicated her generation to the proposition that all men — and women, most definitely women — are created equal.
While President Donald Trump gutter-tweeted argle-bargle and played another round of golf, Grande delivered what will likely stand as the official American response to the bombing in Manchester and to another terrorist attack, the night before the concert, in London.
Her hastily organized “One Love Manchester” benefit concert rejected fear and bitterness. Time and place, along with a leavening of good will, were sufficient to elevate sugary pop songs to public anthems. Watching the concert streaming online, it was obviously more than a good time. Tears flowed. So did joy. Yet it might also be that a good time is among the most powerful collective responses to jihadist nihilism.
Grande didn’ t just replace Trump on the world stage for the day, she subtly refuted him, offering a face that was brave and kind in the wake of terror while accomplishing several useful goals — raising money for victims, bolstering courage and making the attacks look both puny and pointless. Whatever the terrorists had hoped to produce in Manchester, it certainly wasn’t this party.
Benefit concerts have a long pedigree. The history tells us something. The original, the Concert for Bangladesh at Madison Square Garden in New York, was organized by George Harrison in 1971. The performers were all male. Grande’s concert, taking place on the same weekend that the female-directed “Wonder Woman” broke the $100 million barrier at the box office, was a potent showcase for young women.
Trump’s dull-witted sexism, his white-male-only photo ops and the cultural reaction that he both champions and embodies can’t turn back the wave that Grande and company are riding. Trump defeated one woman last November; he can’t defeat them all.
Had the terrorist attacks provoked an effective, or even decent, response from the president of the United States, Grande’s concert would have taken up decidedly less space. But horrific assaults like those in Manchester and London inspire a longing for connection, and a need for affirmation of liberal values, that Trump can’t even understand how to meet. His leadership void opens a range of potential for cultural figures beyond the overtly political fare of “Saturday Night Live.”
I asked author Elizabeth Samet, the editor of the Norton Anthology of writings on leadership, about the infiltration of cultural leadership into political terrain. She emailed:
Pop stars and “Wonder Woman” won’t defeat Islamic State. But boisterous expressions of commercial and artistic liberty, and the signals they convey about the culture that nurtures them, have long been a crucial element of American soft power.
Trump’s White House is as culturally barren as it is politically toxic. Given a president who spreads division at home and abroad, it’s especially important to have visible counterpoints in politics, sports, business and the arts. At a crucial hour, the pint-sized Grande showed that America is still big. It’s the White House that’s gotten small.
This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
To contact the author of this story: Francis Wilkinson at fwilkinson1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Katy Roberts at kroberts29@bloomberg.net
