The Vibe Shift Is Over

Bret Michaels canceling on you testifies that the culture has soured on Trump

America 250 is turning into a major disappointment. On top of the public not really caring about the special occasion, the events planned by the Trump administration are falling apart.

Freedom250, the Trump-aligned committee involved in celebrating the sesquicentennial, announced a concert series for its Great American State Fair. Music icons were promised to perform at the National Mall.

The lineup was far from anyone’s idea of music icons. Every artist has seen better days, with many of them now punchlines. Milli Vanilli is most famous for not actually singing their songs rather than for their music. Vanilla Ice, Young MC, and C+C Music Factory provided many great pump-up jams for elementary school gym classes in the ‘90s, but no one has seriously enjoyed their work since. Martina McBride, Bret Michaels, and Flo Rida still have some cultural clout, but their primes are well in the past. The same goes for the other performers. It was Hasbeenapalooza, but it was probably the best the administration could do. Your humble author, at least, was excited to see these acts share their art.

However, even the has-beens turned out to want nothing to do with Trump. Nearly every artist cancelled, claiming either they were misled or that the event was too divisive for them to perform at. The lineup was already embarrassing for Trump. The cancellations made the humiliation even worse. Only Vanilla Ice, a personal Trump friend, has confirmed his participation.

It’s a complete disaster for the administration, and there’s no way to recover from it. Granted, it’s just a concert series. Voters aren’t going to care that Milli Vanilli cancelled on Trump.

What it does represent is a definite sign that the much-discussed “vibe shift” in Trump’s favor is over. We aren’t back to peak woke—far from it. But the culture no longer wants anything to do with Trump.

The vibe shift was most evident after Trump’s 2024 election. Football players did the Trump dance to celebrate touchdowns and sacks. Big-name artists agreed to perform at inauguration events. Trump even got Carrie Underwood to sing at his swearing-in. Celebrities did not replay the full-on meltdown they had after his 2016 win. They made light-hearted jokes and many seemed at peace with his second term. He was endorsed by many of the country’s biggest podcasters. Trump was normalized in a way he had never been before.

Flash forward to now, and it’s a completely different story. Trump can’t even get Martina McBride—who endorsed George W. Bush for president in 2004—to perform at a non-partisan event celebrating America’s birthday.

Pro athletes are no longer eager to associate themselves with Trump. New York Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart received massive backlash merely for introducing Trump at an event last month. It wouldn’t have been an issue in the spring of 2025. This probably explains why Fernando Mendoza, a conservative who clearly voted for Trump, didn’t want to meet with the president along with the rest of his national title team. Even though it’s customary for championship teams to meet with the president, Mendoza, the number one draft pick, probably didn’t want to risk his public reputation by shaking Trump’s hand. And this is a conservative athlete!

You’re unlikely to see many players doing the Trump dance after big plays this year. Amon-Ra St. Brown, one of the few players to do it during the 2025 NFL season, apologized for it. None of the players who did it during the 2024 season said sorry.

Nearly all the podcasters who helped Trump win the young male vote in 2024 have turned on him. Joe Rogan, Andrew Schulz, and Theo Von are now anti-Trump. Right-coded comedians like Shane Gillis are also vocally anti-Trump.

What happened to kill the vibe shift? I know my reply guys on X will have an answer. They will say it’s because Trump betrayed his base. If he had just deported 100 million immigrants, arrested all members of the Democratic Party, and gone to war against Israel rather than Iran, he would have every major artist lining up to perform at America 250. I expect to see at least five people unironically make that case in the comments.

Trump has become unpopular with the culture, but not for the same reasons given by my reply guys. It was clear that entertainers were cooling on Trump long before the Iran War. Joe Rogan and other brocasters turned on Trump over ICE raids. Last year’s strikes on Iran, the poor handling of the Epstein files, and the ICE shootings further depleted Trump’s cachet. The Iran War only made things worse, but it didn’t initiate the vibe shift’s reversal. A lot of factors are responsible, but Trump actually trying to deliver what he campaigned on—namely mass deportations—is what got the ball rolling.

Even if the economy were better and there was no Iran War, the vibe shift would probably still be over. A backlash was inevitable once Trump tried to implement what he campaigned on. The street battles in Newark over ICE raids demonstrate the strong opposition to full MAGA acceptance. The only way Trump could’ve maintained the vibe shift is if he had done no immigration raids at all. It was always going to be controversial to associate with Trump when he’s doing things that cultural tastemakers deem racist and “un-American.”

It also serves as a reminder of the difficulty of conservative cultural endeavors. “We need to create our own culture!” has been an incessant cry from the Right for years. It gets widely shared, creates lengthy discussions on how to achieve it, and inspires demands for Republican donors to shift their money from campaigns to cultural ventures. Everyone seems to think it’s a no-brainer that this strategy is the way to victory.

But the fiasco with the Great American State Fair demonstrates how these ideas turn out in reality. Conservative commentators such as Matt Walsh complain about the performers who were picked and insist we can find plenty of great artists who would love to play at the Fair. However, this lineup was the best the administration could expect. They were not going to get bigger names. It’s unclear what right-wingers want Trump to do here. He cannot use state power to force Bruce Springsteen, Metallica, and Billy Joel to perform. There are not a great number of conservative artists out there. Most artists lean left. Even the ones who lean right don’t want to harm their career prospects by being publicly associated with the Right. In any case, little can satisfy right-wing cultural demands. When TPUSA got big names for their halftime show, most of the Right complained about it because it wasn’t to their taste. But the MAGA base seemed to enjoy it.

The Daily Wire recently learned it’s a risky business to follow this dream. The conservative media company set out to produce its own TV shows and movies with high production values. But hardly anyone watched these shows and movies, and the effort nearly destroyed the company. While some of DW’s political content—such as Ben Shapiro’s show—has seen a decline in subscribers, the company’s real problems stem from its failed entertainment endeavors. The outlet set out to provide what conservatives repeatedly said they wanted—and it turned out that they didn’t actually want what was offered.

There’s a lot of talk about conservative cultural renewal, but as we see with the above-mentioned examples, there’s neither the talent nor the audience for it. As I wrote back in February, the base just wants mainstream culture with less wokeness and more red-state aesthetics. It’s why they love Taylor Sheridan’s subversive slop. It’s not overtly woke, and right-coded characters are the heroes—even if Sheridan spreads a libtard message through all of his works. Red staters will be okay with white privilege conversations so long as it comes from a badass cowboy. They don’t want an opera, a poetry reading, or anything else suggested by the culture renewers.

The conservatives clamoring for more right-wing culture can’t even figure out what they want. They hate DW’s movies, the TPUSA halftime show, and the America 250 concert series. But they don’t have any alternatives to offer. It’s probably better to focus on politics and cultural commentary instead of continuing to fantasize about conservative cultural creation.

Especially with the vibe shift’s death.

It’s not as bad for Trump and the Right as it was during the first administration. We aren’t seeing random people fired from their jobs or doxed simply for being Trump supporters. It’s easier to wear a MAGA hat in public today than it was in 2018. Social media itself is far more right-wing, and the news media is less capable of policing “wrongthink” than in the era of peak woke.

But the vibe shift is finished.

You can now preorder Scott Greer’s new book, “Whitepill: The Online Right and the Making of Trump’s America,” from this link.