No matter who wins, artists must help repair a broken nation

There’s a small yet potent scene tucked away in the sprawl of “The Inheritance,” Matthew López’s epic gay drama that arrived on Broadway last year, which re-creates the experience of the 2016 election returns, when Donald Trump pulled off one of the greatest upsets in modern political history. For progressive theatergoers, this part of the play should come with a trigger warning.

A group of liberal gay New Yorkers has festively gathered to watch America elect its first woman president. But as the results come in, the mood turns funereal. The trajectory of that fateful evening is captured in a concert of increasingly alarmed voices.

“Clinton takes New York!” “Nevada too close to call.” “They just called Ohio.” “Nate Silver has her at 72 percent.” “They just called North Carolina.” “Sixty-seven percent.” “There goes Florida.” “Fifty-three percent.’ “This is bad. Is this really happening?” “They just called Pennsylvania. That’s it, then. It’s over.” “It’s over.”

The prospect of reliving a version of this night on Tuesday has Republicans licking their chops and Democrats calling their pharmacies. As someone who sees Joe Biden as the last exit before authoritarianism, I don’t know how I’d cope with four more years of Trump chaos. But the time has come to take the long view. Regardless of the outcome of the 2020 election, the fabric of the nation must be repaired — and no one is excused from this necessary work.

Read the article at the Los Angeles Times – https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2020-10-30/election-2020-artists-are-called-upon-to-repair-a-broken-nation