According to a new report from Vice, Disney World in Orlando, FL is beset with internal controversy over one of their exhibits. The theme park closed their Hall of Presidents attraction last year to begin making room for the 45th addition to the animatronic line-up…except the builders thought that addition would be Hillary Clinton. And now that it’s going to be Donald Trump, the park’s administrators are thinking about making some significant changes to the show.
While Disney CEO Bob Iger has confirmed that a Trump bust will be added to the Hall and there is little reason to believe that an animatronic won’t follow suit, the real question is whether or not the Trump-Bot will be allowed to speak. Since Bill Clinton was added to the attraction in 1993, the show has always allowed the sitting president to have the last word. But with Trump, the show’s producers are worried that a speech would not be appropriate.
“There are already multiple anti-Trump petitions circulating (the most prominent one has collected nearly 15,000 signatures), which urge Disney to silence the Trump robot, on the grounds that Trump ran for president on a platform of ‘hateful speech, misogyny, racism, and xenophobia,'” Vice reports.
They spoke to a source inside the Disney Imagineering department who said Trump “will probably not have a speaking role, unlike the three presidents immediately before him.”
This is ridiculous, but not particularly surprising. Here’s the thing – the thing that none of Trump’s critics seem to get: There’s nothing “hateful” about what Trump said on the campaign trail – not to millions of people who pulled the lever for him in November. There’s this idea floating around that everyone who voted for Trump was either an evil racist or willfully overlooked his evil racism so they could vote for a Republican. And it’s just not true. You can support nearly every word that came out of Trump’s mouth and still not be an evil racist. Because there is nothing evil nor racist about wanting to get rid of illegal immigrants. It’s called: Enforcing the law. It’s called: Saving the country. It’s called: National goddamn security.
The Trump-Bot doesn’t have to get up there and say, “They’re sending drugs, they’re sending crime…” (Although, to be honest, that would be amazing). But in a show that is ostensibly about patriotism and pride in the United States, it is a shame they’re thinking about silencing the first president since Reagan that many Americans feel proud to support.
