Twenty years after its critically-acclaimed Off-Broadway run, THE FARTISTE brings its outrageous true story back to the stage with an explosive Anniversary Concert celebration on September 28 & 29 at the Laurie Beechman Theatre at the West Bank Café, 407 W 42nd St, New York, NY 10036. Both shows at 7 pm. Tickets are $50 with a $25 food/beverage minimum per person. THE FARTISTE is produced by Stephen Hanks and Revive Entertainment with Christopher Scott serving as Director. The cast will be announced at a later date. For reservations, go to:
9/28: https://events.leapevents.com/event/the-fartisteyfubceo
9/29: https://events.leapevents.com/event/the-fartisteljylrxo

“The FARTISTE manages to be both raucously funny and surprisingly touching, dignifying its subject even while providing no small degree of explosive humor.”—New York Post

“This outrageous new musical THE FARTISTE not only manages to successfully put the word “art” back into “fart,” but it does so in an unusually poignant way . . . Simply astounding; a full-blown night of delightful musical comedy . . .”—BroadwayWorld.com

When people hear the words “Moulin Rouge” many things might come to mind. Some might remember the 1952 film starring Jose Ferrer playing legendary French artist Toulouse-Lautrec. Younger folks might recall the 2001 Baz Luhrmann film musical that has been transformed into a show currently playing on Broadway. And some people might know that the “Moulin Rouge” was an iconic late 19^th-century cabaret venue in Paris, France, famous for its sensual Can-Can dancers.

What people might not know about the original “Moulin Rouge” is that one of the club’s highest-paid performers during the 1890s was a man named Joseph Pujol, who was a sensation turning flatulence into high art. Using the stage name Le Pétomane (derived from the French verb péter, meaning “to fart,” combined with “mane,” meaning “maniac”), Pujol possessed an extraordinary ability to control his abdominal and sphincter muscles, allowing him to inhale air through his anus and release it at will. At the peak of his career, Pujol’s performances—which were musical and comedic rather than purely vulgar—drew massive crowds, including members of England’s Royal Family and intellectual figures like Sigmund Freud. Pujol’s acts included mimicking cannon fire, thunder, and musical instruments, and blowing out lit candles from several yards away using directed air bursts from his anus.

In 2006, Composer and Lyricist Michael Roberts and Playwright Charlie Schulman brought Joseph Pujol’s story to life and to New York theater audiences with their musical THE FARTISTE, which won the award for “Best Musical” at the 2006 New York International Fringe Festival. Later that year, a concert version of the show was performed at the Laurie Beechman Theatre. During the 2011-2012 theater season, THE FARTISTE was staged Off-Broadway at Sophia’s at The Edison Hotel in midtown Manhattan and received rave reviews. You can see why by viewing the sizzle reel below:

BIOS:
Michael Roberts—Score: Michael is a composer, lyricist, and playwright whose Off-Broadway credits include GOLF: THE MUSICAL, which was produced three times Off-Broadway, and toured 25 states and six countries. His other Off-Broadway works include THE FARTISTE (NY Fringe, Best Musical), GREED (New World Stages), and the Off-Broadway Alliance Award-nominated GOLDSTEIN. For television, he composed for three seasons of AMC’s series REMEMBER WENN, and his film scoring credits include Tri-Star’s LOVE WALKED IN. His new musical LONDON SWINGS, starring Jackie Burns, will be released as an independent feature film in Fall 2026. As a music director and pianist, Roberts has served as music director for a wide variety of performers, including Betty Buckley, Donna Murphy, Lesley Gore, Rupert Holmes, Herman’s Hermits, and comic legend Joan Rivers with appearances at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and The White House. He is the President Emeritus of the American Songbook Association. Michael’s works are published by Concord Theatricals and Broadway Licensing, and his music is available on numerous labels, including TOHO and Broadway Records.

Charlie Schulman—Book: Charlie is the writer/producer (with composer Michael Roberts) of the Off-Broadway musicals THE FARTISTE (“Outstanding Musical,” NYC Fringe Festival) and GOLDSTEIN (Nominated “Best Musical,” Off Broadway Alliance). His plays have been produced Off-Broadway, regionally, and internationally, and are published by Dramatists Play Service, Stage Rights, Dell/Bantam, and Concord Theatricals. His plays MARRIED LIFE and SIBLING RIVALRY were produced by Cincinnati LAB Theatre at The Edinburgh Fringe Festival. SIBLING RIVALRY will be presented as a staged reading by Penguin Rep this fall. His play ANGEL OF DEATH received the Charles MacArthur Award for Comedy, and he is a recipient of The Walton Fellowship from Arena Stage. Television: “The Apollo Comedy Hour” for three seasons. (Inner City Broadcasting/Tribune Company). Charlie is currently developing SHE COMES FIRST, a sex- positive musical comedy review inspired by the best-selling book by Dr. Ian Kerner. Charlie teaches at New York University and The Writers Voice of The West Side Y.

Christopher Scott—Director: Christopher is a NYC director who just finished filming Michael Roberts’ new musical LONDON SWINGS, continuing their long-time collaboration, the two having also worked together on the Off-Broadway shows GOLF: THE MUSICAL and GREED: A MUSICAL FOR OUR TIMES. Christopher also recently directed MURDOCH: THE FINAL INTERVIEW at Theater555, BREACH at The Wild Project /Fresh Fruit Festival, and HIP HOP CINDERELLA at The New Victory. Upcoming: “Unruly Gays and Urban Decay” at La MaMa ETC. In Development: “Sherlock & Watson” by Ed. Weinberger (Mary Tyler Moore Show, Taxi,) Other Off Broadway: “The Glass Menagerie,” “God Shows Up,” “Edwin: The Story of Edwin Booth,” “A Class Act,” “Nancy Friday’s My Secret Garden,” “For Lovers Only,” “Tails” and “Stealing Freedom and “Missing Person” at ART/NY. Served as Artistic Director at Masterworks Theater Company and as Artistic Associate at Amas Musical Theatre. Member of faculty at Baruch College (CUNY) and NYU.

Stephen Hanks—Co-Producer: After a 30-plus year career in magazine publishing, Stephen transitioned into New York Cabaret and Musical Theater as a Reviewer, Publicist, Producer, and Performer. In 2010, he was a reviewer for Cabaret Scenes Magazine, the first Board President of Musical Mondays Theater Lab (a non-profit that presented new musicals), and an Associate Producer for the Off-Broadway production of the musical THE FARTISTE. Between 2012-2015, Stephen was the lead cabaret reviewer at BroadwayWorld.com and was the Producer and Host for three BroadwayWorld.com “New York Cabaret Awards” shows. Stephen has served as Producer/Host for six variety shows at the Urban Stages Winter Rhythms Festival, and produced 19 critically-acclaimed “New York Cabaret’s Greatest Hits” shows at NYC’s Metropolitan Room. Stephen has also been the publicist for dozens of New York cabaret performers, and has performed his solo cabaret show “Beyond American Pie: The Don McLean Songbook” in various NY cabaret rooms. Since 2018, Stephen has Produced and Hosted 16 Cabaret Variety Show fundraisers for Democratic Congressional candidates.

After producing in May and June what by all accounts have been two passionate and provocative cabaret variety show fundraisers for 2026 Midterm Democratic Senate candidates who can flip seats from Red to Blue, Producer Stephen Hanks announces the captivating cast for the third of this year’s four PROJECT 2026: BLUE TSUNAMI cabaret variety shows. The next event at Don’t Tell Mama (343 West 46th St, New York, NY, 10036) will be on September 1 at 7 PM and will feature this lineup of great performers: D.C. Anderson, Claudine Cassan-Jellison, Bruce Clough, Mary Sue Daniels, Lianne Marie Dobbs, Sean Harkness, Liora Michelle, Karen Oberlin, Sierra Rein, David Sabella, Richard Skipper, Ty Stephens, and Vanessa Trouble, with Music Director Ian Herman. Tickets: $30. Minimum: $20 (must include two drinks). Cash only.

For reservations to the September 1 show, go to: https://shows.donttellmamanyc.com/show/project-2026-blue-tsunami/

In her reviews of the first two “Blue Tsunami” fundraisers on TheaterPizzazz.com, Alix Cohen wrote: “These fervent concerts buoy community. Volunteer artists and a loyal audience feel they’re doing something to help. Collective frustration and despair [about the current political climate] diminishes among like-minded, like-hearted people. Thoughts fly . . . arms hug . . . AND it’s entertaining . . . superb evenings of cabaret and activism.”

Since producing five “Blue Wave” cabaret variety shows as fundraisers for Democratic Senate, Congress, and State Legislature candidates prior to the 2018 midterm elections, overall over the past eight years Hanks has produced and hosted 14 critically-acclaimed shows featuring more than 40 performers and music directors. The shows have raised more than $15,000.

“I was hoping that after the 2024 Presidential election, I wouldn’t need to produce these shows again,” Hanks admits. “But given the current dangers to our First-Amendment Rights, Voting Rights, Health Care, National Security, the attacks on Immigrants, Women, Minorities, the LGBTQ+ community, and more, it is imperative that Democrats win both houses of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections. I’m hoping this new series of fundraising shows will energize audiences to support Democratic candidates however and wherever they can. As in times past, the cabaret art form is an ideal vehicle to get this important message out, while at the same time also supporting those on the front lines of the fight.”

The last show in this year’s PROJECT 2026: BLUE TSUNAMI! Cabaret Variety Fundraising Series for Democratic Congress Candidates is scheduled for October 20. The cast features: Sandra Bargman, Raissa Katona Bennett and Kenneth Gartman, Meg Flather, Janice Hall, Joe Iconis and Lauren Marcus, Laurie Krauz, Ann Kittredge, Lorinda Lositza, Adam B. Shapiro, Gerrilyn Sohn, and Lisa Viggiano, with Music Director Tracy Stark.

After producing in May and June what by all accounts have been two passionate and provocative cabaret variety show fundraisers for 2026 Midterm Democratic Senate candidates who can flip seats from Red to Blue, Producer Stephen Hanks announces the captivating cast for the third of this year’s four PROJECT 2026: BLUE TSUNAMI cabaret variety shows. The next event at Don’t Tell Mama (343 West 46th St, New York, NY, 10036) will be on September 1 at 7 PM and will feature this lineup of great performers: D.C. Anderson, Claudine Cassan-Jellison, Bruce Clough, Mary Sue Daniels, Lianne Marie Dobbs, Sean Harkness, Liora Michelle, Karen Oberlin, Sierra Rein, David Sabella, Richard Skipper, Ty Stephens, and Vanessa Trouble, with Music Director Ian Herman. Tickets: $30. Minimum: $20 (must include two drinks). Cash only.

For reservations to the September 1 show, go to: https://shows.donttellmamanyc.com/show/project-2026-blue-tsunami/

In her reviews of the first two “Blue Tsunami” fundraisers on TheaterPizzazz.com, Alix Cohen wrote: “These fervent concerts buoy community. Volunteer artists and a loyal audience feel they’re doing something to help. Collective frustration and despair [about the current political climate] diminishes among like-minded, like-hearted people. Thoughts fly . . . arms hug . . . AND it’s entertaining . . . superb evenings of cabaret and activism.”

Since producing five “Blue Wave” cabaret variety shows as fundraisers for Democratic Senate, Congress, and State Legislature candidates prior to the 2018 midterm elections, overall over the past eight years Hanks has produced and hosted 14 critically-acclaimed shows featuring more than 40 performers and music directors. The shows have raised more than $15,000.

“I was hoping that after the 2024 Presidential election, I wouldn’t need to produce these shows again,” Hanks admits. “But given the current dangers to our First-Amendment Rights, Voting Rights, Health Care, National Security, the attacks on Immigrants, Women, Minorities, the LGBTQ+ community, and more, it is imperative that Democrats win both houses of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections. I’m hoping this new series of fundraising shows will energize audiences to support Democratic candidates however and wherever they can. As in times past, the cabaret art form is an ideal vehicle to get this important message out, while at the same time also supporting those on the front lines of the fight.”

The last show in this year’s PROJECT 2026: BLUE TSUNAMI! Cabaret Variety Fundraising Series for Democratic Congress Candidates is scheduled for October 20. The cast features: Sandra Bargman, Raissa Katona Bennett and Kenneth Gartman, Meg Flather, Janice Hall, Joe Iconis and Lauren Marcus, Laurie Krauz, Ann Kittredge, Lorinda Lositza, Adam B. Shapiro, Gerrilyn Sohn, and Lisa Viggiano, with Music Director Tracy Stark.

FOR RESERVATIONS, GO TO: https://shows.donttellmamanyc.com/9825-project-2026-blue-tsunami-fundraiser-6-13-26

I first heard this incredibly poignant song “The Protector” composed by Joe Iconis—and wonderfully performed by Jason SweetTooth Williams—about 15 years ago at a New York City Joe Iconis and Family concert. I’ve wanted to sing it ever since and finally got the chance (with my dear friend Michael Roberts at the piano) at the May 7th Project 2026: Blue Tsunami fundraiser for Democratic Congress midterm election candidates at Don’t Tell Mama. The song is both powerful and incredibly relevant in these troubled times and I truly hope I did it justice.

For reservations on May 7, go to: https://shows.donttellmamanyc.com/9824-project-2026-blue-tsunami-5-7-26

For reservations on June 13, go to: https://shows.donttellmamanyc.com/9825-project-2026-blue-tsunami-fundraiser-6-13-26

Author’s Note: The following essay was originally written shortly before the 2016 Presidential Election, updated during the 2020 Presidential Campaign between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and then revised in May 2022 after the horrific hate murders of 10 Black People in Buffalo by an avowed White Supremacist. I revised it again in November 2024 in light of the reelection off the most fascist and racist President in American history, but I forgot to post it to Substack and it’s been sitting in my “drafts” folder where I recently found it. Given the current Trump Administration attacks against immigrants and minorities are even more horrific now, I felt it time for one more update accounting for the shamefully racist Trump policies and events of the past 16 months, many foretold in the White Supremacist/Christian Nationalist/Right Wing Oligarch document known as “Project 2025”—S.H.

By Stephen Hanks

I’m going to start this essay, first written in September 2016, in the present day with—excuse the expression—”bullet” points of Trump Administration White Supremacist policies. In no particular order:

• DEMONIZING DEI: At the start of his second term, Trump, his neo-Nazi Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, and the soulless Russell Voight, his Director of Office of Management and Budget (and an architect of “Project 2025”), immediately used the power of the presidency to target the most marginalized minority communities. Trump issued a series of executive orders that are deeply rooted in white supremacist ideologies, eliminating Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs across federal agencies. DEI initiatives were established to address systemic inequities in hiring, retention, and advancement that have historically excluded marginalized communities. Their purpose had been to correct long-standing imbalances caused by discriminatory practices. The Trump administration positioned anti-DEI efforts as ways to promote fairness and security, but Black and Brown communities have been the most impacted. These decisions are designed to maintain a racial and social hierarchy where white supremacy thrives.

• ILLEGAL ICE RAIDS IN AMERICAN CITIES: Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, and Minneapolis have been illegal or unconstitutional as they have violated established legal standards regarding search and seizure, due process, and equal protection under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments. Key elements that often render these raids illegal include entering homes without a judicial warrant, using excessive force, the unlawful detention of U.S. citizens or lawful residents, and, of course, racial profiling. Detaining, stopping, or questioning individuals solely based on their race, ethnicity, or apparent accent is a violation of the Equal Protection clause. For example, apprehending potential day laborers outside Home Depots or U-Haul stores for "looking Latino" is unconstitutional.

• DHS CONCENTRATION CAMPS: From late 2025 to early 2026, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), through Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), aimed to create or convert industrial warehouses around the country into 34 major detention centers designed to imprison up to 100,000+ detainees. The goal is to significantly increase detention capacity of humans—including thousands of children—they refer to as “illegal aliens.”

• DOGE DEATHS: Based on estimates reported as of early 2026, the suspension of USAID aid by the Elon Musk-led DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) restructuring has been associated with substantial mortality in sub-Saharan Africa. Globally, estimations suggest over 750,000 people—the majority being children—died due to the USAID funding cuts one year after they began.

• PURGING THE PENTAGON: From early 2025 through April 2026, the Department of Defense under Secretary Pete Hegseth has conducted a widespread restructuring of the Pentagon, resulting in the removal of several high-ranking Black officials as part of a broader initiative to eliminate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts and shift military leadership. In February 2025, Trump fired Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. CQ Brown, one of the highest-ranking Black military officers, as part of a campaign against leaders seen as supporting DEI initiatives. And in March 2026, Hegseth blocked the promotion of four Army officers to one-star generals, two of whom are Black.

• THE HEALTHCARE HORROR SHOW: The Brookings Institution and the U.S. Census Bureau project that non-Hispanic White Americans will become the minority population by around 2043. This terrifies the White Supremacists. How can you reduce the population’s number of people of color and immigrants? Take away their healthcare and let them die. Based on projections, Trump Administration tax policies favoring American oligarchs and corporations and budget cuts aimed at destroying the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid are estimated to affect health insurance coverage for millions of people, with a disproportionate impact on minority communities. Approximately 1.4 million lawfully present immigrants could lose their health insurance by 2034. And the proposed cuts to Medicaid and the ACA could see Black and Hispanic families face a higher risk of losing coverage compared to their white counterparts.

I wish I didn’t have to say it, but I saw all this White Supremacist/Christian Nationalist carnage coming even had Donald Trump NOT been elected President the first time. Now for an essay flashback . . .

About a month before the 2016 Presidential Election, I was standing with a tiny gaggle of “Hillary Clinton for President” supporters on New York’s Fifth Avenue in front of the garishly gold and ostentatious testament to a man with penile insecurities known as Trump Tower. Just 10 months before, candidate Trump had said he could shoot someone on this famed street and get away with it. A few of my cohorts were holding up hastily made signs (i.e. “GOP — Grab Our Pussies — Dump Trump”) lambasting the megalomaniacal misogynist who somehow became the Republican candidate for President.

It was clear this mini-protest was desperately in need of a rhythmic chant. I lobbied for a message that would cut “The Donald” to his core and “TRUMP’S-A-LOSER” was quickly adopted by the crowd. I was imagining the totalitarian twit watching us through a security camera and ranting at the top of lungs in agony like the Roman Emperor Caligula at the end of the film The Robe after he hears the characters played by Richard Burton and Jean Simmons announce they would “rather die than live another day in a kingdom ruled by you.”

Aside from the fact that I’ve basically despised Donald Trump since the early 1980s when he emerged on the New York scene like primordial ooze that was left out of the evolutionary process, one of the motivations for making this symbolic stand at one of Trump’s phallic symbol erections was CABARET.

No, not Cabaret as in the performance art form in which I’d indulged as a reviewer, performer, producer, and publicist for the previous six years, but Cabaret, as in the iconic Broadway musical and film.

It had been decades since I watched the Bob Fosse 1972 movie version so when I found it on Turner Classic Movies during that Labor Day weekend of 2016, I took the musical trip to pre-World War II Germany. As wonderful a piece of cinematic art as Cabaret certainly is, it’s not a film you want to watch in the midst of a Presidential election when one of the candidates displays all the signs of being a Hitler mini-me. But then again, maybe it is.

There are many intensely disturbing scenes in Cabaret. There’s the one early in the film when Nazi party thugs — after having previously been banished from the “Kit Kat Club” — viciously beat up the owner. There’s the scene when Michael York’s character Brian is pummeled by a bunch of young Nazi’s after he slaps some Nationalist Socialist Party propaganda out of their hands. And there’s the scene when some young hooligans who’ve been seduced by the fascist message leave the dead dog of Marissa Berenson’s character Natalia in front of her home with the word “Juden!” scrawled on the doorstep.

But probably the most disturbing scene in Cabaret begins idyllically in a rural beer garden. As Brian and his bisexual lover Max are having cocktails in the midst of the locals on a sun-drenched afternoon, an apparently non-threatening young Aryan Adonis begins to sing in a soft, lilting tenor:

“The sun on the meadow is summery warm . . . The stag in the forest runs free . . . But gather together to greet the storm . . . Tomorrow belongs to me . . .”

As he begins singing the second verse, the camera slowly pans down his body to reveal the brown uniform of the Hitler youth, still in its nascent stage. As the song progresses, the vocal becomes more aggressively strident and the young man raises his right hand in the Nazi salute. Inspired almost to the point of frenzy, the locals stand, join in the singing, and mimic the gesture that would come to identify a nation hell bent on world domination.

This was the depressing epiphany engendered from that scene in Cabaret. The “pitchfork and torches” audiences at Donald Trump rallies (during all three of his presidential campaigns and throughout his Presidencies), and most infamously at Charlottesville, VA in August 2017, were the angry American equivalent of German townspeople singing, “Tomorrow Belongs To Me.” Only their version has been “Make America Great Again.”

They ecstatically cheered at his racist dog whistles, his demonization of the media, his exhortations to “lock up” his opponents, and his claims that his impeachments, the CoronaVirus pandemic, and his loss in the 2020 Presidential Election were all “a hoax.” What, in the minds of his fanatical followers, would make America great again? Deport all immigrants. Let everyone have guns. Punish women who have abortions. Suppress voting rights, especially of minorities. Put opponents in jail. Silence the press. Systematically destroy government agencies. Kill “ObamaCare.” Insult, abandon, or blackmail our allies. Brandish assault weapons at State capitals. Call out the U.S. military to attack Americans in the Nation’s Capital. Take to armed revolution if the election doesn’t go their supreme leader’s way. And call the 2020 election “stolen.”

But perhaps the idea the Trump Kool-Aid Drinkers love most of all: The encouragement of White Supremacy and Christian Nationalism. Those are the reasons why the sociopathic miscreant and pathological lying narcissist has been a threat to our Republic and is now more than ever. Since the day Trump was elected in 2016 until now, life has not been a cabaret, old chums.

But the “Tomorrow Belongs To Me” crowd—which we can no longer dismiss as just the extreme fringe—is the stain that remained even after Trump left office the first time. Like an evil Dr. Frankenstein, Donald Trump—along with his despicable Alt-Right puppet masters, his insufferably ignorant Republican Party surrogates, and his FOX News mouthpiece machine—have reanimated the dead body of the monster that is the White Supremacist Movement.

Trump’s defeat in 2020 might have temporarily restored normalcy to American government, but it didn’t change this dangerous dynamic: Trump’s Presidencies based on hate and fear (pretty much the usual Republican party M.O., but taken to the extreme with Trump) has given new voice to millions of gun-loving xenophobes who despise Jews, Catholics, African-Americans, and anyone else who they deem a threat to their notion of white superiority. While always lurking in the shadows, they had been pretty much marginalized for a couple of decades. Once Donald Trump became the 2016 Republican Presidential candidate, they had found their savior. Trump never repudiates racist White Supremacists; he encourages and enables them.

The forces that led to the 2016 candidacy of Donald Trump and the re-emergence of the “Angry White Man” constituency (and the women who love them) really shouldn’t have been much of a surprise. The seeds were planted in 2008, the minute an African-American with a Muslim-sounding name became the Democratic nominee for President. The AWMs and their “hockey mom” cohorts found a kindred spirit in the Republican Party’s Vice-Presidential nominee Sarah Palin, perhaps the poster child for what Hillary Clinton would characterize during the 2016 campaign as “The Deplorables.”

When Barack Obama became President in 2009, the country was reeling from the debacle in Iraq, acts of terrorism at home and abroad, and a financial crisis that destroyed millions of middle class-and working-class lives. The response to all this national chaos and having a Black Man in the White House was the emergence of the Tea Party Republicans and their unpatriotic obstruction of President Obama’s agenda (highlighted by the demonization of the Affordable Care Act and the perpetual Hillary Clinton witch hunts). The 2012 re-election of President Obama basically put the “Angry White Men Brigade” over the edge. By 2015, the notion that now a woman named Clinton could become the next President was too much for the AWMs to bear. Hence, the creation of Donald Trump and the new Boogiemen through which these proverbial cornered rats could channel their extreme frustration—IMMIGRANTS. Trump’s excoriation of Mexicans and Muslims was music to the ears of the White Supremacists.

But let’s assume that among Americans who consider themselves Republicans, Independents, or Libertarians—even those who didn’t vote in 2016 or 2020—that the Alt-Right represents just a fringe of the population. When Hillary Clinton said 50 percent of Trump supporters were “Deplorables” (which could certainly have been an underestimation), she was basically describing slightly less than 20 percent of the country’s voters. But what about the millions of current Trump supporters who may not be so “deplorable?” Or the middle-and working-class folks who didn’t appreciate the Trumpian dog whistles but still feel marginalized and have given up on our institutions? How does the Democratic Party engage them, as well as putting the White Supremacist genie back in the bottle?

Like many passionate patriotic progressives, I often howl at the moon about how so many people can “vote against their own interests.” The refrain basically goes like this: Middle class and working-class Whites have supported the Republican Party (going back to Richard Nixon in the late 1960s) even though the policies of the political right haven’t necessarily been good for them. How has this happened? The Conservative playbook to seduce such voters has been simple—tough on crime, bullish on military spending, cut taxes (especially on the wealthy and corporations), eliminate regulations, prevent immigration, and gut entitlement programs for the poor and unemployed (except for the ones they like, such as Social Security and Medicare), while fostering a “culture war” and co-opting Christian Conservatives and Evangelicals on the red meat social issues, such as abortion, gay rights, and the 2nd Amendment. It has all been part of the strategy to distract Americans from the class war, which has seen income disparity grow to its greatest level since before the Great Depression.

There are millions of people with legitimate grievances about how government has failed them, especially in the wake of the 2008 financial meltdown and again during the 2020 pandemic. And when people do pay attention to what’s going on in Washington, they experience inaction, incivility, and partisanship that is so off the charts their frustration is understandable. But do they understand why government isn’t working? Do they get that in spite of the Founders best intentions in regard to “checks and balances,” that in contemporary American politics it makes absolutely no sense for the Presidency to be in the hands of one party while the rest of Congress is controlled by the other? Do they even know the three branches of Government? Apparently not.

In 2008, 2,508 Americans took the Intercollegiate Studies Institute “Civic Literacy Test.” 71 percent failed and the average score was 49. Less than half could name all three branches of government. 79 percent didn’t know the phrase “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” came from Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. Only 53 percent knew the power to declare war belongs to Congress. Don’t worry, it gets worse. A few years ago, a study called “A Crisis in Civic Education” by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, found that almost 10 percent thought that Judith Sheindlin, TV’s “Judge Judy,” was a member of the Supreme Court. Almost 20 percent of American college graduates—college graduates!—couldn’t identify the effects of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Over the past three to four decades the American educational system has been in steady decline, highlighted by lowered standards and dumbed down requirements. When you combine that with the pervasive inculcation of pop culture, electronic and computer games, social media, junk food, and a greedy, self-centered “what’s-in-it-for-me” mentality, is it any wonder our society is plagued by massive civic ignorance? When the majority of the population was more concerned about who won TV talent competitions and reality game shows than about voting in state legislature races, the conditions were ripe for the creation of a demagogue such as Donald Trump, who in February 2016 probably made the most chilling comment of his campaign (among the dozens that would qualify) when he said after winning the Nevada Republican primary, “I love the poorly educated.”

Nobody analyzed the situation better than retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter, who in 2012 made this prescient statement about how the decline of civic education was a danger to the country:

“I don’t worry about our losing a republican government in the United States because I’m afraid of a foreign invasion,” Souter remarked during an appearance at the University of New Hampshire School of Law. “I don’t worry about it because of a coup by the military, as has happened in some other places. What I worry about is that when problems are not addressed people will not know who is responsible, and when the problems get bad enough—as they might do for example with another serious terrorist attack, as they might do with another financial meltdown—some one person will come forward and say ‘Give me total power and I will solve this problem . . . That is the way democracy dies.”

It’s now painfully apparent that after Joe Biden was elected President in 2020, he and a Democratic Congress couldn’t adequately articulate why 20-30 percent of the population’s penchant for “voting against their own interests” was incredibly misguided. They failed to educate the “poorly educated” about how THEY can help make government be more responsive to their needs, and, most importantly, get the White Supremacist fringe back in their holes where they belonged.

Let us assume that political scientists and pundits are correct when they claim that the majority of Americans vote on economics—primarily “pocketbook issues” like inflation, jobs and taxes. Since Jimmy Carter was elected President in 1976—that’s 50 years, folks—the Democratic Party had been advocating major spending on infrastructure, almost along the lines of FDR-style “New Deal” programs. In the 12 years after the 2008 financial crisis—a period when the country desperately needed to create millions of jobs (on top of what emerged through the too small stimulus program)—the Republican Party had first obstructed President Obama’s desire for more spending on infrastructure, preventing a jobs boom in the industries where most middle-and working-class folks ply their trades. Even when Biden finally got a major infrastructure bill passed in late 2021, only 32 House and Senate Republicans voted for it.

In 2017, Republicans gave corporations and American oligarchs a $1.5 trillion tax cut (and did it again after Trump’s re-election in 2024). Where was the frustrated Trump supporter’s outrage about that? When George W. Bush was President, massive tax cuts for the wealthy and tax loopholes for corporations became law, increasing income disparity and causing more shrinkage of the middle class. Where was the frustrated Trump supporter’s outrage about that? When the Neo-Cons and mainstream Republicans in the Bush administration pushed America into a devastating war in Iraq based on lies and deceit (that many Democrats like Clinton went along with, lest they be branded “traitors”), the cost was losing the lives of thousands of young people—mainly from working class families—and trillions of dollars that could have been spent on infrastructure, education, health care, and the social safety net. Where was the frustrated Trump supporter’s outrage about that? When it was clear that a pandemic was upon us in early 2020, Donald Trump played golf and claimed the disease would all go away like magic. The upshot of that failure? More than one million dead Americans. Where is the frustrated Trump’s supporters’ outrage about that?

But none of that matters because the possibility that White People in America are projected to become the minority population by around 2043 “trumps” everything else. [According to the Census, during that year, Whites will comprise 49.7 percent of the population in contrast to 24.6 percent for Hispanics, 13.1 percent for Blacks, 7.9 percent for Asians, and 3.8 percent for multiracial populations.] This is why outrage and hate is now and will be in the future directed at Blacks, Latinos, Muslims, Immigrants, the “Deep State,” Planned Parenthood, Marriage Equality, Mainstream Media, people who identify as LGBTQ, and any group the White Supremacists can find to blame for their lot in life. That’s how for decades the Republican Party has seduced people to vote against their best interests. The cretinous Donald Trump has just taken that snake oil salesmanship to a new level in a sea of “poorly educated” voters. And washing ashore in that dangerous high tide is the ever-present and still emerging White Supremacist gang that Trump has still never repudiated.

Ever since that day in 2016 protesting outside Trump Tower, I’ve constantly heard Progressives, Democrats, Media Pundits, and even politically-simpatico friends pleadingly ask, “Why don’t Republicans have policy platforms? Why don’t they condemn the January 6 insurrection? Why do push the “Big Lie” about the 2020 Election? Why do they genuflect at the feet of Donald Trump?”

The answer? White Supremacy is their agenda. That “trumps” everything.

The mission for the Democratic Party during the 2026 midterm elections campaign and then in the 2028 Presidential campaign continues to be clear: Get through to these White Supremacist Americans once and for all so that . . . TOMORROW CAN BELONG TO ALL OF US.

Patriotic Progressive’s Editorial Note: As a friend and publicist of singer/songwriter and trans activist Michele Bettencourt, I wanted to post on my Substack this excellent profile of Michele written by New York-based theater and cabaret reviewer Alix Cohen for my Substack readers. Hope you enjoy it. By the way, Alix’s review of Michele Bettencourt’s album Vampire Time can be found at www.theaterpizzazz.com/michele-bettancourt-vampire-time/

By Alix Cohen

“Everybody loves a circus/Until they become the clown/Every weak cog has its purpose . . . until they been chased from town . . .” —“Everybody Loves a Circus” (Michele Bettencourt/Hendrik Helmer, from the 2025 albumVampire Time.)

For three decades, Anthony Bettencourt helped power the rise of Silicon Valley, quietly making billions for tech giants while building a life that included two marriages and four children. Then suddenly, in her mid-50s, Anthony became Michele, coming out as transgender. Today, at 64, Michele Bettencourt channels her dealmaker’s fire into writing and performing searing protest songs—proof that reinvention can be the ultimate act of rebellion.

Anthony Bettencourt was born in California, the only child of a sweet, ineffectual blue collar father and a hereditarily unstable mother whose own mother was institutionalized. “I was worried that I would inherit . . .”

At 7, Anthony was caught trying on her mother’s bathing suit. “There was a lot of crying and screaming,” but no discussion. Oddly, his mom never told Anthony’s father. Michele didn’t come out to his dad until just before he passed in 2016. Dad’s response to being shown a photo of her in women’s apparel and wig was “You look kinda pretty.”

“My life’s a puzzle where a piece goes missing / I don’t mind losing cause / I’m never going to win / My ceiling is leaking and the rain won’t stop pissing / I’m much too lonely to start looking for a friend.” —“Punching Bag” (by Michele Bettencourt, 2026)

The Bettencourts cashed in their savings bonds to send Anthony to Santa Clara University. An aspiring novelist, he matriculated in English but was an admittedly terrible student. Living at home to save money limited campus activities. Literary rejections shredded his confidence.

“I was attracted to women, but not sexually obsessed like my peers. When I was drawn to a man, I thought it was a passing phase.” He dropped out of school senior year.

Technical writing seemed a viable career because of the proximity to Silicon Valley. That summer, Anthony’s soon-to-be-father-in-law hired him to work a machine making coated disks for hard drives. It was a way in. Clearly an exceptional trainee, he was asked to write a safety manual, then, at 21, offered a full time job.

Anthony married Joan in 1982. Despite a difficult childhood, he wanted to be a parent. Triplets were born five years later. Becoming Michele has brought out nurturing that had been subjugated during decades of corporate life, a period when her daughters referred to her as “airport dad.” Now she feels “there’s no difference between maternal and paternal.”

A tenuously bifurcated life found the executive—as Michele—in Los Angeles at The Queen Mary, “a show bar of beautiful trans women where people would dress up and dance with other men.” When men opened doors or pulled out chairs, Michele reacted appreciatively.

After being given a professional makeover, it was suggested Anthony have photos taken for a crossdressing lifestyle magazine. The photographer thought she looked like a “Michele” with one L. She kept the name. “I’ve been taking hormones since 2017,” she says. “I have breasts and hips, but never had surgery. I dressed at night, not wanting to subject my awkwardness to people during the day. I had good features, 23-year-old skin, and a wig of big Texas hair. Nobody at home knew. There was no confidante or mentor.”

During his first three months as a tech sales rep, Anthony closed deals worth $1.5 million and then accepted a tech support job at $17,000 a year. He was good at it. A suit (from Goodwill) got him noticed. The young executive was pulled into client meetings and flown all over the country as a systems engineer. Three successive positions found him, at just 27, earning $150,000 which would be $421,214 today.

Anthony traveled well, staying in first class hotels where the staff were aware of him checking in as Anthony and then appearing as Michele at night. “I was polite, kind, and I tipped well. I just wanted to be who I am. When I was working I was confident, as Michele I was shy.”

As Michele, she would sit in bars with a laptop, was occasionally approached by men and went on dates.

“I understand men,” she says. “I know what they like and what their triggers are, but I had to dumb myself down. Men don’t want women to be smarter or have more experience. I told them I worked in ‘marketing.’ I don’t do that anymore. I’ve seen the ‘I’m uncomfortable’ look, the ‘I hate trans’ look, the ‘I’m gonna punch you’ look. About a dozen times in my life I’ve had men get nasty. ‘You’re a faggot’, ‘You’re not a woman.’ There’s nothing as crazy as an angry transgender woman. Once, I suck it up, twice I respond.”

Confronted with real bullies, she suggested taking the fight outside: “I’ll keep my heels on and give you one free punch, but you better kill me because I’ll beat the shit out of you. I’m angry and I’m fast. Then I’m gonna write a check for 50 grand and fuck up your life.” When hostilities faded, Michele sometimes bought the perpetrator a drink.

Style and sophistication were acquired by emulation. At first not concerned with fashion, she’d eventually be known at the New York boutiques of Chanel, Dior, and Alia. “I was polite and friendly because I wanted to go back.”

Anthony divorced June in 1991 and moved to New York. He kept his Silicon Valley job, lived well and created a life as Michele. Still, no one knew about the double life. Two years later, in California, Anthony married Karin, also kept in the dark about the Michele lifestyle. A fourth daughter was born.

“I thought I could stop this. I didn’t know what it was. It felt very off and strange. I just didn’t get it. We loved each other. I thought this second marriage would be the trigger to stop it.” It wasn’t.

A drummer during high school, she was missing music and formed Zen Vendetta, a band for which she sang and played drums. It was the kind of heads up, classic rock group stuck in the 80s. Songs were written collectively.

Twenty-three years passed. Between her father’s death, her mother’s suicide, and more fully addressing the dichotomy of her life, Michele grew apart from Karin. “I was an asshole,” she admits. “My mother used to tell me to ‘man up.’ I hated that. I decided what I needed to do was ‘adult up’.”

When she finally came out to her wives and daughters, the girls were angry and confused at her subterfuge, but not judgmental. The only question they had was what to call her. “I told them they could call me ‘MD,’ ‘Michele’, or ‘Dad.’ It’s an honor to be their father. They finally all said, ‘We get it, you’re different.’”

“She’s not the runaway type/Never Counts my mistakes/I can’t fix what I break/ She’s not the runaway type” —“She’s Not the Runaway Type” (by Michele Bettencourt, 2025)

Still a CEO, Michele flew back to New York, bought an apartment, and found a what became a favorite transgender bar. There was liberal use of recreational drugs and alcohol. “I was full of emotion. Molly (Ectasy), cocaine, vodka, and pot became my four food groups. New York was a fantasy life.”

In 2017, she found Dr. Eric, a psychiatrist who specialized in trans adjustment. “We went deep.” The two now speak by telephone. That same year she was outed by an activist investor. Michele suggested stepping down in order to avoid harming the business. “I was trying to be a good soldier.”

Having taken the company from $110 to $300 million and the market cap from $760 to $1.6B, principals were reluctant to let her go. They suggested hiring a president while she remained CEO and Chair. At 57, she found someone suitable to take over her position and left the organization.

Music again beckoned. Through a friend, she was introduced to Hendrik Helmer ostensibly to learn guitar. A collaboration was born. Michele produced and sang on a CD of her own songs called New Normal. It was an experiment, played by a hired band, with the CD being gifted to friends.

In 2019, Michele moved back to California and Karin. “With no idea how far I was going to transition, I made a decision that I should be with my family. It was a difficult time.” Executive Chairwoman jobs at two successive companies came quickly. Michele would occasionally show up in a dress. On the one hand, her gender evolution was more readily accepted, on the other, greed seemed omnipresent. She quit.

Currently only on the board of a Toronto company, Michele also became part owner of Licorice Pizza Record Pressing (LPs are apparently back), and is co-producing As You Are, a film about trans soldiers in the military.

Two events propelled her further into writing protest songs—the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court confirmation hearings and Trump’s deploying National Guard Troops to Los Angeles. The songs “Everybody Loves a Circus” and “Welcome to the Freak Show” were written in a rush of fury upon the events in L.A.

“Most everything I write centers on just a few themes,” she explains. “One is the disappointment that our country could be so easily upended by tyrants where the purported checks and balances were nothing more that self-dealing disguised as parchment.”

In the song “Lone Gunman” from the New Normal Album, she wrote: “They gathered their worst/And laundered their sheets/Sharpened their knives/And fought in the streets/Dumbed down the courts/Fooled all of the fools/Set us back years/And changed all the rules . . . ”

Her protest songs are resolute—less about taking to the barricades than about refusing to look away, being accountable. She uses plainspoken, literate lyrics to expose systems of power, gendered expectations, and the toll of injustice. Instead of proclaiming slogans, they provoke unease and thought. There’s no promise of easy solutions or catharsis.

Her song “(How Close) Will You Stand By Me” from the Vampire Time album speaks to reflections on her transition. “Family’s more than blood some say/Love the best who you can find/Never thought I’d see the day/That I’d be left so far behind/So far behind . . .”

In a recently composed song called “Your Last Gift,” she opines on the transition of others: “Your message written in the stars / Is only an illusion / The bruised skin that reveals your scars / Was born from my confusion / The path ahead is worn and true / Not of your invention / Your regret grows old and gray /And mired in apprehension . . .”

In the song “Absence” from The New Normal, she wrote about what she calls “fumbled apologies to my wife.” “You found me in a heap of trash/A broken axle, out of cash / An open ticket to the east /A nickel bag to calm the beast . . .”

Over the past few years, songs seemed to gush. Michele transformed her office into a recording studio. In 2025, she produced Vampire Time, an incisive, bipartisan wake-up call. There are personal songs, but the album is rife with protest messages, like her commentary about Department of Homeland Security immigration raids in U.S. cities:

In another new song targeted for a future album called “The Iceman,” she comments: “They have a private army of Neo’s and ex-cons / They hide behind their facemasks / Just to please The Don / The Ice Man’s coming / What are you going to do? / If he’s coming for me? / He’ll soon be coming for you . . .”

This past January, Bettencourt brought her Vampire Time band to The Cutting Room in Manhattan, where it raised the roof to an enthusiastic crowd who braved mountains of snow. The single “Everybody Loves a Circus,” has become a surprise radio hit on the West Coast landing on two top-10 charts (see video of the song below). Another track “Gilded Age,” a commentary on greed and the new American oligarch class, is getting radio play. The Vampire Time album has 145,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. Michele is hard at work on that new album.

As for her family, Michele says that “Karin and I still love each other. We’re partners. It has its limitations, but I put her through hell, so I’m deferential. Sometimes I feel like the wife. She’s been supportive. We kept most of our friends. We have a good life . . . I’m a husband, dad, uncle, and grandfather.”

And the beat goes on.

Founder of The Michele Bettencourt Foundation for Fair Transgender Employment, she is also on the board of the Sam & Devorah Foundation for Trans Youth , and involved in many LGBTQ+ causes.

Michele Bettencourt and Vampire Time can be heard on Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Spotify.

MAY 7 • JUNE 13 • SEPT. 1 • OCT. 20 • ALL @ 7PM AT DON’T TELL MAMA

Seven months prior to the 2018 midterm elections, long-time Cabaret Show Reviewer, Producer, Publicist, and Performer Stephen Hanks launched a series of five cabaret variety shows as fundraisers for Democratic Senate, Congress, and State Legislature candidates. The critically acclaimed CABARET CAMPAIGNS: RIDE THE BLUE WAVE 2018! at Don’t Tell Mama featured 28 different performers and raised more than $6,000 divided among 30 candidates. Election Day 2018 was indeed a “Blue Wave,” as the Democrats flipped 40 seats in Congress. After presenting two Blue Wave Victory Shows at Don’t Tell Mama in January 2019 and one Blue Wave Greatest Hits show at Urban Stages in June 2019—all of which received rave reviews from the Cabaret press—Hanks and his “Blue Wave Group” hit the cabaret club campaign trail again in January 2020, May 2022, and May 2024 with shows that raised money to support national voting rights groups and New York Democratic Congressional candidates. In September 2024, Hanks and his “Blue Wavers” were back at Don’t Tell Mama with the 12^th variety fundraising show, this time to raise money for the Presidential campaign of Vice-President Kamala Harris.

“I was hoping that after the 2024 Presidential election, I wouldn’t need to produce these shows again,” Hanks admits. “But given the current dangers to our First-Amendment Rights, Voting Rights, Health Care, Personal Freedoms, National Security, the attacks on Immigrants, and More, it is imperative that Democrats win both houses of Congress in the 2026 midterm elections. Hence, the new series PROJECT 2026: BLUE TSUNAMI! I’m hoping these fundraising shows will also energize audiences to support Democratic candidates however they can. As in times past, the cabaret art form is an ideal vehicle to get this important message out, while at the same time also supporting those on the front lines of the fight.”

The PROJECT 2026: BLUE TSUNAMI! Cabaret Variety Fundraising Series for Democratic Congress Candidates is scheduled for May 7, June 13, September 1, and October 20.

The cast for the May 7 show features: Karen Akers, Rembert Block, Lane Bradbury, Blair Alexis Brown, Alex De Suze, Goldie Dver, Nicholas King, Elizabeth Ward Land, Marissa Mulder, Sierra Rein, and Steve Schalchlin. Music Director: Michael Roberts. The cast for the June 13 show features: April Armstrong, Peter Calo, Terri Dannenberg, Natalie Douglas, Any Engelhardt, Lauren Fox, Rosemary Loar, Sue Matsuki, Kati Neiheisel, Geri Palast. Music Director: Gregory Toroian. Casts for the Sept. 1 and Oct. 20 will be announced at a later date. All shows at 7PM at Don’t Tell Mama (343 West 46th St, New York, NY, 10036). Tickets: $30. Minimum: $20 (Must include two drinks). Cash only. For reservations to the May 7 show, go to: https://shows.donttellmamanyc.com/9818-project-2026-blue-tsunami-fundraiser-5-7-26

For more information, contact Stephen Hanks at cabaretlifeproductions@gmail.com

I hope that many of you who are my friends and followers on Substack, Facebook, and BlueSky can donate whatever you can to this very worthy effort for the Children of Ukraine who desperately need all the educational materials they can get while surviving this brutal war with Russia. The true hero of this effort is a Ukrainian Children’s Magazine Publisher Peter Dudyk. You can read all about how I got immersed in this project with Peter here:

Special thanks to this week's show sponsor Aubrey Sonderegger, Democratic Candidate for Coconino County (AZ) Recorder.

Special thanks to Dick Fisher of E-MergeOnlineMarketing for the banner design.

This fundraising show today is actually the 12^th in the Series I launched in 2018 with five shows to raise money for Democratic Senate and Congressional candidates that were running in that midterm election. Since then I’ve produced and hosted another six shows for Democratic candidates and voting rights organizations, the last one staged this past May when we were raising money for New York Congressional candidates to help flip Congress back to the Democrats in 2024.

So here’s The Patriotic Progressive New York Cabaret Fundraising Show Setlist:

1. Remy Block singing the 1967 Buffalo Springfield protest song “For What It’s Worth,” which is the background music for the opening of this radio show.

2. Dawn Derow doing her rendition of a song by Gwen Levey and The Breakdown “Barefoot and Pregnant.”

3. Sandra Bargman singing Quincy Jones’ “Miss Celie’s Blues” from the film “The Color Purple.”

4. Singer/Songwriter Meg Flather singing her original song “Reaching Higher.”

5. Blair Alexis Brown is a singer and actor who took to the piano herself for this beautiful rendition of Paul Simon’s “American Tune.”

6. Margot Sergent, a French-born classical harpist and jazz singer on “The Impossible Dream” from the musical Man of LaMancha and she delivered it in French.

7. Lisa Viggiano singing “My Story” by Ilene Angel

8. Julie Reyburn singing Lauryn Hill’s “His Eye Is On the Sparrow”

9. Sierra Rein singing Stephen Sondheim’s “The Flag Song,” which was actually cut from his 1990 musical The Assassins.

10. Janice Hall, with backup vocals from Sierra Rein and Music Director Tracy Stark, on “Sing Again” by Shaina Taub, who in 2024 won the Tony Award for Best Book and Score for her musical Suffs based on the American Women’s Suffrage movement.

11. And for the finale, the Patriotic Progressive host himself singing “Abraham, Martin, and John” during the very first Blue Wave Fundraiser in April 2018 on the anniversary of MLK’s assassination.

Special thanks to my KAZM/Mellow Mountain Radio Producer Ryan Thompson for putting this all together. Enjoy . . . and DONATE.

Author’s Note: Next to my father, mother, and brother all dying before their 65th birthdays, January 20, 2017 was probably the saddest and most depressing day of my life. About a month before, I had ended the life-support for a very good friend who had been in a coma for days from a massive stroke. As his healthcare proxy, I had been taking care of him for a year since his first accident caused by developing dementia.

Now, I was in the final stages of cleaning out his small apartment in the West Village in New York, a task I was handling over that entire year because my friend lived like a packrat on steroids. While I was packing up the remnants of my friend’s place, against my better judgement—probably because I’ve always been a history and political science junkie—I kept the television on in the background while Donald Trump was making his Presidential Inaugural Address. If that’s what you wanted to characterize that monstrous speech.

I could barely contain my anger with every word that horrendous individual spoke, but when I heard him refer to our country as being an “American Carnage” (interpretation: eight years of a Black President had destroyed our country), I almost put my foot through the screen of the large television I had purchased for my friend a few months before. It was at that moment I decided that I would do whatever I could do to help make sure that not only would Democrats win as many elections as possible, but that Donald Trump would never win a second term in the White House.

To me, the issue of voting rights has always been the most important, especially since Republicans began engaging in massive voter suppression, voter nullification, and gerrymandering efforts going back to the 1980s. So it was bad enough that Trump won the 2016 election, but even more infuriating that he did it through the appalling Electoral College system.

All through 2017, I agonized trying to figure what I could do. Getting involved with voting rights organizations was a goal, but the major ones were based outside of New York—Stacy Abrams’ in Georgia and former Attorney General Eric Holder’s in Washington, DC.

Then one night, around Christmas 2017, I was at a cabaret club in the East Village in Manhattan attending the show of one of my clients Jeff Macauley (who has designed all the “Blue Wave” promotional materials since we started the series). After the show, I was hanging at the bar with my friend Sandra Bargman (who would become one of the regular “Blue Wave” performers) thinking out loud about what I could do—when finally it hit me. I was a cabaret show producer who knew all these fantastic performers who I also knew were politically engaged—and so the CABARET CAMPAIGNS: RIDE THE BLUE WAVE fundraising series for Democrats and Voting Rights organizations was born.

When we take the stage again at Don’t Tell Mama for the 12th show on September 28 at 4 pm, it will all be for the next President of the United States, Kamala Harris. For reservations, go to: https://shows.donttellmamanyc.com/8515-campaign-for-kamala-fundraising-show-9-28-25

This interview was posted on May 19, 2022 before our 10th “Blue Wave” fundraising show at the website https://nitelifeexchange.com/

Stephen Hanks entered the fascinating subculture of cabaret entertainment in New York City in late 2010 when he began reviewing cabaret shows and writing features for Cabaret Scenes Magazine. From 2012-2016, Hanks was the lead New York Cabaret Editor and Writer for BroadwayWorld.com. He has has also been a cabaret producer, promoter, publicist and performer. In 2018, Hanks produced the five-show series Cabaret Campaigns: Ride the Blue Wave 2018, which were fundraisers for Democratic candidates in the 2018 Midterm elections. Moving from Brooklyn to Sedona, AZ in 2021, Hanks now works as an Advertising Executive with the Sedona International Film Festival, is a member of Sedona-based Democrats of the Red Rocks PAC, launched Red Rocks Writer, an independent copy writing, copy editing and publicity service for Sedona-area businesses and individuals, coached the Sedona Red Rock High School baseball team for two seasons, and still plays baseball himself in a Senior Men’s Baseball League in Scottsdale, AZ. Hanks also posts political essays on his Substack newsletter , sports and lifestyle essays on Medium.com, and is also a Contributing Writer for WomanAroundTown.com.

NiteLifeExchange: When did your interest in politics begin? Was there an epiphany attached to that?

Stephen Hanks: I guess my interest in history began before my passion for politics and that started when I was seven/eight years old with the Biography TV series with Mike Wallace. I was fascinated by those mini-documentaries about historical events and people. But the political epiphany probably happened with President Kennedy’s Assassination in November 1963, a month after I turned eight. I told the audience at the first Blue Wave show in 2018 about the profound effect that had on me and how I was riveted to the television for the four days between JFK’s death and his funeral, and watching the alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald killed on live TV. I’m pretty sure that event led to my passion for both politics and journalism.

Since then, I’ve always been a political junkie and worked for a lot of candidates as a volunteer, both in New York and national politics. While in college in 1976, I volunteered in Jimmy Carter’s Presidential campaign in New York. After 12 years of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush as President, I got very involved in Bill Clinton’s New York primary and national campaign in 1992. I would give speeches supporting Clinton that I wrote myself to community groups and senior citizen centers and I’d give “soapbox speeches” in front of the Public Library on Fifth Avenue and in Washington Square Park. Now that I live in Sedona, AZ, I’m a member of the Democrats of the Red Rocks, which fundraises for local candidates and supports get-out-the-vote efforts. And over the past four years, I’ve written political columns criticizing Donald Trump and the Republican Right Wing on my blog on the website Medium.

NLE: What or who has shaped your political views over the years?

SH: Like most people, my early political views were shaped by my parents (unless you rebel when you get older), mostly my mother who was a staunch Democrat and despised Richard Nixon. My maternal grandfather, who died when I was just a month old, once ran for Congress in the Bronx and was buddies with Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, Mayor Robert Wagner, FDR, Jr., and Ambassador Averell Harriman, etc. With JFK being one of my early heroes, naturally I favored Democrats and as I got older I identified much more with Democratic Party policy position that the government has a necessary role to help people in American Democracy. Unfortunately, the current state of the so-called “Republican Party” has pretty much trashed our two-party system and I’m as progressive a Democrat as I’ve ever been in my life. 
 
NLE: The arts have long been part of political expression. What makes cabaret an effective vehicle for political advocacy?

SH: As you might know, the entertainment art form of cabaret has been a political platform since the days of Weimar Germany during the rise of Adolf Hitler and before World War II. Ironically, the musical and film version of Bob Fosse’s Cabaret, which takes place as the Nazi’s were taking power in Germany, tragically conveys messages of the situation we’re experiencing today in America. In fact, right before the 2016 election, I decided to watch the film version of Cabaret because it was on Turner Classic Movies, and had another epiphany; that white supremacy was rearing its ugly head in this country and was the biggest threat to our precious Democracy. And that was when I thought Hillary Clinton was going to WIN the election. Anyone who doesn’t realize that the entire Republican Party agenda is based on White Supremacy and Christian Nationalism is either not paying attention or willfully ignorant.

As far as what makes cabaret an effective vehicle for political advocacy, I think it’s partly the intimacy of the art form and the fact that it allows performers to express themselves in a myriad of ways, especially since the financial bottom-line pressures aren’t as great as they are in film or theater productions. Cabaret is an ideal medium for opinion and satire through music and storytelling. 

NLE: Have you gotten push-back for your views or your activism?

SH: Do you mean besides the occasional nasty comments from right wingers on Facebook and Twitter and on my Medium blog? That kind of response is to be expected. Since I’m very allergic to right wing extremists, Fox News viewers, 2020 Election deniers, and insurrectionists, I tend to stick with my own tribe where I get plenty of support.

As far as the cabaret community goes, the great audiences we’ve received at all the Blue Wave shows speak volumes about the support. I have to admit that I was disappointed that a few New York-based cabaret performers turned down my requests to perform in the Blue Wave shows because they were concerned about “being too political” or offending potential audiences that might not be Democrats or Progressives. I try to understand that position because they’re thinking about their livelihoods, but it’s still disappointing. 

NLE: What do you most desire to achieve with your Blue Wave fundraising shows?

SH: Well, pretty much what I and all my cast members wanted to achieve with the shows we’ve staged since 2018—heighten awareness of the issues, energize Democrats and Independents to vote, get them to spread the word to their friends and families, and raise as much money as possible for Democrats, whether they are running for the Senate, the House, or State Legislature seats. Another goal I always love to achieve is showcasing the incredible performers and singers and Music Director Tracy Stark, all of whom I’ll love forever for their talent, courage, and commitment to this effort since 2018.

NLE:  What’s most at stake in the fractured political world we now inhabit? How do you see the near future playing out?

SH: What’s not at stake politically these days? I can’t express how painful and disillusioning it is to say that nothing less than our fragile American Democracy is at stake right now. Everything many Americans value is on the line, whether it’s voting rights, women’s rights, minority rights, healthcare, gun safety laws, the future of the planet . . . and the list goes on.

In all the Blue Wave shows I hosted, I told audiences that these issues—in addition to protecting voting rights—are the biggest threats to American Democracy. And they are all related because as is painfully obvious, the entire Republican Party/Right Wing agenda is motivated by one factor, which President Biden articulated many times in his speeches—White Supremacy. In spite of how depressed I’ve been since the day Donald Trump was elected, I’m still optimistic good will triumph over evil. In 2018, after we did the five Blue Wave shows, Democrats flipped 40 seats in Congress and won some important Governorships and Senate races. In spite of massive voter suppression and gerrymandering in the states, Joe Biden was still able to win the Presidency in 2020. I want to believe—I HAVE TO BELIEVE—that we will win in 2022 and 2024. If not, I may be producing cabaret shows in Amsterdam.