Why the Trumpers could use a little Annie in their lives
by Kevin Ellis
I am not sure when the tears began streaming down my face.
I was sitting in a darkened theater in Washington DC watching the latest edition of Annie! – for my money, one of the great Broadway musicals of all time.
Indeed, my mother took me to the original Broadway production back in the ‘70s, starring the wonderful Andrea McArdle in the lead. The music from the show has stuck with me for many years. So when the show came to Washington DC a few weeks ago, I jumped at the chance.
The show won many awards and spawned sequels and a successful movie.
That original show stays with me all these years later. I didn’t expect the tears. Was it just nostalgia, or the music, or watching little kids do extraordinary things in the adult world of theater?
I think it was something else. The show’s writer and first director, the late Martin Charnin, could not have imagined Donald Trump. But he did anticipate Elon Musk and the idolatry of wealth that currently has our nation by the throat. He saw the darkness and cruelty of the Depression and what a little optimism could do.
Halfway through the show, it happens – a subtle, radical patriotism emerges from the actors. You might miss it if you don’t pay attention. Or if you were the young children on either side of me at the matinee performance at 2 in the afternoon, you would miss the political messages and just love the songs. Even adults can miss the historical references to Herbert Hoover, the New Deal, and the politics of the time.
You might know the contours of the story. Based on “Little Orphan Annie’ from the comics, a young orphan escapes the poorhouse during the Depression. She finds her way to the mansion of a war profiteer named Oliver “Daddy” Warbucks, who is angry at President Franklin Roosevelt because his factories are shut down and hurting his pocketbook.
The America of the time was a sad place. Income inequality reigned. Unemployment was everywhere. Suicide was common.
Just as today, the country’s obsession with wealth and power excluded many. President Hoover told everyone that government intervention wasn’t necessary to revive the economy. He called for a “chicken in every pot.”
The out-of-work New Yorkers in the show, standing around a garbage can fire, sing: “Not only don’t we have the chicken, we ain’t got the pot!’’
Warbucks is obsessed with wealth and power and ignores those who serve him – his house staff and his employees. His focus is not on the public good, but his own wealth and what the federal government can do for him. He is Elon Musk, oblivious to those he hurts and whom this economy leaves behind.
But then he meets Annie, a sunny, smart orphan who sings a song called “Tomorrow.”
She begins with the words: “The Sun’ll come out tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow, they’ll be sun.”
It’s a message to her orphan friends who exist on gruel and abuse, to those freezing in the shanties of Depression-era New York City and to politicians like Roosevelt, who are searching for a way to turn around the economy.
It’s sunny optimism, a little naïve – but oh so American. It’s an America I miss and wish for and wish to live in.
Annie comes to live with Warbucks, who happens to be buddies with Roosevelt. Slowly, subtly, Annie affects everyone. She humanizes Warbucks. He softens. He falls in love, really, and fills a hole in his emotional life he never knew existed.
He sings a song called “Something was Missing” and describes a barren life of chasing money and accumulating wealth and power at the expense of love and friendship.
Annie also changes everyone around Warbucks, including President Roosevelt and his cabinet, who have come over for Christmas.
The best line in the show – and when the tears really started flowing – came when Annie is singing that wonderfully optimistic song “Tomorrow.” She is shushed by Cabinet member Harold Ickes. But Rossevelt intervenes: “No Harold. Go ahead Annie. It’s still a free country.”
Indeed it is – as we begin to understand how to push back on Trump, to protect those who would be abducted from our streets and flown to the gulag with no due process, to remember the First Amendment, not to mention the 14th.
Suddenly the president and these up-tight politicians are singing with a little girl about optimism and what is possible.
Roosevelt sings: “When I’m stuck with a day that’s gray and lonely, I just stick out my chin and grin and say – everyone, Republicans too Oliver – sing!”
I realize that this is the same president who interned Japanese Americans during World War II and didn’t take on segregation in the country.
But as we look upon the landscape that Trump has changed and continues to change, there is a message in the show worth pondering.
Regardless of what you think about tariffs, deportations, and Ukraine, the core element of Trump, Musk, and the rest, is the cruelty. Our government has become mean. These folks think only of power and winning. They don’t hesitate to hurt people. There is no Annie (optimism) in the Cabinet or the White House.
Such cruelty is a trait that has existed in us since 1776, indeed since the dawn of time. And we have always fought against it. We abolished slavery, desegregated schools and hotels, defeated the Nazis, recognized same-sex marriage and equal pay and voting rights. The Clean Air Act, the National Parks, the Kennedy Center, Sesame Street, NPR, Ken Burns.
Sometimes meanness wins. The accumulation of wealth often triumphs over kindness, optimism, and community.
But if you go watch Annie! or just listen to the soundtrack closely, you will hear the joy and optimism that are the best part of America, the bright side.
If you are like me, your patriotism might well up in you and the tears will flow. Because this is your country, our country. You almost feel for Trump and Musk and JD Vance for not having an Annie in their lives. Just think if they had gone to the show. They might be happier, kinder, a little gentler. And the country and the world would follow.
The author is a former State House lobbyist, daily newspaper reporter, and Vermont Journalism Trust board member, and publisher of the blog ‘Conflict of Interest.’