#christopher macchio

Lisa Needham at Daily Kos:

FBI Director Kash Patel’s girlfriend and wannabe country singer Alexis Wilkins just got added to the lineup for tonight’s extremely prestigious Freedom 250 rally starring President Donald Trump—and she wants you to know that she totally got there on merit. After the Freedom 250 music festival collapsed spectacularly—with artists racing to wipe their names from the garbage—Trump declared that he’s instead just going to have a rally. At first, Trump was only going to be joined by Lee Greenwood and Christopher Macchio, the latter of whom always inspires a jump scare where you wonder when the guy from “Karate Kid” became an asshole, until you realize this is a different guy. But on Tuesday, Wilkins got added to the bill, announcing on X what a “great honor” it is to be part of this debacle, in which she’s now listed as a “featured performer.” When people pointed out that the only reason she got slotted in is because she’s Patel’s girlfriend, Wilkins got huffy. [...] Well, maybe she has a lot of listeners on streaming services? Lol, nope. On Spotify, she has just 5,620 monthly listeners, and her biggest song, “Love Me,” has 517,491 total plays at the time of this writing. The Chicks, widely reviled by conservatives, boast about 6 million monthly listeners—meaning that Wilkins pulls in roughly 0.09% of their spins. There’s also Maren Morris, an outspoken liberal, pulling in more than 11 million listeners per month. Wilkins fares no better against conservative country artists. Toby Keith has more than 10 million monthly listeners—despite the fact that he’s, you know, dead. And the extremely Trumpy Travis Tritt brings in 5 million monthly listeners. Hey, that’s only 890 times more than Wilkins, so … getting closer? Even the entirely washed-up Kid Rock gets 7 million people to stream his songs every month for some godforsaken reason.  But wait—stop the presses. Looks like there’s someone with fewer monthly listeners than Wilkins. Yes, it’s her fellow Freedom 250 performer Christopher Macchio, about whom Trump boasted, “Not since the legendary Luciano Pavarotti has there been such a voice!”  Macchio’s talent must be a very well-kept secret, given that he nabs just about 890 listeners each month.