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Shia LaBeouf likes to provoke people, and what bigger target of provocation is there than the nation’s 45th President? On Inauguration Day, the actor, performance artist and all-round Renaissance guy unveiled a can of anti-Trump whup-ass in the form of a protest video installation outside of the The Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens. Titled HEWILLNOTDIVIDE.US, the project invited members of the public to say "He will not divide us” into an exterior-mounted camera streaming live on the web.
HEWILLNOTDIVIDE.US was supposed to be in operation for Trump’s first (and hopefully last) term in office. However, the proposed four-year running time was cut short on Friday when the museum decided to pull the plug. In a statement, it noted that HEWILLNOTDIVIDE.US caused “serious public safety hazards." Among the most notable of these was when LeBeouf himself was caught live on camera shouting into the face of a man whose choice of headgear—a World War II, Wehrmacht-style field cap—suggested that he was Trump supporter. LaBeouf was arrested for assault after the incident.
But HEWILLNOTDIVIDE.US was dogged by other controversies, including that fact that it became a magnet for alt-right trolls, and, according to the New York Post, for a more generic class of malingerers prone to drinking, urinating and smoking weed in public—activities that did not sit well with the museum’s neighbors. The Post also quoted a trustee who said that the museum was barred from engaging in partisan activities in any case, though you wonder why they didn’t remember that before hosting LeBeouf’s livestream epic. Meanwhile, HEWILLNOTDIVIDE.US’s feed is still online, showing a black background with the words, "THE MUSEUM HAS ABANDONED US," in white.
