Notorious woke-scolds, The Chicks, were blacklisted from radio stations and lost their corporate sponsorships in 2003 after lead singer Natalie Maines said “we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.” As a reminder, George Bush is a filthy yank from New Haven, Connecticut.
See, here’s the problem: There are too many celebrities and they’re all too involved in politics and this is the first time this has ever happened and you can’t be a celebrity anymore because of the woke and, oh my God, Taylor Swift did what?????
Politicians have been courting the endorsements and interests of various “apolitical figures” for decades, and they’ve been using those apolitical figures to cram into whatever position they want for even longer. It’s hard to come up with a good and cogent policy dealing with the Israel-Palestine conflict which I am no longer allowed to talk to by the powers that be (those being my blood pressure and my mental health). But do you know what’s really, really easy? Giving the reanimated corpse of Clint Eastwood a few grand and asking him to shuffle his way from his part of the mortal coil to our part of the mortal coil so he can have at it with a chair.
This is not a joke.
This is the 2012 Republican National Convention. It happened.
Regardless, we’ve been courting actors to make strong political statements and endorse candidates since forever and they’ve become a huge part of how we talk about politics. Oh yes, Kamala may have just rolled out a new policy but TRUMP GOT HULK HOGAN? DUDE I KNOW WHO I’M VOTING FOR NOW.
These name-recognition-based politics aren’t anything new, but the vitriol against celebrities who speak out or speak up about certain issues is starting to reach a fever pitch. See, in the days past September 11, celebrities who attacked the Bush administration over their handling of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were often completely destroyed by not only the establishment (who, y’know, are meanies sometimes), but by their own fan bases and their own supporters. I’m not saying deep state, mind you, it’s just that, on the whole, it was just very unpopular to be anti-war in 2001. Look at the Spice Girls.
It also made the musician endorsement very, very strange because on one side you had the “Good Christian Boys of America,” making some soulful music about going to war and patriotism, and all that, and on the other, you had a bunch of weird hippie types who had never worked a job in their life and probably thought Beanie Babies would be valuable.
I’m not mad my parents spent my tuition on Beanie Babies. I’m not mad at all.
Anyway, this changed up the way we looked at celebrities who talked about politics. Firstly, the age of the internet meant we now know everything about everyone, and the 24/7 news cycle made it hard to forget about things, which took weird and oftentimes redundant celebrity opinions into the forefront. Suddenly, people cared.
That’s only gotten more and more obvious as time passed. Once the moral importance of endorsements became more obvious (they always were, people expected morality of some sort from their heroes, in fact), and without the protective shield of the rag magazines and the tabloids to filter their words and curate their opinions well, it suddenly became an expectation to know what celebrities believed. I want to know if Tom Hiddleston is pro- or anti-fracking and I want to know NOW.
All of this has come to a head around the most famous pop star of our — or honestly, any — generation: Taylor Swift, and her recent endorsement of Kamala Devi Harris.
I was shocked. Shocked, I tell you.
Regardless, Trump had some strong opinions on this, and now he apparently hates Taylor Swift. I guess he’s his own tortured poet. 🙁
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