Taylor Swift announced on Instagram on Sunday she would be voting in Tennessee’s 2018 election and endorsed Democratic Senate candidate Phil Bredesen over Republican candidate Marsha Blackburn, citing her inability to support Blackburn over the candidate’s lack of support for LGBTQ people, people of color and women.
This endorsement earned Swift condemnation from conservatives across the board, including President Donald Trump, who said he liked her music about “25 percent less†now and used the old hackneyed statement that “celebrities should stay out of politics.†That’s rich coming from people who selected a celebrity themselves to run for president.
The whole core of Swift’s endorsement is not necessarily political. The main things she calls for, the right for gender and sexual minorities to not be discriminated against by people, solving systemic racism and equal pay for women, are not political issues at their heart. They are human rights issues. Those issues mainly revolve around people’s right to be treated as human beings. The only reason those issues have become political is because some people refuse to see them for what they are.
I think it is time we all stop pretending other people do not have political opinions. It is time to give up this old notion that we have to avoid talking politics because we will inevitably run into someone with whom we do not agree. We simply cannot avoid discussing politics because it is so pervasive in our lives. The only solution to getting rid of political discourse is getting rid of government, and I think most people prefer our current situation to total anarchy.Â
We can definitely talk about things we believe in, but I think it is time to stop pretending like people who are very passionate about what they believe in are going to avoid raising their voices for their beliefs and the people and values they stand up for, especially people like Swift who have such large and influential platforms.
Saying someone should “shut up and sing,†like one fan said to the Dixie Chicks back when they condemned then-President George W. Bush for the Iraq invasion, is choosing to believe a lie about them. If someone is unwilling to hear what other people have to say, that person is choosing to believe something that is not true about them. If people choose to color someone else with their own perceptions, they are choosing not to accept other people have a different experience of life. To be a good citizen, one cannot have an insular view of the world.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one of the originators of modern political thought, said citizens have to be involved in their society for it to work. It is not enough for people to sit on the sidelines and wait for their turn to be heard when the system might overlook them in some cases. The people in power have to contend with those who disagree with them. It is up to the people in power to listen to their constituents and try to understand them as much as it is for the citizens to speak up for their beliefs.
And that’s the tea on that.
