Tag Archive for: Pop Culture

The Death of Hollywood

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The name “Hollywood” was once an emblem of creativity, ingenuity, and originality. The film industry was, for decades, the home of the daring and devoted, those who were willing to risk their reputations and fortunes for the sake of their craft, for the sake of telling a good story in a way no one had ever told a story before. In the pioneering days of the film industry, motion pictures were still a novelty, allowing for much experimenting: filmmakers explored new ways to construct narratives, new techniques to make the impossible seem possible, new methods of framing and ordering images to elicit certain emotional responses — but all of this was done in the name of telling a good story.

However, after watching Sunday night’s Academy Awards ceremony, one has to ask if Hollywood has simply run out of good stories. Top contenders for the once-prestigious Oscar statuette included “Anora,” a nearly-two-and-a-half hour-long tale of strippers, Russian crime lords, and sexual assault; the French crime musical “Emilia Pérez,” centered on a South American cartel captain who decides he’s transgender; and “Conclave,” which depicts the leaders of the Catholic Church as scheming, Machiavellian arch-politicians and imagines that the next pope might be transgender. Eventually, the coveted “Best Picture” title went to “Anora,” the heartwarming one about a stripper marrying a Russian gangster and trying to avoid being raped. A tale as old as time, they say.

Hollywood used to tell good stories. Recent years have seen only a handful of good stories told well — the World War I epics “All Quiet on the Western Front” and “1917,” the World War II dramas “Dunkirk” and “Hacksaw Ridge,” the exciting “Ford v. Ferrari,” and the oddly-charming “Green Book” stand out to this writer as examples acknowledged by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences over the past decade — but the film industry was, once upon a time, a behemoth of creativity, ingenuity, and originality, inspiring the imaginations of generations of boys and girls.

In the early days of Hollywood, studio heads and producers like Samuel Goldwyn, Louis B. Mayer, and the Warner Brothers would partner with directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Fritz Lang, and Jean Renoir to both perfect the technical art of filmmaking and tell riveting, intriguing, immersive stories. As the era of silent film faded, the Golden Age of Hollywood began. The half-century-long Golden Age produced numerous stars, of course — from Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, and Clark Gable to Jimmy Stewart, Kirk Douglas, and Gregory Peck to Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, and Marlon Brando — but was, more crucially, a time when screenwriters, cinematographers, and directors honed their art, establishing the rules which would govern filmmaking for decades.

For example, the style and format of a western differed from the style and format of a romantic drama, which itself differed in tone and technique from a romantic comedy. These rules, far from stifling creativity, were instead a means of guiding and even enhancing creativity and originality. Studio executives, of course, wanted a sizable return on the money they invested in a film, but were wise enough in those days to realize that a certain degree of novelty, daring, and even risk was necessary to make a film that would become a success. Hiring competent directors who knew when to adhere to general filmmaking guidelines and when to innovate, and casting stars with enough prestige and popularity to pack a theater allowed producers to spend a bit of their filmmaking capital splurging on original stories.

The Golden Age of Hollywood was a treasure trove of good stories: from taut thrillers like “Rear Window” and “North by Northwest” to sweeping romances like “Casablanca” and “Gone with the Wind” to moving dramas like “It’s A Wonderful Life” and “To Kill A Mockingbird” to grandiose epics like “Spartacus” and “Citizen Kane” to lighthearted musicals like “Singin’ in the Rain” and “High Society.” Over the course of decades, thousands of stories were told, captivating the hearts and minds of generations.

In the 1960s, a new cadre of filmmakers arose, shaped by the classical moviemaking of the Golden Age but eager to take new risks and further develop the technical and narrative aspects of their chosen craft. The New Hollywood movement, spearheaded by the likes of George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, and Martin Scorsese, took the tried-and-true rules established by their predecessors and applied them in novel ways, benefitting from and in many cases pioneering technological advances, which were coupled with ever-more-original approaches to storytelling.

The era produced numerous hits and spawned the phenomenon of the blockbuster. While some films, like 1967’s “Bonnie and Clyde,” pushed the envelope in regard to onscreen depictions of violence and discussions of sexuality, others, such as “Jaws,” the first “Star Wars” trilogy, the “Indiana Jones” movies, “The Godfather,” “Apocalypse Now,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Chinatown,” and others dazzled audiences with immersive, realistic, and relatable storytelling techniques, breathtaking special effects, and a novel application of the filmmaking style developed in the previous decades.

Action films exploded onto the scene in the 1980s, with movies like “Rambo: First Blood” and “Die Hard” depicting heroes who fight hard to do the right thing. Films like “E.T. the Extra Terrestrial” and “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” used innovative special effects to tell heartwarming, family-oriented stories. “Risky Business,” “The Breakfast Club,” and others immortalized the style of teenage comedy unique to the 1980s. “Blade Runner” and “The Terminator” joined the “Star Wars” films as science-fiction classics. Many of the stars and filmmakers of the 1980s went on to continued success in the 1990s, with action stars like Mel Gibson proving themselves skilled and adept directors and household names like Spielberg yielding instant classics like “Jurassic Park” and hard-hitting epics like “Saving Private Ryan.”

Even the modern era of filmmaking has yielded some good stories, passionately and skillfully told by masters of the art of filmmaking. But those good stories have become fewer and farther between since the dawn of the 21st century. Why? There are two chief causes: corporate greed and woke ideology.

Film studios and producers have long been fixated on making money, but, as noted above, many recognized in the past that audiences enjoy and appreciate at least a modicum of creativity, ingenuity, and originality, whether in the story itself or in how it’s told. But the advent of the blockbuster in the 1970s showed studios that they could not only make some money on successful films but profit immensely from blockbusters. Thus, studios began pouring more and more money into films, in the hopes of creating that rare beast: the blockbuster. If a film needed $10 million more for its budget to afford star power, popular tunes, more engaging special effects, it could be a worthwhile investment, netting hundreds of millions of dollars for the studios and producers responsible.

Of course, studios learned that disaster could also ensue. Sinking money into a film wouldn’t necessarily make it good, even if that money was spent on stars, script rewrites, and stunning special effects. A prime example is 1995’s “Cutthroat Island,” a $98 million attempt at a swashbuckling pirate adventure. After the film lost the studio over $100 million, pirate movies were barred from production for nearly a decade, until Walt Disney Pictures and producer Jerry Bruckheimer took a risk on “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.” Major studio losses on films over the past two decades have gone as high as $200 million (wasted on the science-fiction-meets-mythology film “John Carter”) and even $237 million (lost on 2023’s “The Marvels”).

The combined desire to generate a sure-fire blockbuster and the dread of losing and never recouping hundreds of millions of dollars has led to the asphyxiation of creativity, ingenuity, and originality in the film industry. A handful of directors — almost all of whom made a name as a New Hollywood director in the 70s, an action auteur in the 80s, or a breakout genius of independent cinema in the late 90s and early 2000s — have enough cachet behind their own names to be handed almost unbridled creative control over cinematic endeavors, but the majority of big-budget, studio-funded films tend to be either reboots or franchises. A movie will be made, on a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars, so long as that movie has a built-in, pre-existing fan base and, thus, a better-than-average chance of making money.

The endless stream of “Star Wars” sequels, prequels, and television shows; the ever-increasing adaptations of the “Harry Potter” books; the nonstop production of “Fast and Furious” flicks; and the almost-incestuous, incessantly-expanding Marvel superhero “multiverse” are all symptomatic of the corporate cancer that is eating the film industry away from the inside. The simple fact is that studios and producers simply are not willing to take risks on new, daring, and original ideas — with one exception.

Hollywood has become a hotbed of woke ideology over the last 15 years for certain, but the malady has arguably been around far longer. The only “risks” that studios and producers are willing to take are in pushing and promoting the LGBT agenda, demonizing white men, and mocking or belittling Christianity. Woke ideology is anathema to good storytelling; it is predicated on the concept that victimhood is a virtue. “Anora” and “Emilia Pérez” are ideal fare for the Academy Awards: a stripper who is not appreciated by her Russian mobster husband and a drug lord who wants to transition genders are perfect victims and, thus, perfectly virtuous according to the tenets of woke ideology.

Good storytelling, however, is predicated on the cultivation of virtue and its triumph over vice. This principle has been the bedrock of literature for centuries, one to which practically every great story has adhered. Victimhood is deserving, in some cases, of pity, but it is not the equivalent, in good storytelling, of either virtue or heroism. William Wallace is not the hero of “Braveheart” because he is a victim; he is the hero because he fights against tyranny, devotes his life not to revenge but to the good of his country, and finally gives his life for the sake of his country’s liberty. Dr. Alan Grant is not the hero of “Jurassic Park” because he gets attacked by dinosaurs, but because he risks life and limb to save two children and learns by the story’s end to like children.

Corporate greed has choked the creativity, ingenuity, and originality out of filmmaking — and what little there is left has been inverted and neutered by woke ideology. It has been years since the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has been relevant, but Sunday’s awards ceremony was nothing more than a soulless pageant, rewarding the woke with little statuettes, since the unoriginal franchise reboots have already been rewarded with millions of dollars.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is repbulished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2025 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

Fame Fatale: How the Elite Celeb Culture Doomed Dems

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If there’s anything more gratifying than watching conservatives win, it’s watching celebrities lose. The pampered, out-of-touch A-listers who shilled for Kamala Harris have not coped well since Tuesday’s results (if threats of death-by-Drano are any indication). But in every meltdown, one thing is clear: their despair isn’t just that the vice president failed, but that the country is too stupid to understand that famous people know better. It’s the same campaign of condescension that led to the demise of woke corporations. And with a little luck, celebrity endorsements will meet the same fate.

Of course, as plenty of news outlets are pointing out, using star power in politics isn’t new. More than 100 years ago, “Al Jolson led a march of fellow actors through the streets of Ohio in support of Republican Warren G Harding’s bid,” The Guardian explains. “Endorsements from Babe Ruth, Frank Sinatra and Barbra Streisand have all been coveted by the candidates of their day.” But that was before the vast majority of Hollywood and pro athletes became an arm of the socialist Left and lost all touch with the average American.

“Even though Harris’ slogan was, ‘We are not going back,’ the campaign was firmly in reverse,” the New York Post’s Kirsten Fleming insists, “taking the DeLorean to 2008 … [b]ack when Hollywood A-listers meant something. … Before the Democratic Party completely abandoned the working class. Talked down to them. Told them they were racist or bigoted for not putting their pronouns in their bio.”

They put down their caviar and step off their private jets fully expecting their celebrity cache to supersede a person’s opinions, values, or lived experience. Ricky Gervais mocked this idea over the summer before Harris introduced her cast of star surrogates. “As a celebrity, I know all about stuff like science and politics, so trust me when I tell you who you should vote for,” Gervais mimicked. “If you don’t vote the right way, it’s like a hate crime and that makes me sad and angry, and I’ll leave the country — and you don’t want that!”

A bandwagon of actors and NBA players may have worked in the glamour days of the Obamas, who seemed like celebrities themselves but always managed to resonate with the normal family. The difference now is that the Democratic Party is so far outside the mainstream ideologically (try Jupiter) that the stars who endorse them seem even more unrelatable. Not only are they rich and beautiful with massive platforms and industry accolades, but they’re embracing an agenda of extremism that never made sense to begin with.

Oprah, Christina Aguilera, Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Harrison Ford, Taylor Swift, Cardi B, LeBron James, Jennifer Aniston, Beyoncé, Anne Hathaway, Sally Field, Bruce Springsteen, Jennifer Lawrence, Julia Roberts, Martha Stewart, Steph Curry, George Clooney, Spike Lee, Ariana Grande, Eminem, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Robert De Niro, and all of Ben Affleck’s former wives and girlfriends have the luxury of caring about the fringe issues because they’re not living on a budget, scared by crime, or losing jobs and housing to migrants. They’re too divorced from reality to understand what America wants or needs. And despite their capacity for great acting, they never bother to put themselves in the role of the average person.

That’s what makes the grassroots popularity of Donald Trump, a billionaire who owns 16 golf courses and lives in gold-gilded homes, such a paradox. But then, the 45th president never implied that Americans couldn’t think for themselves or prioritize what’s important. He didn’t reduce them to their education status, skin color, or reproductive organs. He made it his business to listen to the country — not preach. And unlike the Left’s elites who reek of moral superiority and disdain for hard-working families, he embraced them.

Of course, the former president had his own famous friends. And like the enigma they threw their support behind, these endorsements were different — and quite possibly, more effective. In our vicious media culture, standing with Trump took guts, and Americans know it. Unlike Harris’s backers, who were treated like heroes for accepting a zero-risk offer to step into the political limelight, Trump’s public allies — people like Mel Gibson, Danica Patrick, Brett Favre, Joe Rogan, Buzz Aldrin, Dr. Phil, Roseanne Barr, Paula Deen, Elon Musk, Harrison Butker, Brittany Mahomes, Kelsey Grammar, and Kid Rock — understood that they would not only face extreme ridicule and backlash, but, quite possibly, career consequences. In a battle between the fearless and the smug, it’s not hard to see who would earn more respect.

At the end of the day, the country objects to Hollywood’s moralizing for the same reason they objected to corporate America’s: it’s snobbish and patronizing, yes, but it’s also not their lane. If you throw a football, throw a football. If you sing, sing. But stop telling us that rooting out “white privilege” or banning plastic straws is more important than global stability, decent schools, or feeding our families.

And practically speaking, at least where politicians are concerned, this glitzy echo chamber does nothing to move the needle. Arizona State University professor Margaretha Bentley, whose classes have studied the “social importance” of Taylor Swift says, “In the academic literature, research has shown that, while celebrity endorsements can increase civic engagement and voter registrations, it has not proven to have a direct impact on how people make their voting decisions.”

Or if it does, it moves them in the wrong direction. When the biggest pop star on the planet endorsed the vice president, a poll from YouGov found that “only 8% of voters would be ‘somewhat’ or ‘much more’ likely to vote for Harris — with a surprising 20% saying [Swift’s support] actually made them less likely to vote for her.” In other words, it backfired. Harris was not only worse off for it, but Swift lost a good chunk of her fans’ goodwill.

So will Cardi B, who, like most of these personalities, aren’t exactly graceful losers. “I hate y’all bad,” the rapper complained after Election Day. She responded to someone asking if she’d appear at Trump’s inauguration by saying: “I’m sick of you! Burn your f****** hats, motherf*****. I’m really sad. I swear to God I’m really sad.” Singer Christiana Aguilera ordered fans to “unfollow me if you voted against female rights. … Unfollow me because what you did is unreal. Don’t want followers like this. So yeah. Done. Also after today I will be shutting down this fan account that I have had for so many years because this is sick.”

All of this adds to the country’s growing revulsion for the insulated and detached celeb scene. The reality is, Family Research Council’s Joseph Backholm told The Washington Stand, “It’s normal for people to respect and admire another person, but if we don’t know them personally, our respect for them is generally limited to the thing we know them for. I can respect a musician or an athlete for their elite talents, but I need a lot more information about them before I start taking parenting advice from them,” he said. “The Left seems to assume that because we like someone’s music or movies we’re going to defer to their judgment about what’s good for us. Most people may believe Taylor Swift is better at writing songs than they are, but that doesn’t mean they believe she’s better at deciding what’s best for their family.”

Some on the Left are waking up to this reality for the party in general. Democrat Chris Cuomo outright blamed wokeism for Harris’s loss. “You are forcing new social norms on people in this country. ‘No, I’m not,’ [they insist]. ‘We’re just doing what’s fair. Trans people have rights too.’ Yes, but if it’s communicated as if you must be forced to accept and be indoctrinated with ideas that you do not share — is that fair? ‘That’s not what we were doing.’ That’s how they felt you were treating them about it,” Cuomo argued. “That’s the women in sports thing. It’s not that it happens a lot. … [But] it’s that the fact that it happens at all, to them, is a gross violation of norms and unacceptable. And you find it okay, and they believe that is wokeism run amok.”

What you’re seeing, Rasmussen head pollster Mark Mitchell told FRC President Tony Perkins on “Washington Watch,” is that these people “fleeing the Democrat Party and the Republicans, the Donald Trump movement, are really starting to become the core culture of the counterculture. … The mainstream media has jumped the shark, has lost its credibility, is losing its sway. And look at all the actors and actresses and authority figures that [threw] endorsements to Kamala Harris, and none of them moved the needle because people just don’t care anymore. So I think that trend is going to continue.”

And for Americans sick of being lectured by woke politicians, companies, actresses, and athletes, maybe that’s one of the biggest Election Day victories of all.

AUTHOR

Suzanne Bowdey

Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

‘Made in America’: Toby Keith, American Patriotism, and the Decay of the Democratic Party

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Country music legend and patriot par excellence Toby Keith has gone on to meet his Maker. The Oklahoma-born singer passed away Monday night last week at the age of 62, after a years-long battle with stomach cancer. Days before he passed away, Keith shared in an interview that his Christian faith sustained him throughout his experience with cancer. “You have to have your faith,” he said. “Thank God that I got it too. You take it for granted on days that things are good, and you lean on it when days are bad. It’s taught me to lean on it a little more every day.”

Especially after his passing, the “Made In America” singer has been praised for his unabashed, unapologetic patriotic spirit. The son of a soldier, Keith devoted much of his music and career to honoring the military veterans who fought so long and so hard to keep America safe. For example, from 2002 to 2013, Keith did 11 tours with the United Service Organizations, performing for U.S. military servicemembers in 15 countries and on three naval ships. The country star also founded the “I Love This Bar and Grill” restaurant chain, which offered free meals and drinks to military vets and often featured surprise visits and performances from Keith and his country music friends, like Gretchen Wilson.

Keith’s discography is also jam-packed with enough patriotism to make even George Washington smile in his grave. Perhaps the most obvious example of this is the anthem “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue,” penned in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Originally intended only for live performances, Keith said that U.S. Marine Corps Commandant General James L. Jones told him it was his “duty as an American citizen” to record the song for an album. The single peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot Country list — one of Keith’s 20 number-one singles. Another of those songs, 2011’s “Made in America,” pays tribute to Keith’s family, especially his all-American father. Going beyond support for America’s military, the song laments the nation’s growing reliance on foreign industry and energy, as well as the even-then-burgeoning absence of patriotism among Americans.

The “Beer for My Horses” singer’s life and political evolution is also prognostic not only of the deep political divisions that have rent the U.S. over the past two decades in particular, but most especially of how the Democratic Party has devolved. Keith used to bill himself as “a conservative Democrat who is sometimes embarrassed for his party,” and in April of 2008 he praised then-presidential-candidate Barack Obama as “the best Democratic candidate we’ve had since Bill Clinton.” Just a few months later, he told Country Music Television that he had left the Democratic Party and registered as an Independent. Years later, in 2017, Keith performed a concert in honor of Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration.

In the hours after Keith’s family announced his death, left-wingers began lambasting him as a “hateful,” “bigoted,” “racist” “misogynist” — and a whole host of expletives besides — further exhibiting the animosity and hostility leftists harbor toward conservatives. The most revealing aspect of this vitriol (and, to authentic patriots, perhaps the least surprising) is that the political and ideological faction formerly known as the Democratic Party considers mere patriotism to be a definitive hallmark of “the enemy,” conservatism.

Patriotism was once among the most fundamental prerequisites for that condition known as “being an American.” Certainly the first Americans had patriotism in spades: men and women willing to risk life, limb, and even liberty for a nation that no one recognized except for them. George Washington, Patrick Henry, John Jay, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Samuel Adams receive the same vitriol from modern-day leftists, their monuments are torn down — like Toby Keith, they are labeled bigots and racists — like Toby Keith, their ardent patriotism is seen as a threat.

And in all honesty, it is. The leftist ideology is predicated on a hatred for America and the ideals, values, and traditions that form the basis of her founding. Once upon a time, even the Democratic Party recognized the worth of patriotism — Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, John F. Kennedy, and his brother Bobby would have all died for their country — but today’s Democrats are hellbent on not only undermining but outright destroying love for one’s nation and the principles upon which that nation was founded. The Democratic Party of old is long dead. There was once a time when Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, agreed on what outcome and end result was good but had different ideas of how to go about achieving that ultimate good.

Now, the brain (and spiritual) cancer called leftism has infected the Democratic Party — and, to a certain extent, even the Republican Party, at least its treacherous old guard — driving out patriots and those loyal to America on the basis of… well, patriotism and loyalty to America. Toby Keith was driven out from the Democratic Party, left politically homeless by the party that once stood up for blue-collar workers and against corporate elitism — the same political party which has since crippled the middle class, blue-collar workers, and veterans, and which now almost exclusively serves the interests of corporate elites, legislating the same radical social agendas pushed by seemingly every major corporate entity from Hollywood to the military-industrial complex to international mega department stores and fast food chains.

As Toby Keith’s example bears out, American patriots, devoted to the nation’s foundational principles, find themselves inexorably drawn to (and indeed pushed towards) conservatism, especially as the onslaught of leftism pervades the Democratic Party and every institution it has captured and dominated over the past three decades.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

EDITORS NOTE: This Washington Stand column is republished with permission. All rights reserved. ©2024 Family Research Council.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

The Swiftian Candidate: How a Pop Star Might Impact the Presidential Election

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For decades, celebrities have insisted on involving themselves in politics and political commentary, whether they have any moral or intellectual basis for doing so or not. Whether it’s middle-aged, wine-box variety feminists on “The View” or the latest thespian to mistake an increasingly-irrelevant acting award for a doctorate in political science, the rich and famous insist on airing their pernicious political positions in, more often than not, the most noxious, arrogant, self-aggrandizing terms imaginable. Even the legendary Narcissus would blush to hear a politically-charged Academy Award acceptance speech — at least all he did was stare at his reflection and leave the rest of the world alone.

One of today’s most prominent celebrities, however, was largely silent on the subject of politics for much of her career, but now has the potential wherewithal to sway nearly a fifth of voters in 2024. According to a new survey, country star-turned pop icon Taylor Swift’s endorsement would likely influence 18% of voters in America, including about 30% of voters under the age of 35. Of course, Swift is likely to endorse the incompetent, geriatric incumbent Joe Biden.

This should not be a surprise, nor a puzzle to figure out. The pop star previously endorsed the Biden-Harris campaign in 2020, posting a platter of Biden-Harris campaign-sticker-style cookies to Instagram. Even before this, in the documentary “Miss Americana,” Swift lamented not having used her influence to criticize then-candidate Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. She also blasted Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) in the 2018 midterms, calling the staunchly pro-life politician “Trump in a wig” and endorsing Blackburn’s opponent, pro-abortion Democrat and former Volunteer State governor Phil Bredesen.

In the wake of the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, Swift took to social media to defend abortion as “women’s rights to their own bodies,” posting a pro-abortion eulogy by Michelle Obama. She has also been a proponent of the LGBT agenda, calling on fans to oppose pro-family, pro-marriage legislation and legislators and announcing Pride Month dedications.

According to a New York Times report, Biden campaign aides and staffers are lobbying for Swift’s endorsement a second time around. “The biggest and most influential endorsement target is Ms. Swift,” the report states. “Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a top Biden surrogate, all but begged Ms. Swift to become more involved in Mr. Biden’s campaign when he spoke to reporters after a Republican primary debate in September.” Apparently, the Biden team has even considered aligning campaign stops with Swift’s record-breaking “Eras” tour.

It seems ludicrous — laughably so — that a woman who’s made a career out of singing about picking the wrong guy is able to practically direct people how to vote. But setting aside the irony entailed by glancing at Swift’s catalog of songs and failed relationships, the fact that a single, politically-illiterate billionaire celebrity can effectively command a fifth of voters is disturbing, to say the very least, and actually reveals some of the chief flaws of democratic systems.

First and foremost, Swift’s political power is indicative of how far the Western world — America in particular — has fallen from God. C.S. Lewis once quipped in an essay, “Where men are forbidden to honor a king they honor millionaires, athletes, or film-stars instead: even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison.”

Christ the King has been forced out of the public square in secular Western society. In His stead, the masses now do exactly as Lewis predicted and worship celebrities, with Swift towering above them all. Without a God to worship, the public will inevitably worship lesser gods. This lesson is written throughout history: the ancients would worship and sacrifice to Zeus, Jupiter, Odin, Horus, and countless others. Without the revelation of the one true God, Perfection Himself, these false gods were but exaggerations of common human strengths and weaknesses.

Now, in the ages since Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection, a new sort of god has come to be. No more can men conjure gods in their imaginations, unseen beings responsible for thunder and lightning; instead, the public now worships those among them who are deemed to have transcended common human limitations: billionaire businessmen, cutting-edge scientists, and talented performers are all glorified in God’s place. Under the tutelage of the Serpent, man has usurped the throne of God — if only in his own mind. Where God invites man to become one with Him, man’s new idea of god promises that every man can become a god, and on his own terms, not on Someone Else’s. Without Christ at the center of the public square, man now gobbles poison, and Swift is peddling it with her views on abortion and sex.

In fact, Swift’s very few political statements directly contradict the noble notion of self-sacrifice inherent in a Christ-centered public square: endorsing the killing of one’s own children for whatever reason — career, reputation, economic ease, or just consequence-free sex — and supporting the sterile LGBT agenda, incapable of producing children or building families, in direct conflict with God’s design for human sexuality. Like the rest of the cultural elite horde, Swift buys into, repackages, and mass-distributes the Luciferian agenda. But unlike the rest of the cultural elite horde, her influence may be enough to alter the outcome of an election.

Finally, there is the alarming degree of political illiteracy prevalent among her fans. Self-declared “Swifties” willing and ready to base their vote on the pop star’s endorsement are not informing their political worldview but allowing someone else to form it for them. One politician’s endorsement of another is a means of informing the political worldview of citizens, a way of saying, “If my policies align with your priorities, then consider voting for this guy, there’s a lot of overlap.” But if swaths of Americans are prepared to vote for a candidate based only on one individual’s recommendation, these people are not bearing in mind the countless generations of Americans who came before them and fought, killed, bled, and died for their children’s children’s children to be able to choose for themselves their leader, instead of having a despot thrust upon them. They are not bearing in mind the God-given responsibility they have to form their consciences well and vote accordingly. They are not bearing in mind God’s commandments and designs and how those ought to be lived out in a virtuous society.

The ”democratic” part of our democratic republic is increasingly falling under the control of a handful of powerful, uber-wealthy cultural elites who dictate where political power goes and how it is exercised. Sounds an awful lot like tyranny.

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

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Trump Allies Pledge ‘Holy War’ Against Taylor Swift

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