Leave Carrie Underwood The Hell Alone

Random Notes 157 Comments

Carrie Underwood. Wearing a damn mask.

The question is not if Carrie Underwood is right about masks in schools. The question is does Carrie Underwood have a right to an opinion about masks in schools. And the answer is “yes.”

And as soon as the answer is “no”—where American citizens are either disallowed through edict, or from the fear of public retribution from the politically-incited, pearl-clutching, hall-monitoring infernal Twitter mob who can’t think beyond 280 characters and attempt to destroy the lives and careers of anyone they might disagree with—then we cease to live in a free and open liberal Democracy, and lurch one step further to the authoritarian state where a small number of people get to decree how the rest of us live and think, which many of the people coming for Carrie Underwood at the moment would be perfectly happy to see transpire.

You—Joe Q Public—of whom 78% of don’t even have a stupid Twitter account, are being told you should care vehemently and be full of outrage that Carrie Underwood—purposely or inadvertently—“liked” a Tweet from a conservative commentator named Matt Walsh where he posted a clip of himself addressing the school board in Nashville speaking out against a proposed mask mandate for students.

Now look, I can’t say I’d even heard of this Matt Walsh dude until this incident. And the outrage flowing toward Carrie Underwood is only helping funnel attention to this guy who makes his living off of dividing us and sowing outrage just like all political pundits. In fact this Matt Walsh character has said as much in subsequent tweets, overtly using the controversy to make his star burn brighter, and spread his message. And it’s working brilliantly. Maybe Matt Walsh is a swell guy, and maybe he’s a piece of shit. I write about country music, and I really don’t know. And I really don’t care either.

As for Carrie Underwood, she is the mother of a school-aged child. She has the right to express her opinion about affairs that affect her child. Maybe she has seen the mental anguish wearing a mask has caused for her kid. Maybe she just liked the Tweet accidentally. Do you really think that Carrie Underwood wants to kill children? Either way, if you disagree with her, then make that case. Give your opinion. Then an informed public hearing both sides can judge for themselves how they feel about the matter. That is how an open society works, not soliciting shock mobs to stifle all dissent, and attempt to destroy the careers of those we disagree with on culture war issues.

In fact, a lot of the anger flowing toward Carrie Underwood is completely unfounded, and verifiably false. Again, Carrie Underwood hasn’t voiced any opinion. She literally just “liked” a tweet speaking out against mandatory masks in schools, and all of a sudden she’s Morgan Wallen. And there are now dozens of tweets with 1000+ retweets declaring Carrie Underwood “anti-vaxx,” when she said nothing about vaccines at all.

It’s not even fair to call Carrie Underwood anti-mask. On numerous occasions during the pandemic, she made a big display of wearing masks (see above). But if you lie on Twitter, you will get rewarded. That is why individuals continue to do it, with these lies later becoming ossified through hard journalism and sensationalized headlines since Twitter works as the mother brain of today’s media.

Am I just defending Carrie Underwood because I’m anti-vaxx, or I’m anti-mask, or because I’m a champion of anyone in the country genre? To be frank, I’m not even really a big fan of Carrie Underwood’s music, with some exceptions.

And here’s what Carrie Underwood feels about me:

But coming from someone who actually covers country music in-depth for a living, I can assure you that Carrie Underwood the person has more character in her pinky finger than the entirety of this Twitter mob has in their angry thumbs. Out of the current class of mainstream contemporary country artists, Carrie Underwood is the only one that regularly pays her dues to the Grand Ole Opry, and regularly shows respect for the sanctity of country music.

And though many are using Carrie Underwood’s faith as an attack vector (real classy, by the way), they’re overlooking the fact that Underwood has expressed her support for gay marriage, is vegan, and probably shares other cultural values with many of those who are attacking her at the moment. She also happens to be one of the few successful women in mainstream country, and injury to her career would only continue the lack of representation for women in the genre.

The outrage shouldn’t be toward Carrie Underwood, it should be at the way public fervor can result in such a complete detachment from perspective that a liked tweet can launch a viral moment and scores of articles in major periodicals authored by political apparatchiks embedded in entertainment media, and a legitimate attempt to end Carrie Underwood’s career.

You want to talk about white privilege? Caring about what tweet Carrie Underwood liked on Twitter is the very seat of white privilege.

But make no mistake, the Twitter attacks on Carrie Underwood have been a huge boon for this Matt Walsh guy, and his anti-mask agenda, no different than how the outrage at Morgan Wallen for the N-word incident has been the rocket fuel to his continued dominance and success. YOU–Mr. or Mrs. outraged Twitter user raging against Carrie Underwood—are verifably forwarding the agenda of your enemies with this effort, while the character of Carrie Underwood becomes collateral damage in this culture war fight.

Masking in schools is a very, very contentious issue, and it’s the responsibility of us all to understand the heated nature of these topics, and try to be understanding. But instead, just like all culture war issues, masking in schools is being exploited by the elite to distract us from issues like the exposure of a 20-year kleptocratic regime in Afghanistan presided over by the American uniparty that has resulted in a trillion dollars worth of American taxpayer money going to equip what is now an Islamic jihadist state.

But it’s not just the elite, or political pundits like this Matt Walsh guy that profiteer off the bifurcation of the American public. It’s platforms like Twitter that reward lies and outrage, and have such an iron grasp on the attention span of those that populate the media that it has resulted in the onset of a dystopian reality where “liking” a tweet accidentally or purposely legitimately results in an existential threat to someone’s livelihood.

© 2024 Saving Country Music

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