Chappell Roan isn't endorsing a candidate for president. While this seems hardly newsworthy, the internet virtually erupted in horror that the 26-year-old musician, who shot to fame earlier this year, doesn't want to use her frame to urge fans to vote for Vice President Kamala Harris.
via: THR
Though Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish have recently been outspoken about their support for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, Chappell Roan is holding off on making an endorsement ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
The pop star, who’s rocketed to fame over the past few months, recently told The Guardian that she doesn’t “feel pressured to endorse someone.”
“I have so many issues with our government in every way,” she said. “There are so many things that I would want to change. So I don’t feel pressured to endorse someone. There’s problems on both sides. I encourage people to use your critical thinking skills, use your vote — vote small, vote for what’s going on in your city.”
Roan said that her most important issue is “trans rights,” adding “They cannot have cis people making decisions for trans people, period.”
The Harris campaign previously shared a meme seemingly inspired by Roan’s “Femininomenon” song. And a Harris-Walz campaign baseball cap bears a striking resemblance to some of Roan’s merch.
Roan previously said that she declined an invitation to perform at a White House Pride event, saying during the Governors Ball festival in New York, “We want liberty, justice and freedom for all. When you do that, that’s when I’ll come.”
When some fans misconstrued her lack of attendance, due to her disagreement with a number of the Biden administration’s positions, as support for Republicans and GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, Roan told Rolling Stone earlier this month, “It is not so black and white that you hate one and you like the other. No matter how you say it, people are still going to be pissed for fucking some reason. I’m not going to go to the White House because I am not going to be a monkey for Pride.”
She added to Rolling Stone of her political views, “Right now, it’s more important than ever to use your vote, and I will do whatever it takes to protect people’s civil rights, especially the LGBTQ+ community. … I feel lucky to be alive during an incredibly historical time period when a woman of color is a presidential nominee.”
Still, Roan is using her success to support causes she believes in. Roan has been donating a portion of her concert ticket sales to the Kaleidoscope Trust U.K. LGBTQ charity, and, according to The Guardian, the merch stand at her concerts sells signed risograph prints for 100 pounds each, with proceeds going toward aid for Palestine.
Of the prints, Roan said, “It’s just my duty to help send resources to a community that is absolutely being destroyed.”
Roan recently made headlines for being outspoken about her personal boundaries on social media. And at the 2024 MTV VMAs, earlier this month, she snapped at a photographer who had been shouting at her.
“I’m very turned off by the celebrity of it all,” she told The Guardian. “Some girls have been in this so long that they’re used to that, but I’m not that girl. I’m not gonna be a sweetie pie to a man who’s telling me to shut the fuck up.”
In the wake of some aggressive fan incidents, including an experience with a stalker, which prompted her comments about boundaries, Roan says she’s in “therapy twice a week” and was recently diagnosed with severe depression.
“I went to a psychiatrist last week because I was like, I don’t know what’s going on,” Roan told The Guardian. “She diagnosed me with severe depression — which I didn’t think I had because I’m not actually sad. But I have every symptom of someone who’s severely depressed.”
Chappell's opinion whether or not you agree with it is her opinion. We are in a time where reporters want to get the celebrity opinions on what's happening in the world politically, and when they feel pressured to give said opinion, people rake them over the coals based on said opinion.
In regards to her comments about bad people on both sides, she's referring to both Democrats and Republicans seemingly in lock step with what Israel is doing to Palestine. That's why when President Biden was the second term nominee at the time, Chappell refused to dance like a monkey for the Democrats at the White House for Pride Month.
Besides that one issue, we have other situations to deal with that are at stake, including women's reproductive rights, issues concerning the black community, the threat of rolling back the rights for LGBTQ issues - things Democrats seem to have a stronger stance on protecting versus the Trumpublicans trying to take away all the rights of people who aren't white and male.
So if Chappell doesn't want to use her platform to endorse either party, she has every right not to. However that shouldn't stop every single working and non-working American from voting for who they want to vote for.
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