Where Have The Celebrity Trump Criticisers Gone?
Have you noticed the silence? The eery, empty silence? There have been tumbleweeds rolling through the upper echelons of celebrity since early November as stars have fled the scene of President Trump's re-election against Joe Biden to become the 47th President of the United States. Gone are the days of vehement opposition. In today's America it seems, to be silent is to survive. One star to have escaped the diktat is Selena Gomez, who posted — and promptly deleted — an Instagram story at the weekend of her crying. 'I just want to say that I'm so sorry. All my people are getting attacked,' the star said through tears in the video. 'The children. I don't understand. I'm so sorry I wish I could do something but I can't. I don't know what to do. I'll try everything I promise.' The video was captioned 'I'm sorry' with the Mexican flag emoji.
Needless to say that the Emilia Pérez star's post, which she shared in the wake of federal immigration raids in cities across America, quickly drew the err of some of Trump's most devoted disciples. Appearing on Fox News, President Trump's border czar Tom Homan said, 'If they don't like it, then go to Congress and change the law.' Another failed Senate candidate, Sam Parker, declared that Gomez herself ought to be deported, despite being born in America.
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Of course, this ought not to be surprising. It was on the promise and pledge of more stringent immigration and border crackdowns that, for many, President Trump was elected. But what is surprising is the silence that appears to have ensconced celebrities in the wake of President Trump's re-election, and his subsequent policy announcements. Gomez, whose paternal grandparents were undocumented immigrants from Mexico, is one of the only stars to have boldly used her voice to criticise the new administration's immigration policies, but where is everybody else in this chorus-of-one?
As the Biden era has receded, Hollywood has remained gripped by uncertainty. The stars who endorsed Kamala Harris and the democratic ticket — among them Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez and Taylor Swift — have remained silent in the wake of President Trump's re-election. They've said nothing of his attacks on gender pronouns and of denouncing birthright citizenship. Perhaps that's because, like many others, President Trump has worn down their resilience to his vitriol. Or perhaps it's because they have the privilege of being able to tune it out. There's also the argument that it's not any celebrity's job to criticise the President, but is it their moral responsibility? For a star as big as Gomez — the second-most followed celebrity on Instagram — to post a video showing a very humane reaction to a very inhumane policy is a bold political statement in a new age of sanitised celebrity responses. The question that remains is: where is everybody else?
It's no secret that some of the most famous faces in the world cowered in the shadows before the November 5 election. The KarJenners — who have a combined social media reach of 1.6 billion followers — collectively endorsed neither political candidate, and have posted nothing political since (although Kim Kardashian has posted collaborative videos with Elon Musk's Tesla and photographs of Melania Trump). The 'broligarchy' of tech overlords present at President Trump's inauguration nodded to Silicon Valley's attitudes to abiding by the new leader of the Free World's rules. It's become acceptable to be MAGA, which in turn has made it unacceptable to be critical. Political commentators spoke of how Georgetown, a once-'liberal' enclave of Washington D.C., was overrun with MAGA hats and President Trump merchandise in the lead-up to the inauguration. Yet for celebrities who yield power and influence over others to stay silent about policies that are dehumanising swathes of the population feels a political endorsement in and of itself.
President Trump and his acolytes are proponents of free speech when it's their own speech, nobody else's. These are not free speech absolutists, and they cannot cope with criticism it seems. After Gomez deleted her story, Parker tweeted: 'Deport Selena Gomez.' He also reposted a screed from his personal account that claimed 'Selena Gomez picked illegals over America' and accused her of having an 'entitlement attitude towards America' because of her grandparent's migration. 'Inject their tears into my VEINS,' Parker tweeted in response to Gomez's fans who flew to her defense. Yet, the Rare Beauty founder remained undeterred, responding on Instagram. 'Oh, Mr. Parker, Mr. Parker,' she wrote. 'Thanks for the laugh and the threat.'
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