There’s plenty of head-shaking going on about Donald Trump picking a fight with Taylor Swift, the world’s biggest celebrity.
Trump freaked out when Swift endorsed Kamala Harris, which is fueling interesting conversations about how much difference her endorsement will make — and how much the world of art and culture matters to the world of politics.
As a leader in an organization whose entire existence was founded on the principle that it matters a lot, I have to weigh in on this.
My organization’s founder was the late Norman Lear, the legendary TV producer. Norman believed with all his heart that if you can entertain people — especially if you start with a laugh — you can have a conversation about hard subjects; that the stories we choose to tell and the art we choose to make can lead us to a better civic life.
He put his TV career on hold to start People For the American Way with the determination that it would harness the power of art and artists to advocate for social change.
He understood this power because he made TV shows that changed our culture and our politics. When we saw an interracial married couple on “The Jeffersons,” for example, or when Bea Arthur’s character made the difficult decision to have an abortion on the show “Maude, ”it brought those issues into the mainstream and helped them gain acceptance.
Meanwhile, throughout world history, social change movements have embraced art and artists. Movements are known for songs and symbols, whether it was the French revolutionaries’ “Marseillaise,” the civil rights and antiwar ballads of the 1960s or Kendrick Lamar’s anti-racism music today.
And artists in all mediums are making themselves heard in this election. A headline on the website Artnet trumpeted “The art world comes out swinging for Kamala Harris.” Organizers of a star-studded concert called Musicians for Kamala pointed out that “Music moves people to take action.”
Two outstanding visual artists, Shepard Fairey (of the iconic Obama “Hope” poster) and Carrie Mae Weems, are co-chairing the Artists for Democracy campaign my organization is proud to support.
A few recording artists have come out for Trump, although a search turns up far more headlines like “The incredibly long list of musicians who have demanded that Trump stop using their songs.”
What all these artists understand is that while politicians try to appeal to voters’ heads with things like statistics and policy papers, art appeals to the heart. It can move and inspire people in a way that traditional political messaging does not.
I believe that when artists speak, whether it’s directly through their art or using the trust and the public platform their art has given them, their voices matter.
Right now, a lot of people are trying to prove that in some quantifiable way. They’re trying to figure out if the Taylor Swift endorsement has moved Harris’s poll numbers. They’re also counting the huge upsurge in visits to voter-registration site Vote.gov after Swift posted a link.
But I’m not sure this is a job for statisticians.
The howling from Trump, Elon Musk and others on the far right means something. We feel it. It brings to mind that old saying, “A hit dog will holler.”
It’s also no surprise that right-wing online reaction to Swift has included overtly misogynist tropes. Confront the far right with challenges from certain prominent people and sexist and racist sentiments inevitably bubble to the surface.
(Remember when Laura Ingraham told LeBron James to “shut up and dribble?”)
Norman Lear didn’t believe, and I don’t believe, that our arts and popular culture belong in one silo and politics in another. We should welcome artists’ participation in our political process — and we shouldn’t underestimate it.
I’m not saying Taylor Swift can single-handedly save democracy, but I’m glad she wants to help.
Svante Myrick is president of People for the American Way.
