Is It Okay To Use Your Platform?
When I was a child, what little I knew of our system of voting could be summed up as a few hard and fast rules, like Election Day is the first Tuesday in November and that you can’t vote until you’re 18. But there is one maxim that (if you’ve heard it at all) will sound extremely quaint in this age of digital campaign operatives and politicians who sell crypto, NFTS and gold sneakers: who you cast your ballot for is between you and the voting booth.
Oh yes, my friends. I’m sure it’s hard to believe now, but I was taught that politics are not only something you don’t talk about in so-called polite company, your vote is nobody’s business. Surely some of this is practical, to shield you from undue persuasion by your crackpot family and friends, intimidation by your crooked employer or retaliation from your sign-stealing neighbors. But I think it was also meant to show respect for the seriousness and sanctity of the process of voting (which, by the way, is still extremely safe – sorry to spoil your conspiracy fun, J6ers). Now, could you tell who was a Republican and who was a Democrat back in those days? Of course you could (if they wore suits and had big sedans in the garage, they were the former; if they listened to National Public Radio and bought peanut butter you needed to stir instead of the kind they advertised during cartoons, they were the latter).
But then camera phones came along pitched the world sideways (in more ways than one): tell us about privacy again, grandpa. And you say people wanted it? Now that it’s perfectly normal to record and then broadcast everything from our breakfast to our breakdowns, there was no way this fundamental right of American citizenship and lowest-hanging virtue-signal in the canon wasn’t going to get tossed into the mix (if you weren’t supposed to post about your trip to the polling place, why would they give you a sticker?) And when you’re living in what feels like a constant election cycle, that’s a lot of content!
This is a matter of not much consequence for most of us because we don’t have platforms in any real sense of the word’s contemporary usage, and because most of us are encircled by people who think, act and vote and we do. People we actually know. So if we share our opinions on anti-Semitism or trans rights or the Second Amendment, the couple hundred or so people who initially followed us to see pictures of our dogs, baking experiments and family reunions might say “me too” or roll their eyes, but there’s probably nothing we could say there that is going to nudge anyone to do anything they weren’t going to do anyway. In fact, the idea that even those people are listening to us may be a fiction: don’t you have friends whose constant pontificating – even on subjects that you theoretically endorse – has led you to mute them? Oh really? Me neither – forget I said anything.
The game only really changes when you’re, say, Taylor Swift. Just last week, much of the world woke up to her ninja-like endorsement of the Harris/Walz ticket. A week later, sibling songwriting duo FINNEAS and Billie Eilish mixed their own praise into a post about (the statistically left-leaning but theoretically apolitical) Voter Registration Day. And so the question is inevitable: should famous people really be telling the world about what they do at the ballot box?
Taking Care of (Official) Business.
I mean, no one really asked, right? But the reason we wear buttons or affix bumper stickers and display posters and yard signs is not just to identify ourselves to others who are already down for the cause – they’re to get the word out to everyone else. We’re saying “I’m for this, why don’t you be for it too?” This is the best brand, the team to root for. And as grateful as those political hopefuls must be for our support, we all know that no one communicates this message better or more broadly than a celebrity. So even when superstars are merely saying who they are supporting and not who you should also support, the point is clearly made: join us.
But I will be the first to admit that I am not totally at ease with the idea that our beliefs might be just another thing subject to “influence” – especially when it’s not by statespeople or other practitioners of government policy but by people whose talent we merely admire. I reject the argument that celebrities should not “play politics” because they are sometimes less informed (though studio schools and constant travel can sometimes do that) and almost never share the concerns or fears of so-called “average” people. It’s not because they are less smart or more rich that I don’t entirely trust them; it’s because of how capable they are of earning that trust without really trying.
We Americans are a celebrity-obsessed bunch to begin with, but even when we’re talking about familiar faces and names who don’t adorn red carpets or fill stadiums – authors we love, or podcasters we listen to, for example – it’s common for us to want to believe that they are “good people” of like mind; that we would instantly get along if we ever met in person. This makes it all too easy to forget that to like someone for their talent or admire them for their success doesn’t necessarily mean that we should consult them for their perspective. And before you insist no one would be foolish enough to do something just because a famous person told (or just inspired) them to do it, I ask you: in what world have you been living? And here, I’m not even referring to Donald Trump: surely you knew people who went to their hairstylists clutching pictures of Farrah, Dorothy or Rachel? Or who got extensions like Britney? Perhaps you lived through the era of dyed or bleached eyebrows. Or did you pluck them?! Let me tell you: I would trade without a moment’s hesitation the pleasure of every magazine I read in the early 1990s for my original arches.
It is hard to imagine a world without social media – even for those of us who do remember what that was like – but there is no question that its impact on the political landscape is inestimable and probably irreparable. Facebook got us to believe that we were engaging in lively roundtables like seasoned pundits, Instagram made us philosophers and campaign directors, and TikTok has spawned a raft of revolutionaries. Not only is there no proof that all this “information” and “discourse” has made us more informed or effective, the consensus of most people whose business it is to know is that all have contributed substantially to making our politics more fraught, more unstable.
“Just because you are free to doesn’t mean you should”: this is the self-regulation that comes with any right or privilege. This is the inventory we may take when it comes to giving “feedback,” which is, of course, speech. Does this apply even more for speech that has an exponentially greater range than most (Taylor Swift has over 284,000,000 followers on Instagram; Billie Eilish a far smaller but still-respectable 119,000,000+)? It always seems to depend on who you ask, since what everyone loves about their own free speech tends to be the very thing they hate about everyone else’s (this is why we rejoice when people agree with us and curse them bitterly when they don’t). In the realm of endless, constantly renewing content, our opinions on the subject of expression have even come to extend to the seldom-trod corridor that contains no speech at all: silence (take the example of digital creator Elyse Myers, who is reportedly “taking a break” from social media after becoming the focus – and some would say target – of Operation Watermelon, whose stated aims are to encourage those with large followings to “promote education and awareness” of the plight of Palestinians in Gaza; her failure to do so resulted in criticism that some called “harassment”).
While I can’t say I mind the support of progressive celebrities, I am conscious that we should be suitably wary of making our one and only vote just one more thing subject to the vagaries of “influence.” This was always true, of course, but the speed with which bad or even deliberately misleading information spreads in our times have placed a grave and unprecedented responsibility on us to make sure that we don’t let others – no matter how benevolent – do the heavy lifting for us. We need to stay – or get – in the habit of being high-information voters, even if we have come to know our candidates and the issues indirectly as fans of their boldest-faced boosters, or even as fans of the candidates themselves: meme culture is too efficient at making heroes and villains to be entirely or automatically trusted (unless the memes concern Matt Gaetz. Talk about eyebrows!) We must go to the source whenever possible and pursue the particulars with the fervor we usually only deploy for true crime or scandal clickholes.
Luckily, there are fewer than 50 days until the general election, which is more than enough time to get all this homework done. It’s true that no post of yours is going to persuade hundreds of thousands of people to click a link (as Swift’s did), but there are steps you can take that are commensurate with your own reach – even if it’s just having a heartfelt (and restrained!) conversation with an undecided family member about why some of the issues on the ballot are so important to you. Even if it’s just reading every page of your voter’s guide so you are prepared to fill out your entire ballot (even the measures!) Think of this as your rehearsal; on November 5, you take the stage.