Should You Cancel Carrie Underwood?

Analyzing Cancel Culture under Trump 2.0

Jan 16, 2025

Hey friends! Coming at ya, with another Thursday edition. I promise I'm not changing the publication date to Thursdays, but I needed a bit more time to crowdsource for this particular article. I wanted to get a lot of other opinions to help inform this very nuanced topic. I think this may be my most provocative piece yet, and I really hope it makes you think.

Yesterday, the full list of performers for Trump's inauguration was released. Among the list were two artists who have left people feeling some kinda way, Carrie Underwood & The Village People (for context, Victor Willis is the only remaining original member of the group). Many Queer people have felt upset and betrayed by Underwood and The Village People since both artists have large Queer followings, and Trump is about to be a very bad president for us Queer folk. Their respective statements are below.

"I love our country and am honored to have been asked to sing at the inauguration and to be a small part of this historic event.I am humbled to answer the call at a time when we must all come together in the spirit of unity and looking to the future." -Carrie Underwood

"We know this won't make some of you happy to hear; however, we believe that music is to be performed without regard to politics. Our song Y.M.C.A. is a global anthem that hopefully helps bring the country together after a tumultuous and divided campaign where our preferred candidate lost." - The Village People

But this sparked a curiosity in me. Immediately after the election, there was so much talk about whether or not cancel culture was about to undergo a shift during the second Trump term, and this feels like our first test of that statement. To explore, I took to the internet to survey my community (which does skew liberal and Queer). The results I received ran the gamut from completely canceling her to not canceling her and letting her do her thing to come together as a country.

There's a lot of thought and exploration in this piece, so please remember that everything I write here has the ultimate goal of progress and exploring the best ways to move the rights of all people forward. And while a lot of it may feel bleak, keep reading til the end to get to hopeful, actionable ways that we can keep moving forward.

To start, here are the results of the survey questions.

The People's Thoughts

I think the clearest thing from these charts is that people are divided about the levels of canceling that feels appropriate, and we're split about what canceling even means. Do we call her out and hope for a change? Do we just stop listening to her music and deny her income? Do we protest her? Do we go beyond just her and call out other people who are listening to her music, holding them accountable for our own judgment? And would we have the same response if she were performing at a Republican inauguration that wasn't Trump?

A lot of people feel that some sort of cancellation is appropriate for a breach of trust like this, but folks are divided around its efficacy. But one thing is true: I've also never gotten so many DMs and write-ins as I had for this particular set of questions. Underwood has really struck a (valid) nerve in so many people, and in the next few paragraphs, I'll try to unpack just why.

Cancel Culture 2.0

A lot of people who wrote in feel that cancel culture had its place in time but needs some form of overhaul. No one can really figure out what that looks like because we can't decide on what current canceling is. But many agree that the more we make hard-line statements based on a single action, the more we push conservatives into a defensive script about the terror of 'wokeness.'

P.S. It's not just this one moment; Underwood hasn't been too cagey about her politics. Many folks (including myself) are realizing she's more right than we'd hoped with this announcement, but she hasn't hidden it, so what does that say about how we look into the celebrities we love and what we choose to ignore?

I think we need a new alternative to cancel culture. Cancel culture started out with the best intentions but has grown to a place where it's being weaponized against the very people who are trying to make change. That is not our fault, but it is the reality of the world we live in. Minority groups used cancel culture to call attention to important and valid injustices, but now those in power are using that fear to stoke unfounded fears among the general populace. So, how do we counteract those fears and take back our agency?

Power

Another fact that stuck out to me in these responses was that a lot of people feel helpless nowadays. I sure do. I (among millions of others) rallied, donated, mobilized, called, and canvassed, and Harris still lost the election. Now, I have to suffer through the consequences of whatever Trump 2.0 brings. It's hard not to feel helpless in times like these.

But what do we have power over? Ourselves, our emotions, and our rage. Therefore, if someone does something that we don't like or we find personally offensive, we have a great source of power by taking to socials and expressing our outrage. It probably won't do anything, but it makes us feel like part of a collective. It makes us feel like we're doing something. But is your post actually just scratching an itch that may prevent you from going out into the streets and demanding real change?

No amount of raging over Carrie Underwood is going to change her decision. She is also probably getting an equal amount of love and support from all those who voted for Trump. So what can we do? How can we convert that powerlessness into real, actionable things that make us feel better and make the world a better place? I've got some ideas at the end.

A Cautionary Detail

But before we get to hope, a note of caution. A friend, Benjamin Wegman, (who writes an excellent Substack), did give me a sobering answer to my query. He said that what we're witnessing is the polite slide out of Democracy that Germany saw before WWII. Now that the election is over and people have no more public choice, we're accepting what is. For most people, this is a survival method with which I can empathize. Now that the window to use our voices and our votes has passed, what is there left to do but try to survive as best we can?

Now, I hope that this is not the precursor to something terrible. But if it is, what will be the terrible thing that wakes us up? If that thing happens, will we look back and blame Carrie Underwood? By her choosing to perform, is she normalizing the bigotry and hatred that Trump spews? Or has that already become so normalized that she is a byproduct of that? Does that distinction even matter?

This dire hypothetical is a fear I often grapple with. Will my desire to "come together" in the name of winning people over stop me from taking a stronger stand? Right now, I believe that the most effective way to change people's minds, which is what I think we need to do, is slowly, in person, and through respectful discourse. That's a hard trifecta to achieve and much harder when the other side has shown no desire to do the same. But this has always been an argument in many civil rights movements: Do you burn the house down or try to make friends with those who live in it?

Unification

Infighting has always been present in liberal movements, and cancel culture is no different, even on a small scale. I've definitely been on the receiving end of the following statement, "Oh, you still support XYZ? Didn't you know that they're canceled now?" This statement sucks to hear because it instantly calls out the recipient's ignorance. I usually get defensive and then am in a much less receptive place to listen. So then, instead of having an open mind, I ask about sources and such because that question makes me feel dumb, uninformed, and like my moral compass is under fire. And because it's usually in real-time, I don't have the time to do nuanced research; I have to make a snap decision, and if I make the wrong one, I'm almost just as bad as the thing canceled in the first place.

And this is the objective of the right and the rich. They want the lower classes to be divided. Casey (my fiance) put it well when he said, " The rich thrive by making us think we are divided by two, so we don't realize we're divided by three." Even canceling is different for large corporations (ruled by the rich) than it is for individuals. Corporations can weather canceling much more effectively than celebrities. Queer people I know eat at Chick-Fil-A; Tesla used to be the car of the liberal rich, and most foods in grocery stores are owned by Republicans if you go high enough up the chain.

So, wouldn't it be truly revolutionary to come together and use that togetherness to help educate the working class about the true enemy? Couldn't that be such a powerful movement?

Now that is a fucking hard pill to swallow. If I say that canceling someone was the easy way and that having a hard, messy, nuanced conversation with bigots to come together was the more effective way, how does that make you feel?

One could say that cancel culture is actually the lazier way out. Because what's on the other side of cancel culture? We have no systems in place to rehabilitate someone who has been canceled. They're just punished forever, and we put them away in a nice little box. But remember that if the ultimate goal is change in the name of progress, then we have to give people room to fail, change, and grow. People love saying, "So and so used to be against gay marriage," to which I respond, "Good, they had an opinion, and they changed it in our favor; that is the whole point."

So, is there a world in which we extend that grace to those who are canceled? Should we? Who deserves our grace, and who doesn't?

Ending With Hope

So what do we do with all this? I left many of these conversations with more questions than answers, but there were actionable bits, too. There were glimmers of hope and ways to push through, which we're going to have to do with grace, kindness, and community. If we're going to succeed, we must do it together. Here are a few places to start:

Unite in our rebellion - We are officially the counterculture again. We are the revolution. And we need to bring over those who voted for Trump due to misinformation and propaganda from the rich. Are there small patient ways in which you can do that? In the coming administration, tell people what he is doing and why that is bad, and educate them in the ways you wish our government/news would.
Cancel Culture 2.0 - Take some time to envision what cancel culture would look like with a road to redemption. Then, when your friends tell you someone or something is canceled, have a debate about it. Even if you're playing devil's advocate, it could be a good way to practice respectful disagreement, which can come in handy.
Feeling angry? Do Something - Next time you see something terrible online (which may happen a lot in the years to come), try doing something physical to offset those feelings; try sending someone a bit of love or maybe donate a small amount to a Queer nonprofit. There are so many things that are more effective than adding to online noise.

Those methods won't fix cancel culture, but they are ways in which you can start making a difference in your own life. Maybe those actions will ripple out and affect others, too. Think of it like flying on a plane. When the Oxygen masks come down, you have to put on your own before helping others. The stronger, happier, and more resilient you are, the more you'll be an inspiration to others.

Be the light that you hope to see.

This piece stoked a lot of conversation, and I'd love to keep it going and hear your thoughts. Do you think Carrie Underwood should be canceled for this? Let me know in the comments!