Celebrities and their Voices

In election year, every issue you can think of becomes a mainstream media focus piece. Almost always, these pieces are accompanied by the opinion of a celebrity on the matter. Throughout the election you have a slew of celebrity endorsements and opinions that people hold in high regards. However, in an interview last week, Mark Wahlberg summed up the issue of celebrities perfectly:

“A lot of celebrities did, do, and shouldn’t,” Mr. Wahlberg told the website. “You know, it just goes to show you that people aren’t listening to that anyway. They might buy your CD or watch your movie, but you don’t put food on their table. You don’t pay their bills. A lot of Hollywood is living in a bubble. They’re pretty out of touch with the common person, the everyday guy out there providing for their family.”

            

This precisely describes the opinions surrounding the election. For every celebrity that voices their opinion, there are thousands of people who very much oppose this view and see that person as completely out of touch with their reality. For the person who is struggling to feed their family in a town that is completely dependent on coal, they base their vote on economic pressure, not social issues. However, they are labeled as racist because of the scripted opinions of liberal celebrities. This was an election where one candidate came out and said that she was going to kill the coal industry. However, that opinion does not seem to matter because it does not concern race or other social issues. In reality, it matters more than ever. We are a nation that is trillions of dollars in debt, losing thousands of jobs to other countries, and seeing the death of small town America at the hands of leaving manufacturing jobs.

            

What I’m trying to convey is that there are many reasons to vote for someone, and I’m sure some people voted for a candidate due their own racist beliefs, it is important to see the other side. If you take a look at an election map, you can see that the areas that voted red are mainly rural areas, and smaller towns, while the urban areas went blue. This is why the Electoral College was created and it prevents the urban areas from being the only ones controlling the election. From coast to coast, there are a lot of people who are very unhappy and are sick of suffering under 8 years of a liberal president, so they decided to vote red. These people aren’t racist, they’re just trying to do what is best for their families.