Shania showed herself to be in over her head from the start, saying that she would have voted for Trump, then backtracking wildly once she discovered how unpopular that was. It might seem unfair that she's getting heavily criticized for something she apparently knows little of, but I have no sympathy: after all, we're all incompetent on most matters, but the rest of us know enough to sit up on things we don't understand. She's shown a kind of political Dunning-Kruger.
Kanye West has come out in support of Donald Trump. Should we really be surprised? Stats show that at least one African-American voted for him, it might be Kanye. It seems to me that they have a lot in common. For one thing, they have the world's two largest free-standing egos.
Another similarity is that when people are discussing Trump often come back to that Maya Angelou quote that when people show you who they are, believe them. Like Trump, Kanye keeps showing us who he is, and we keep not believing him. I've seen some people kinda defend Kanye by claiming that he's such an innovator and unconventional thinker that he doesn't fit into any preconceived notions of political sides. But a better explanation for West's ideas being incoherent and all over the map is that he's a lot like Trump: lacking in understanding and concentration.
Likely, Kanye's subsequent description of slavery as a "choice" will be the end of his support, at least from African-Americans.
Morrissey is another star who keeps trying to show us who he is; he's had a string of increasingly offensive statements and actions. Because he's the only one of these musicians who I've ever been a fan of, it's a bit more disappointing for me, even if his devolution has been in slow-motion. I'd like to think that he - like many in our current culture - has just become addicted to the joy of pissing people off, and has lost sight of the fact that sometimes pissing people off is the hint that you should re-evaluate your life.
But whatever the reason, I don't care anymore. I've given up, and I see that many others have too. But I'm sure that each of these suddenly hated musicians will have many more second-chances from other fans in the years to come.
These experiences have made me realize another unrealistic thing about Star Wars: when someone turns to the dark side, everyone else just accepts it. They're like, okay, he's on the dark side now. No one makes excuses for him, no one forgets it happened just because he hasn't force-choked anyone in the past week. No one looks the other way because of his other skills.
"I can't believe you hired Darth Farius to do your taxes."
"Well whatever you think of his politics, he's still a good accountant."
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