POLI•RANT: In the Dogg House
Celebs and politics. And fire your agent, Snoop.
One of the funny sideshows of modern politics has been the hilarious and contradictory way Republicans treat the support of “stars” in our society — from athletes and musicians to actors and comedians.
When it comes to which party the majority of celebrities support, it’s no contest. I mean it’s so uncontested that if there was to be a contest any fair judge would stop it before it could even begin. Democrats enjoy the support of the vast majority of stars. Everyone knows it and there’s no need to list them.
Does this mean anything? To me, not really. I take a celebrity option with the same weight as the opinion of any other citizen. But, yes, a number of left-leaning stars are quite smart when it comes to politics and policy. It probably helps that they’re all multi-millionaires and have more time to think about, and be active when it comes to the issues of the day.
The funny part has alway been how angry the imbalance has always made Republicans. On one hand they spend tons of time telling any audience that will listen how stupid and irrelevant the support of celebrities are, and why no one should listen to them.
But, when it comes to their own celebrities, well, that’s another story.
The LOL part is that Republican stars tend to be of the D-list variety, but are treated like they have amazing insight and are only on the D-list because of the liberal Hollywood conspiracy to punish them for their beliefs. I wonder how many hours Scott Baio or John Voight have spent on Fox rambling on with the insight of an eighth-grader?
In the days leading up to Trump 2.0 the Maga-verse scored two somewhat big names for their ranks — Carrie Underwood and Snoop Dogg. I’ll leave Underwood aside. Living in the world of country music and being MAGA isn’t much of a stretch.
But, Snoop Dogg? That was a surprise and (I would argue) a real mistake.
Snoop has been hanging around the edges of popular culture for years, primarily by teaming up with Martha Stewart as America’s C or D-list odd couple. I mean, maybe Snoop has released new music in the last decade, but I haven’t heard it, nor did it break through in any significant way.
Then something happened this summer.
NBC hired Snoop to be a roving “reporter” for their Paris Olympics coverage and Snoop burst back into popular culture in a big way. It was pretty amazing since Snoop was artistically known for his involvement in gangsta rap which was very controversial back in the day. That Snoop suddenly became America’s favorite Old-School Uncle was unexpected to say the least. Yet for some reason it happened — one of those rare times when popular culture deems someone some sort of a “national treasure” on the order of Betty White of Dick Van Dyke.
Snoop cashed in as quick as he could, popping up everywhere, including what seems like every commercial in rotation that isn’t produced by Big Pharma. Even if that was getting annoying I think people were pretty universally happy that Snoop was having an unexpected Second Act in his career.
Then for some unknown reason Snoop decided to play at a crypto concert tied to Trump’s Inauguration and made a point to take photos with some of the worst monsters in said Maga-verse.
Why?
The obvious answer is money, because Snoop is on record denouncing Trump as a racist. But, with one decision he’s virtually cut his audience in half. Sure, there’s a small segment of the black population that supports Trump, or at least the gansta vibe of Trump. But he is surely losing more than he’s gaining, in both popularity, and financially in the long run.
It’s hard to imagine Snoops agent, manager, publicists, and anyone else on the Dogg train would advise against turning oneself from a nearly beloved figure to a hack and/or turncoat for one paycheck. If they did every member of the Team Dogg pack needs to be put down.
Oh, well. I hope you enjoyed that nearly rare status Mr. D-O-double G because that’s all over now. Maybe you’ll be forced to go all in on MAGA. And not to worry, you’ll get on Fox, OWN and Newsmax as much as you want. They need all the “stars” they can get.
And a black one?
Hell, they just might give you a show.