“Don’t get yourself on any lists or anything.”
A level-headed person actually said this to me the other night. We were having a friendly conversation about what I was planning to do with this new Journal I’ve started. I’d said something political that I maybe wanted to write about. They wondered if it might be better not to. Which is understandable. Politics has become so venomous.
The comment hit me especially hard because my grandfather, the film director Michael Gordon, was Blacklisted in the McCarthy era. If you’re not familiar with the Blacklist—back in the 1950s when the USA was locked in a cold war with the Communist USSR, the US government, led by Senator Joseph McCarthy, made a list of Hollywood entertainers who they accused of being Communists, and instructed the Hollywood studios not to hire them. For the record, my grandfather did not deserve the label “Communist,” he was no fan of Stalin’s, and was more like what we might call a Bernie Sanders Progressive nowadays. But that’s actually not the point. The point is that the American government isn’t supposed to punish anybody for their political views, no matter what they are. That principle, enshrined in our Constitution’s First Amendment, is America at its very best. The denigration of that principle is the tragedy of the McCarthy era. And the question is, are we seeing history repeat itself today?
Today’s MAGA/Musk regime likes to talk a big game about Free Speech, but they’ve already shown plenty of self-serving disrespect to our First Amendment, detaining political protestors, investigating political journalists, expressing admiration for authoritarian dictators who arrest and even murder political dissidents, and I could go on. But, to be honest, I don’t imagine those guys will really come after me. I’m not reaching that big an audience. And even if I were, I don’t think they need to do anything as flagrant as what McCarthy did to my grandpa.
What I currently feel is a more subtle pressure to self-censor. One person I talked to thought that if I started saying political things in these journal entries, I’d cut my audience in half. Another colleague wondered if movie studios would hesitate to hire politically outspoken actors in this era, or if audiences would support artists whose politics don’t match their own. How valid are these concerns? It’s hard to say. When I made videos criticizing Trump leading up to the election last year, I got a ton of negative response, as well as positive response in roughly equal measure. Now, some significant chunk of that response was generated by bots, though nobody knows how much. Even still, it’s hard to ignore.
Then, of course, every time I speak up about something political, I get a certain number of commenters who say it’s inappropriate for entertainers like me to enter into the political conversation at all, and that I should just “stay in my lane.” And sure, that doesn’t feel great. But at the same time, I get it. I agree that our culture pays too much attention to what celebrities say, whether those celebrities are Hollywood actors or TikTok influencers. People shouldn’t listen to me and my political opinions just because I’ve been in some movies. People should think for themselves.
That said, if I say something here, you can decide for yourself whether or not you agree with me. I trust you to do that. So why should I be different from any other opinion writer? And if we’re being intellectually honest, why is it that every time someone tells me to stay in my lane, they always happen to disagree with the particular stance I’ve taken? If they agreed with me, they wouldn’t have any problem with me being an entertainer. I don’t see any Trump supporters telling Kid Rock he should stay in his lane.
I’m obviously not a political scientist, or an economist, or a legal scholar. But I do know some stuff about storytelling. And for better or worse, storytelling is a big part of politics. I love thinking about how people tell stories. Whether it’s in movies or on the internet, in songs around the campfire, on a stage, or on TV. And whether we’re telling personal stories or political ones, it’s all fascinating to me.
So should I, or should I not, talk politics? In the end, what’s the point in having an open Journal like this? My hope was to have a place where I could say what’s on my mind. And sometimes, politics is on my mind, so I’ll want to talk about it here. How often? Not too terribly often, I don’t think. But honestly, I haven’t made all that many plans.
I first started posting journal entries on HITRECORD almost twenty years ago now, and over time it blossomed into a beautiful community. A lot of you are still here (again by heart). And in that communal spirit, I’m genuinely curious to hear what you think. Any and all of you out there reading or listening to this. No matter who you voted for, or what political tribe you might or might not identify with. Politics has indeed become venomous, especially on the Internet. But perhaps this little online space could be a place where we speak together with mutual respect and positivity. Even if we disagree. Who knows, maybe some small good might even come of it. 🔴
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