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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   30146 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 21, 2024

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Meanwhile Kamala Harris apparently declined to go on Rogan even though she was in Houston.

What was she doing in Houston? Rallying with Beyonce, of course. According to the Harris team, over 1.5 million people registered to attend although there was only space for 30,000. Passionate Harris fans? Hardly. They thought there would be a Beyonce concert.

When Beyonce did not in fact perform, but just mumbled into a bad mic, the fans were not happy. They came to see Queen Bey, not Queen K. There's a viral TikTok clip of people booing and Kamala cackling awkwardly for like 45 seconds.

https://pagesix.com/2024/10/26/entertainment/beyonce-fans-furious-singer-did-not-perform-at-kamala-harris-rally-in-houston/

Seriously people, how hard is it to get Beyonce to perform? No one gives a damn about the endorsements of celebrities, but they might just vote the way you want if you give them a free concert. Tickets to Beyonce are hundreds of dollars. It's a nice vote-buying technique unless you blow it massively.

Seriously people, how hard is it to get Beyonce to perform?

As hard as Beyonce wants it to be. She sets her own price.

I'm curious if it's genuinely a matter of price. The Harris campaign is rolling in dough, and spending it in much worse ways. If it were worries about getting tied to a sinking ship, the endorsement is enough of an albatross.

My first thought is that there's some process limitations that make it hard to get done so quickly. There's reasons charity concerts after disasters often take the better part of a month if not months to assemble: planning properly for a 10k+ person assembly is a nightmare, and converting one type of assembly into another doesn't buy anywhere near the sort of stability you'd hope for.

But I have seen that sorta thing move faster before, and Harris (surrogates) have been motioning around it as long as there's been a Harris campaign. So I dunno.

I think it comes down to Beyonce doesn't want to do it.

Why? I don't know. Speculation? They don't see themselves as circus clowns for whatever the Democratic candidate of the day is. They truly believe in themselves as black royalty. (Which others, like the NFL, seem to agree with)

When it comes to the black elite, it's them and...people allied to them. There's no hostile Elon Musk-style billionaires on the other side. They're the top of the layer cake and have a monopoly on "celebrities who can mobilize black voters" or, more cynically, "celebrities white female staffers believe can mobilize black voters".

They might be willing to take a somewhat deferential stance towards Barack Obama, but he actually was the first black president and actually did win his elections before retiring to make enough money to be in their tax bracket. He can be primus inter pares.

Kamala Harris is no Obama.

Beyonce doesn't actually need to dance around for her and it's somewhat demeaning for there to be an expectation that she has to (for a person that doesn't even deign to give interviews anymore, so certain is she in her cultural cachet) so Kamala can salvage a campaign event. She's Queen Bey after all, her laying hands on Kamala should achieve the goal of telling her people who to vote for. She did Kamala - and the Democrats - a favor already.

There's nothing odd about this: Anne Hathaway and Scarlett Johannsen support Democrats but don't have to do soliloquys for whoever the Democrats randomly picked to lead them. They give an endorsement and the party is happy to get that much.

Leave that the dancing bear behavior to the Meg Thee Stallions of the world. She's still hungry and climbing the ladder.

This is kinda off the wall, but I'm wondering if the local democrats didn't make enough problems to prevent Beyonce from performing? The Harris county democrats are at least partly(but not entirely) tied to/infiltrated by the state level GOP and it's entirely plausible that this is a cheap favor by democrats for Ted Cruz.

Sounds like her endorsement doesn’t mean much.

It's a nice vote-buying technique unless you blow it massively.

Maybe they didn't want to be accused of doing such?

They got Bruce Springsteen to perform at another rally. They got Willie Nelson to perform at the not Beyoncé concert. They are openly asking for Swift to perform at one of these rallies.

The reason Beyoncé didn’t perform is because Beyoncé didn’t want to perform. But Harris stupidly ran a bait and switch.

I doubt it considering all the other naked vote buying.

I predict that in 2028 the Democratic nominee will leverage concerts a lot more effectively. It's the $20 bill just sitting on the sidewalk for the taking. It's a massive advantage for Democrats since most of the top stars are aligned with Dems.

It's kinda like Elon's lottery except that instead of just one winner there will be tens of thousands.

I wonder if there are FEC limits on it

How? I’m not sure paying people to be at a rally by booking a band translates to votes. She might be able to buy large rally crowds, but she’s not going to be able to convince them to vote for her. They often don’t actually stay for the rally part (actually quite surprised they haven’t noticed and moved the concert until after the rally).

Can you share the viral clip?

Here's the one linked in the article, but I've also seen it on Twitter. https://tiktok.com/@hunterbidenslaptop4.0/video/7430049960197967146

To Kamala's credit, I'm not sure what a person's supposed to do when they're being booed. This is probably as good as anything.

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