politics
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In the wake of Donald Trump’s stunning win in the 2024 presidential election, singer-songwriter Ethel Cain is letting out her rage.
In a post to her Tumblr on Wednesday (Nov. 6), the “American Teenager” singer laid into the American political system, decrying the methods by which members of the electorate are turned against one another. “The problem is that America has beaten down its people for decades and gotten them weak and desperate and now promises a way out, a way to transcend and rise above, through selling out their fellow man,” she wrote. “An embarrassingly large chunk of white men are just straight up nazis these days as a way to dissociate from the rest of the carnage around them, even if they’re broke and uneducated and from an impoverished background themselves.”
Cain, who has been a vocal critic of both the Republican and Democratic tickets in the 2024 election, went on to say that modern political discourse has made everyone “so incredibly hateful,” and warned that the president-elect was far from the only issue in our current system.
“It’s not even about Trump at this point. He’s gonna get in office and do whatever he does and it’s gonna be a mess but whatever. This is indicative of deeper problem,” she wrote. “There is no solidarity and there is no love. Trump being in office or not doesn’t change the fact that America is a breeding ground for violent hatred … if anything COULD be done about it, Trump certainly wouldn’t do it. Honestly, Kamala probably wouldn’t have either. We are so deeply f–ked.”
The singer went on to deliver a direct message to any Trump supporters reading her post: “If you voted for Trump, I hope that peace never finds you. Instead, I hope clarity strikes you someday like a clap of lightning and you have to live the rest of your life with the knowledge and guilt of what you’ve done and who you are as a person,” she wrote.
As for the rest of her followers, Cain said that since “we can’t count on the government,” it would come down to them. “Just keep up the good fight in your own personal lives,” she wrote. “That’s literally the only thing to be done at this point. Stay safe out there. Maybe buy a gun.”
Cain joins a rising chorus of voices reacting negatively to Trump’s re-election. Cardi B wrote “I hate y’all so bad” after the race was called for the Republican nominee, while Billie Eilish said that his win represented “a war on women.”
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Cardi B is one of countless voters left devastated by the outcome of the 2024 presidential election Tuesday (Nov. 5), which ended with Donald Trump winning over Kamala Harris.
But in a message posted to Instagram the day after the election, the 32-year-old rapper – who was a staunch supporter of the VP’s White House bid this year – chose to share some positivity despite the race not going her way. “To Vice President Kamala, no matter what they’ve said to bring you down or belittle your run for presidency they can never say you didn’t run your race with honesty and with integrity!” Cardi wrote.
“You really put up a fight against all the odds that were already stacked against you!” she continued in her Notes app message. “You never accepted defeat as an option which says so much about your strength and about your heart.”
The rapper also shared the same note on X, but added a little more. “No need to nasty, y’all picked your winner…All we can do is be hopeful and wish the best,” she tweeted. “Before Kamala joined the race, we knew how this country is set up and what was probably going to happen but it was so inspiring how she fought and changed so many minds, including mine.”
Prior to her letter to Harris, the Grammy winner was one of the first musicians to react to Trump’s victory — “I hate y’all bad,” she wrote on Instagram Stories. Cardi had fiercely advocated for the former prosecutor for months prior to Election Day and made a speech at one of the Democratic candidate’s final campaign events Nov. 1 in Milwaukee, Wisc.
“Like Kamala Harris, I’ve been the underdog, underestimated, and had my success belittled,” she said at the podium. “I didn’t have faith in any candidates until she joined and spoke the words I wanted to hear about the future of this country … Kamala recognizes that this country is at risk, and that we need to strengthen our economy and address the rising cost of living.”
Much earlier in the election cycle, before Harris replaced President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket, Cardi made headlines for refusing to support a candidate in the 2024 race. “I feel like it was very selfish of Biden … to continue to run for president,” the rapper said on Instagram Live before he dropped out of the race over the summer. “They should’ve passed the torch to Kamala.”
In her post-election letter to Harris five months later, Cardi once again emphasized her admiration for the VP. “You really wanted better for ALL of us!” she wrote. “This may not mean much but I am so proud of you! No one has ever made me change my mind and you did! I never thought I would see the day that a woman of color would be running for the President of the United States, but you have shown me, shown my daughters and women across the country that anything is possible.”
See Cardi’s full message below:
No need to nasty, y’all picked your winner…All we can do is be hopeful and wish the best. Before Kamala joined the race, we knew how this country is set up and what was probably going to happen but it was so inspiring how she fought and changed so many minds, including mine. pic.twitter.com/pj05rnKY57— Cardi B (@iamcardib) November 6, 2024
As the world woke up to Donald Trump’s victory in the 2024 election, Billie Eilish summed up her thoughts in five simple words. Taking to her Instagram Stories on Wednesday morning (Nov. 6), the “Birds of a Feather” singer posted her message over a black background to her audience of 120 million followers. “It’s a […]
50 Cent is back on the Trump train. A week after boasting that he’d turned down a purported nine-figure payday to appear at former and now-future President Donald Trump’s Madison Square Garden campaign stop, the “Wanksta” rapper appeared to be back in The Donald’s corner.
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“I don’t care how the fight goes, I’m leaving with the winner s–t,” 50 (born Curtis Jackson) wrote on Instagram on Wednesday morning (Nov. 6) in a post that featured two pictures of the rapper with Trump, who defied odds on Tuesday night to join Grover Cleveland as the only American to be voted into the nation’s top office to non-consecutive terms.
“I still don’t know what’s going on,” 50 added along with a face palm emoji and “congratulations!”
In an appearance on The Breakfast Club last week, 50 claimed that he’d been offered $3 million to appear at Trump’s MSG rally. “Yeah. They offered me $3 million!” said 50, confirming co-host Charlamagne Tha God’s query about that event, as well as reports that 50 was also offered an undisclosed amount to perform his song “Many Men” at this summer’s Republican National Convention as well.
50 did not appear at either event, explaining to the Breakfast Club crew why he rejected the lucrative offer. “I didn’t even go far,” he said of the offers. “I’m afraid of politics, you understand? I do not like it. … It’s because when you do get involved in it, no matter how you feel, somebody passionately disagrees with you. Look, if you say ‘I stay away from religion,’ I stay away from politics. Religion, that’s the formula for the confusion that it sent Kanye to Japan. He said something about both of those things and now he can only go to Japan. So you know I’m like I don’t want to get in that, man.”
At the time, a Trump campaign source told Billboard that the story was not true, though they did not specify which part was erroneous — that Trump wanted 50 at the rally or that the offer was $3 million.
After a comedian referred to Puerto Rico as a “floating island of garbage” at Trump’s MSG event, a number of major Puerto Rican artists spoke out in support of Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost Tuesday’s closely contested election to the former reality TV star who has continued to deny that he lost his second bid for the White House in 2020 to President Biden.
During that failed 2020 bid 50 initially supported the twice impeached former commander-in-chief before retracting his endorsement after former girlfriend Chelsea Handler called him out. “F–k Donald Trump, I never liked him,” the rapper later said in a retweet of Handler’s appearance on The Tonight Show in which she criticized her ex for his support of Trump, 78, who will become the oldest man, and first convicted felon, to ascend to the nation’s highest office when he is inaugurated on Jan. 20.
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Van Jones was one of several political commentators who took to the airwaves to deliver their thoughts about the results of Election Day, most especially the race between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. In his analysis, Van Jones was rendered emotional as he explained how a Trump presidency might not bode well for some, sparking some on X to take shots at the pundit.
Van Jones, 56, was on CNN after the results were largely confirmed and declaring Donald Trump the winner of the presidential race. Jones, speaking to the concerns of those who might feel vulnerable under Trump’s leadership, expressed what many Americans might be feeling and got choked up along the way.
“There are going to be people tomorrow who are going to be handing clothes at the dry cleaners to people who don’t have papers. There are going to be people who are going to be cleaning your teeth tomorrow who don’t have papers. And they are terrified tonight,” Jones said.
In regards to Black women, who largely rallied around Vice President Harris, Jones examined their emotional state.
“They thought tomorrow morning they were going to walk out with their shoulders back a little bit, maybe be able to breathe for the first time, and feel like they belong someplace. They did everything that they knew how to do, and it’s going to be harder than it should be tomorrow for them to hold their heads up, and they’re not the only people who are hurting tonight,” Jones continued.
Toward the end of his breakdown of the election, Jones, audibly choked up, said, “It’s people who woke up this morning with a dream and are going to bed with a nightmare.”
On X, Van Jones has become a target of critique over his emotional takes and today is no different. We’ve got those reactions listed below.
People woke up this morning with a big dream. They are going to wake up tomorrow in a nightmare. But we will find a way through. pic.twitter.com/uzR5DpYytk
— Van Jones (@VanJones68) November 6, 2024
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Source: Arturo Holmes / Getty / Joy Reid
He did it. Orange Mussolini, aka Donald Trump, is going back to the White House, and MSNBC Joy Reid thinks he should be thanking white women for his comeback.
In the early morning of MSNBC’s 2024 election coverage, Joy Reid pointed out the obvious, “white women voters did not” show up for Vice President Kamala Harris.
Reid’s comments came as the state of North Carolina was projected to vote for Donald Trump. She told her colleagues, “We have to be blunt about why.”
“Black voters came through for Kamala Harris,” Reid said. “White women voters did not.”
She continued, “It’s a state where women lost their reproductive rights, where there was a very heavy push to get women to focus on not … putting back into the White House the person who was responsible for taking those rights away. And restoring them. But that message obviously was not enough to get enough white women to vote for Vice President Harris, a fellow woman.”
The longtime MSNBC anchor was referring to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 defeat at the hands of Donald Trump. She made sure to remind folks white women have been consistent in their failure to be on the right side of history, saying, “this will be the second opportunity that white women in this country have to change the way that they interact with the patriarchy.”
Where’s the lie?
“But if people aren’t receptive to it and if people vote more, you know, party line or more on race than on gender, and on protecting their gender, there’s really not much more that you can do but tell people what the risks are and leave it to them to do the right thing,” she ended her statement.
Social Media Agrees With Joy Reid
Once Donald Trump secured the 270 electoral college votes he needed and the breakdown of how the voting went, social media also felt the same way as Reid as the numbers show that white women and men and Latinos helped the twice impeached politician return to the Oval Office.
“As per usual white women vote for Trump while Black women remain the backbone of ethics and justice for this country,” one user on X, formally Twitter, wrote.
Another user wrote, “white women for Harris” the whole time they took their Stanley cups to vote for Trump.”
Deep negro spiritual sigh.
Well, we applaud Kamala Harris for putting herself out there and wanting to fight to keep Trump from winning a second term and enacting his evil Project 2025 agenda.
Here we go again.
You can see more reactions in the gallery below.
1. Exactly
2. Damn shame
5. Consistent in their foolishness
Sabrina Carpenter said “Please Please Please” and voters definitely listened. According to HeadCount.org, the singer got more voters engaged in Tuesday’s (Nov. 5) election than any other artist the organization works with. HeadCount said that Carpenter, 25, helped inspire 35,814 voter registrations and got another 263,087 voters to take other actions outside of registering (including checking their registration status and polling location).
“Through our partnerships with over 100 top music artists — like Sabrina Carpenter, Green Day, Ariana Grande, and so many others — HeadCount had a record-breaking year, registering over 450,000 new voters and engaging over 3 million more people to make sure they vote,” said the non-profit’s executive director, Lucille Wenegieme, in a statement. “Our model works because musicians and celebrities have a cultural cache and an intimate connection with their fans, especially among young people, whose identity as a fan of a particular artist can be even stronger than other aspects of their identity, including affiliation with a political party or candidate. We are so grateful to our artist partners and their teams for inspiring their fans to take control of their future.”
HeadCount said that it had a presence at more than 3,700 events this year as part of its “Good to Vote” campaign, where they registered nearly half a million new voters, with almost half of them between the ages of 18-24. Carpenter’s impressive numbers on her Short n’ Sweet tour including activating voters through giveaways, in-person activations and video boards and mailers. The partnership also included a sweepstakes offering fans the chance to see the tour by checking their registration status, with winners slated to be flown out to the singer’s Nov. 9 San Francisco show.
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In addition, on their globe-hopping stadium Saviors tour, pop-punk legends Green Day broke HeadCount’s all-time record for the most voters engaged on a single tour, registering more than 7,900 new voters and engaging over 61,000 voters through in-person activations on the outing; those figures nearly double the previous record set by Ariana Grande on her 2019 Sweetener world tour.
HeadCount — which works with hundreds of other touring artists including 5 Seconds of Summer, Brandi Carlile, Alicia Keys, Chappell Roan, Ariana Grande, Fall Out Boy, Billie Eilish, DRake, HAIM, Gracie Abrams, Harry Styles and others — has registered more than 1.5 million voters since 2004. This year, the group said it engaged over three million music fans to take action, another all-time record for the organization, with more than 80% of all voters it registered representing Gen Z or millennials.
During Puerto Rico’s Election Day on Tuesday, Nov. 5, Bad Bunny cast his vote early at Saint John’s School in San Juan. Dressed in a classic salsero style sporting shades, an open-buttoned tee and burgundy pants, the superstar took a moment to address undecided voters. “Listen to your heart,” he advised after submitting his ballot, […]
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Azealia Banks has changed her mind about the presidential election. The mercurial MC best known for her frequent beefs with fellow celebs announced on Monday (Nov. 4) that she is now endorsing Democrat Kamala Harris over her previous commander-in-chief pick, Donald Trump.
Though the endorsement included a reference to the sitting Vice President as “stupid and incoherent” — as well as calling Harris’ VP pick, Gov. Tim Walz “trash” — Banks said she’s bailing on convicted felon Trump in large part because of her fears that the three-time presidential nominee will make good on his vow to give equally mercurial SpaceX/Tesla CEO Elon Musk a place in his potential second administration.
“I really think keeping Elon Musk away from any type of political power in the USA is tantamount to any issue on the table here. You have to be a complete idiot to think that dirtbag cares about anyone or anything other than himself,” Banks, 33, tweeted about Musk, who has become one of Trump’s biggest financial supporters and stumpers over the past month.
“He’s already been given way too much tax payer money – Allowing him to ascend to any position of political authority is very f–king dangerous,” wrote Banks in an attack on Musk featuring a string of provocative claims. “One does not become the richest man in the world because of honesty and good character lol, you must be an expert liar, thief and cheater to become that.” The tweet also included incendiary, unverified statements about Musk’s alleged business practices as well as his parenting and treatment of singer Grimes, who has two children with the tech billionaire; at press time a spokesperson for Musk had not returned Billboard‘s request for comment on Banks’ claims.
In 2016, Banks endorsed Trump and congratulated him following the former reality TV star’s win over former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton in that year’s election, offering to perform at his inauguration. While she was seemingly not invited to play that event, Trump was feted with sets from Toby Keith, Three Doors Down, Lee Greenwood, Jackie Evancho, DJ Ravidrums, the Piano Guys and a speech from actor Jon Voight. Last year, Banks said she would be supporting Trump again because she thought he was “f–king funny.”
NBC reported that Musk’s financial and stump support of Trump could be result in lucrative business wins for the world’s richest man, noting that the billionaire has turned X into “a pro-Trump echo chamber” over the past few months in the apparent expectation that Trump will offer up more tax breaks for the richest Americans and provide more government contracts for SpaceX. Musk has reportedly donated nearly $120 million to convicted the twice impeached former President’s third White House bid. Though he is not expected to have an official seat in a Trump cabinet owing to his many foreign business interests and government contracts, there are report that Musk could have an unofficial role as the “secretary of cost-cutting.”
Banks concluded her Harris endorsement tweet — one of dozens she posted on Monday in which she weighed in on everything from her distaste for iPhones and owning property in South Florida to a plea for Harris to “incentivize” men who don’t want to have children to get vasectomies — by explaining her latest swipe at Musk.
“I will be Voting For Kamala Harris tomorrow because Elon Musk (a f–king overrated Ketamine addict) belongs no where near American Politics. The End,” she wrote. Musk has spoken openly in the past about his use of prescription Ketamine, an anesthetic that has gained interest from doctors and researchers for its potential to treat depression and anxiety. In an interview with CNN earlier this year, Musk denied overusing Ketamine, saying, “if you use too much ketamine, you can’t really get work done. I have a lot of work, I’m typically putting in 16-hour days … so I don’t really have a situation where I can be not mentally acute for an extended period of time.”
The rapper — who has released just one full-length album to date, 2014’s Broke With Expensive Taste, along with a handful of EPs and mixtapes — referred to an overnight stay at Musk’s home in 2018 as being akin to “a real life episode of ‘Get Out‘”; she later apologized for those remarks.
Banks’ 11th hour support for Harris comes after a galaxy of A-listers have lined up behind the VP, including: Taylor Swift, Cardi B, Eminem, Scarlett Johansson, Ricky Martin, Rihanna, Katy Perry, Bad Bunny, Harrison Ford, Cher, Usher, Olivia Rodrigo, Madonna, Kesha, Billie Eilish, Bruce Springsteen, Charli XCX and many more.
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Dick Van Dyke reached back 60 years on Monday (Nov. 4) to a time when the United States was riven by racial animus and division to remind voters that such emotions are not, and should not, be the norm. The 98-year-old Hollywood legend and Mary Poppins star posted a black-and-white video on his socials endorsing Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris a day before voters took to the polls to weigh in on the neck-and-neck race between the sitting Democrat Vice President and former command-in-chief Donald Trump.
“Fifty years ago – May 31, 1964 — I was on the podium with Dr. Martin Luther King” he said of the Religious Witness for Human Dignity event held by the late civil rights leader in front of 60,000 people at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. “I was there to read a message written by Rod Serling, the guy who wrote The Twilight Zone. I got it out the other day, and I think it means as much today, if not more, than it did then. So if you don’t mind, I’d like to read it,” Van Dyke said.
The beloved actor and singer then read a selection from Serling’s note, which was entitled “A Most Non-Political Speech,” reprising his recitation at the King event more than half a century ago. “Hatred is not the norm. Prejudice is not the norm. Suspicion, dislike, jealousy, scapegoating, none of those are the transcendent facet of the human personality. They’re diseases,” Van Dyke said. “They are the cancers of the soul. They are the infectious and contagious viruses that have been breeding humanity for years. And because they have been and because they are, is it necessary that they shall be? I think not.”
With the trademark sparkle in his eye and warmth in his voice, Van Dyke continued. “If there’s one voice left to say ‘welcome’ to a stranger, if there’s one hand outstretched to say ‘enter and share,’ if there’s one mind remaining to think a thought of warmth and friendship, then there’s a future in which we’ll find more than one hand, more than one voice and more than one mind dedicated to the cause of man’s equality. Wishful? Hopeful? Unassured? Problematical and not to be guaranteed, that’s all true.”
He added, “But again, on this spring evening of 1964, a little of man’s awareness has shown itself. A little of his essential decency, his basic goodness, his preeminent dignity, has been made a matter of record. There will be moments of violence and expressions of hatred and an ugly re-echo of intolerance, but these are the clinging vestiges of a decayed past, not the harbingers of the better, cleaner future.”
The powerful message from Van Dyke came as both Trump and Harris were delivering their final messages to supporters on Monday night (Nov. 4), both in the crucial swing state of Pennsylvania. Harris was joined in Philadelphia by a galaxy of A-list stars — including Lady Gaga, Oprah Winfrey, Ricky Martin and The Roots — during an address where she once again vowed to fight for the future of all Americans.
“We love our country. And when you love something, you fight for it,” Harris said in an address just before midnight. “I do believe it is one of the highest forms of patriotism, of our expression of our love for our country, to then fight for its ideals and to fight to realize the promise of America… America is ready for a fresh start, ready for a new way forward, where see our fellow Americans not as an enemy, but as a neighbor.”
Also speaking in Pennsylvania, Trump — who would be the oldest person ever elected president at 78 — stuck to his foreboding, grievance-filled stump speech, vowing to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 in an effort at the mass deportation of illegal migrants he has promised on day one of his potential second administration. He also once again referred to Harris as a “radical left Marxist” and promised to “get critical race theory and transgender insanity the hell out of our schools” in the closing argument of a campaign in which he has questioned Harris’ racial identity and sought to lure Latino voters to his side despite recently featuring a comedian at his New York rally who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” Referring to the U.S. as an “occupied country” on Monday, Trump also again falsely claimed that “a lot of bad things” happened in the 2020 election he lost to President Biden.
In his recitation, Van Dyke — who did not mention either candidate, but did encourage his fans to vote and included hashtags for Harris — added a most poignant bit from Serling. “To those who tell us that the inequality of the human animal is the necessary evil, we must respond by simply saying that first, it is evil, but not necessary. We prove it, sitting here tonight, in 1964. We prove it by affirming our faith. We prove it by having faith in our affirmations,” he said.
The reading ended with a quote from 19th century abolitionist and U.S. House Rep. Horace Mann, “‘Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.’ I’d like to paraphrase that tonight. ‘Let us be ashamed to live without that victory,’” Van Dyke said, lamenting that “a lot” has happened since then, but perhaps not as much as MLK dreamed of. “But it’s a start,” Van Dyke smiled.
Van Dyke joins a long roster of major stars who’ve supported Harris’ campaign, a list that includes: Taylor Swift, Cardi B, Eminem, Scarlett Johansson, LeBron James, George Clooney, Jennifer Lopez, Oprah Winfrey, Ricky Martin, Rihanna, Katy Perry, Bad Bunny, Harrison Ford, Cher, Reese Witherspoon, Julia Roberts, Usher, Olivia Rodrigo, Madonna, Kesha, Billie Eilish, Bruce Springsteen, Sarah Jessica Parker, Charli XCX, Arnold Schwarzenegger and many more.
Pollsters have repeatedly claimed that Trump and Harris are in a neck-and-neck race, with most predicting that results will likely not be finalized when voting ends on Tuesday night (Nov. 5). If you are not sure where your polling place is, click here to find out.
Watch Van Dyke read Serling’s message below.