Garth Brooks is in trouble for having friends in high places as cancel culture spreads rightward.
When Brooks announced that first lady Jill Biden had asked him to perform at President Biden’s inauguration, he obliged.
“The message they’re pushing is unity, and that’s right down my alley, man,” Brooks said at a press conference before the inauguration. “If we’re gonna get anywhere, we’re gonna get there together.”
That didn’t sit well with some on the Right who have adopted the Left’s view that simply associating with the other side is treason. “Boycott Garth Brooks!” right-wing activist Brigitte Gabriel wrote on Twitter. Actor Nick Searcy wrote, “It is a statement of submission.” Searcy also claimed Brooks was essentially stating, “I accept your fraud and to hell with the people who made me rich because I already got mine.” Other tweeters were similarly disgusted.
Appearing on Biden’s stage, according to Searcy, offended the people who bought his music and went to his concerts. It’s a demand for ideological and partisan purity — as if Brooks somehow defiled himself (or blasphemed) by singing “Amazing Grace” on Biden’s stage.
After all, Brooks says he’s a Republican, and certainly, his fan base and country music’s fan base overlap significantly with the Republican base. How could he betray them?
But Brooks is more stable than that. “I might be the only Republican at this place, but it’s about reaching across and loving one another,” he said about the inauguration.
That’s what the world requires a lot of the time — if you want to try and live in it at all.
