Last week, American voters elected Joe Biden as the next President, though many worry that Trump will try to stay in office.
Demi Lovato is no Trump fan … but her recent tweets have been called out for being tone deaf.
Over the weekend, masked celebrators danced in the streets after President-Elect Joe Biden and future VP Kamala Harris were declared the victors.
Trump has yet to concede and is spinning conspiracy theories, which is very in character.
But even though Demi Lovato doesn’t like Trump, she’s asking some of the celebrators to moderate their tone. Girl, no.
“Today isn’t about celebrating in the face of those that oppose your views and values,” Demi insisted in a tweet.
“But,” she claimed, “celebrating from a place of LOVE.”
And no, she does not mean celebrating how much you love that a bunch of truly awful people are sad righ tnow.
Demi wrote that celebrations should be about “combating the hate that has encompassed and oppressed so many of us the past four years.”
“Let the healing begin,” she continued.
It didn’t go over well with pretty much anyone.
Obviously, some of the critics of her tweet were simply people who are upset about these results.
There are people, even among Demi’s fans, who think that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are socialists, and also that this would be a bad thing.
In other words, these people are wrong on two fronts. But as Demi’s tweets went on, it was clear that she was getting an earful from the left, too.
“Look, y’all do what you want,” Demi wrote, sounding fatigued with the feedback.
“I don’t normally tweet,” she admitted, “because it pisses someone off but I stopped caring a long time ago.”
“Just trying to spread love and light today… after all that is what we fought for right?” she asked.
“Remember when we didn’t all think the same? (It’s still happening),” Demi added in another tweet.
“Opinions differ,” she wrote, defending her tone-policing with: “I wasn’t ‘commanding’ anyone to do anything.”
“Now go out and celebrate or meme IF YOU PLEASE – DO YOU – all I’m saying is hatred DIDN’T work for the last administration,” Demi wrote.
“FYI – I’m also not pretending to have never acted bigger than anyone,” she wrote in yet another tweet.
“Most of us have chosen sides during the past several years and added to the conversation – AS WE SHOULD HAVE,” she noted, “memes and all.”
“But I personally am just tired of living in a divided country,” Demi wrote.
“Also – stop worrying what I tweet,” Demi suggested, reminding her fans and followers of the good news: “BIDEN WON YALL “
“Also I wrote that tweet after watching a video a friend sent me of the streets celebrating in West Hollywood today,” she noted, “I broke down in tears of gratitude.”
“I wanted to share that with you because the love I saw my queer community sharing between one another…” Demi explained.
Demi wrote that the love “was finally proven to be BIGGER than the hate they tried to keep us down with.”
“That’s all,” she said.
“Revolving hearts,” Demi concluded, “also feeling so thoughtful today so I’m rambling.”
Demi is a sweet person who has clearly been through a lot, but she is getting an earful for some of these tweets.
Why? Because she, like many people, seems to be favoring politeness over justice with some of these tweets.
It doesn’t mean that she’s a bad person — her heart is in the right place. But her tone rubbed people the wrong way.
Folks, spreading “love and light” is how Care Bears defeat evil.
We humans do it by organizing, by voting, by campaigning.
Being kind to fascists only makes it easier for them to operate.
The current administration hates people for where they were born, for the color of their skin, for not being heterosexual or cisgender, for not being Christians, for wanting bodily autonomy, for being poor.
Those who loathe Trump, his administration, and his supporters hate them for caging innocent children, for letting hundreds of thousands die in a pandemic, for encouraging racism, for opposing human rights.
The first kind of hate is prejudice and bigotry. The second kind of hate is the result of having moral clarity — it is just and good to despise fascist monsters. They are not the same.
We are all tired of living in a divided country.
But most of that divide is over white nationalism, Christian dominionism, and authoritarianism.
We cannot “reach across the aisle” to the other side without betraying the innocent marginalized groups that the other side seeks to trample.
So that is why Demi’s tweets — some of them, at least — did not go over well, even though we love love love Demi.
It’s not her fault. Though she herself is part of more than one marginalized group, her celebrity status puts her in a bubble where “peace” and “light” are often given priority.
It’s easier to fetishize ideas like forgiveness and peace when you’re not fighting for your life and those of your loved ones.