MUSICIANS Can Impact AMERICAN POLITICS Again

[G_j]

https://markoconnorblog.blogspot.com/2018/11/musicians-can-impact-american-politics.html?m=1

By Mark O’Connor


Attention To All Musicians: There Is No Need To Worry Today About Sharing Your Political Views Online To Your Fans.

Despite plenty of warnings from some, a professional musician as myself, campaigning to support a candidate for office on my social network platforms, ends up being - rather outstanding! I did just that for the 2 weeks, leading up to the 2018 U.S. midterm election. Despite a few “haters” who claimed that I would alienate and lose half of my audience (a Republican talking point and scare tactic I have come to discover - used towards “entertainers”), in the end, I lost only “0.001” of my on-line followers! Not half! But 0.001%! After 2 weeks of consistent social network political posting on my pages, and hitting it really hard with the most amount of engagement on these platforms I've had recently, I certainly did not lose hardly any fans whatsoever. I actually picked up new fans in the process, people who liked what I had to say and who otherwise would not have known my music at all. But now they do!

If all musicians stepped up for the next election (and all elections thereafter) to present their message around improving our country, and supporting those in public office who will help us progress as a society, we could help shape a better America together. Musicians at the end, are also public servants.

Imagine the combined reach of all musicians in our country? Instead of Trump boasting about his crowd size, the music community could stand that bragging right on its notorious head, in full consignment of this barefaced recognition. During the Civil Rights and Vietnam protest movements in the 1960s, musicians stepped up and took a stand to improve our country; Dylan, Wonder, Baez, Odetta, Seeger, James Brown, Peter, Paul and Mary, Miles Davis, Carole King, Marley, Cash, Guthrie, Nina Simone, Bernstein, Dizzy Gillespie, Sam Cooke, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Belafonte and many more, did not retreat from sharing how they felt about domestic and foreign affairs as well as political figures in the '60s and early '70s. We are at a similar place again and need to hear more clearly and unmistakably from musicians and artists about our culture and where we are going today. Those musicians in the 1960s didn’t necessarily lose fans to any extent that we know of today, rather they built a fan base with their music with their political platforms fully revealed and out in the open. These great musicians didn't give so much weight to the idea of alienating fans with their experiences of living in America as artists. Instead, they simply made music history.

Musicians need to step up again now. Just being involved in “getting out the vote” campaigns designed to register new voters in a bipartisan manner, is not good enough, as the polls clearly indicated during these midterms. These new voters are breaking towards progressive politicians and Democrats by only 10% or 15%. Newly registered voters left to their own, are quite likely unfamiliar with all the issues they may want to know about, or who to vote for. Without any guidance at the intercession table itself, these newly registered living in "red" states in particular, will just vote as their parents do in the same Republican districts. The new voter registration effort will only add Republican votes to the net-plus column in red states, further exacerbating the hopelessly uninformed cultural divide we have now, and transferring this decrepitude all the way to the next generation.



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About Mark O’Connor: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_O%27Connor

[Eko]

1. Mark is a awesome musician

and a awesome person.

[2naSalit]

2. K&R