The Two Americas
The Two Americas
Thoughts on the clash of worldviews at the Grammys and the Super Bowl.
Last Sunday was Super Sunday, and country singer Chris Stapleton brought players and viewers alike to tears with his soulful performance of our national anthem ahead of Super Bowl LVII.
But prior to Stapleton’s rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the woke corporate leadership of the National Football League also chose to feature actress/singer Sheryl Lee Ralph performing the so-called “black national anthem,” the 1905 tune “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”
Could there be any more disheartening evidence that America is two countries now: not black and white, but Left and Right? Yes, the NFL has included this obsequious nod to the corrosive Black Lives Matter movement prior to every game of the 2022 season, but the Super Bowl was the biggest pop culture event of the year, with a viewership of more than 113 million and an international audience. We just broadcast a clear message to the world, as well as to our own citizens, that black Americans are apparently so disenfranchised here that they have a separate national anthem, because “The Star-Spangled Banner” apparently applies only to whites.
Darrell B. Harrison, a Biblical counselor and the Dean of Social Media at Grace to You, the media ministry of John MacArthur, nailed it on Twitter:
Division, of course, is the point. This ugly lie being sold to our young people and to minorities by the anti-American Left is designed not to confront and heal any racial divide, but to exacerbate it and to “rub raw the resentments” of the purportedly marginalized, to quote the radical strategist Saul Alinsky.
Sports has traditionally been an arena, if you’ll pardon the pun, where Americans of all creeds and colors can put political and other differences aside and unite to vicariously experience “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat, the human drama of athletic competition.” But the religious fanatics of wokeness have successfully politicized that arena, as they have with every other aspect of our lives (remember the 1970s battle cry, “the personal is the political”? The political is now the inescapable). We must now be reminded before every NFL game, by way of two separate national anthems, that we are supposed to remain at each other’s throats.
No country, no civilization, can long survive this kind of subversion being normalized in the culture.
Another note on the Super Bowl: a Christian group called “He Gets Us” spent a whopping $20 million on two advertisements that aired during the game, reminding viewers of the love Jesus Christ had for us and even for those who hated him.
In response, a triggered Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the self-declared “democratic socialist” Congresswoman from New York, tweeted, “Something tells me Jesus would *not* spend millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads to make fascism look benign.”
Fair enough; Jesus was not a multimillionaire. But AOC neglected to identify exactly what she finds fascist about Christ’s message. Presumably she’s referring to the fact that the ad campaign was funded partly by the Hobby Lobby chain of crafts stores, which has previously drawn the ire of wokesters everywhere for its proudly Christian positions. After all, any political stance in opposition to the social justice agenda is by definition fascism, in the Left’s view. According to CNN, the ad campaign also “has connections to anti-LGBT and anti-abortion laws” because The Servant Foundation that oversees the campaign “has donated tens of millions to the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal group.”
Nick Fish, president of American Atheists, a nonprofit founded in 1963 by the insanely anti-Christian Madalyn Murray O’Hair, also took to social media to express his outrage that a Super Bowl ad might dare to do more than sell cars or Bud Lights, by exposing viewers to a spiritual message instead:
Curiously, neither AOC nor Nick Fish had any such complaints about the satanic display during the 65th Annual Grammy Awards show the previous Sunday. Pop star Sam Smith, who describes himself as “non-binary,” performed a BDSM-flavored, Satan-themed rendition of his song “Unholy,” decked out in comically clichéd devil’s horns and an unflatteringly tight, bright red outfit, ringed onstage by demonic acolytes and backed by the flames of Hell.
Beforehand, sources reportedly expressed their hope that the performance would “make a lot of people very upset.” But of course, that was the goal – to offend the bourgeois sensibilities of the masses of decent Americans for whom cultural elites like Sam Smith and the Grammy event organizers have such open contempt. The performance is “over the top and really crazy,” said a source close to Smith. “I guarantee there will be calls to CBS from outraged Christians.” You can almost hear the giddy glee in the source’s voice.
Prior to the performance, Smith and Kim Petras accepted the award for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance, which the lockstep media hailed as an “historic” moment because Petras is a man who identifies as a woman.
“Sam graciously wanted me to accept this award because I’m the first transgender woman to win this award,” said Petras. The audience applauded vigorously to make sure everyone could see they hold the culturally correct opinion about gender ideology.
Ironically, this allegedly musical tribute to Satan was sponsored by the Big Pharma globalists at Pfizer, who sold their souls to Lucifer during the coronavirus pandemic in exchange for vast power and profit.
In the song’s lyrics, Smith praises the fashion house Balenciaga, which you may recall sparked disgust and outrage recently when it was discovered that their advertising included a BDSM-themed photo shoot featuring child models. It also included subtle but clearly intentional references to the sexualization of children.
Neither Balenciaga nor Sam Smith nor the Grammys are even bothering to hide their unholy predilections, which include the sexual corruption and exploitation of children. But what really triggers the Left is a Super Bowl ad spreading Christ’s love.
“I personally grew up wondering about religion and wanting to be a part of it, but then slowly realizing it doesn’t want me to be a part of it,” Kim Petras said after the Grammy performance. “So it’s a take on not being able to choose religion and not being able to live the way that people might want you to live, because, you know, as a trans person, I’m kind of already not wanted in religion.”
It isn’t that Christianity doesn’t “want” Petras; it’s that Petras doesn’t want to be constrained by a religion that places moral demands upon its adherents. He wants, instead, a religion that affirms his self-centered lifestyle of sexual libertinism.
The song and its performance were designed to trigger normal people who tend to frown upon devil worship, and sure enough, many of them took to Twitter to express their revulsion. “I know we on the right probably use the word satanic too often but this performance from Sam Smith is literally a tribute to Satan,” writer Ben Kew tweeted.
Commentator Robby Starbuck correctly noted afterward, “People like Sam Smith who love to mock Christianity and use Satanic themes always think they’re super edgy artists by doing it. In reality it’s not edgy. It’s boring, vile, rehashed shock tactics that Hollywood seals clap for because they’re evil & stupid.”
True. You would think that people who think of themselves as “artists” would want to strive for originality and creativity, but Smith and Petras – and their aging idol Madonna, who introduced the act – still believe that true art requires “pushing the envelope” and being “edgy.” That typically means recycling ways to bash and offend Christians, who are easy targets in society today. Smith and Petras and their ilk love to complain that Christianity is oppressive and not inclusive of so-called “marginalized groups,” but in fact it is the shrinking community of Christians here and abroad who are the most persecuted, most marginalized believers in the world – and in America they are openly mocked and demonized by precisely the Progressive elites who have made a fetish of tolerance and inclusion.
The good news is that pornographic music and Satan worship don’t exactly resonate with the masses of Americans. The most recent Grammy ratings were up from the previous year, but still ranked as the third lowest viewership in Grammy history. All three of those lows came in the last three years. Americans are sick of elitist showbiz awards shows and of purported art that revels in ugliness and moral transgression.
On a related note, the pop songwriting genius Burt Bacharach passed away last Wednesday at the age of 94. He won six Grammys in his spectacular career and was nominated for 21 more, in the process giving us such transcendent melodies as “This Guy’s in Love With You,” “One Less Bell to Answer,” “I Say a Little Prayer,” “There’s Always Something There to Remind Me,” “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ On My Head,” “I’ll Never Fall in Love Again,” and “Alfie.” He came from an era in which beauty still mattered, and in which songs lifted our souls instead of dragging us through the gutter.
If indeed Mr. Bacharach saw the most recent Grammy broadcast, it would be difficult to imagine that he watched the degraded quality of today’s music industry with anything but heartbreak.