Quietly riding the coattails of Rebecca Black and all of the other teen YouTubers who think they have untapped stores of musical talent, Kory Shore got some attention last week for his music video titled “Crying For America.” As if you can’t already tell where this is headed, the video features Shore staring earnestly into the camera while playing piano, dancing on top of Mount Rushmore, and cavorting with statues of various founding fathers. It even features an old man reading a Thomas Paine quote. That’s right. The Tea Party has a pop star.
Just to be clear, Shore is not officially affiliated with the Tea Party. But his song has been picked up by several Tea Party websites and some have hailed it as a Tea Party anthem. Shore does not express his views on his YouTube video or any of his other websites, so perhaps it is unfair to brand him a Tea Partier. But whether or not he likes it, the Tea Party and others who use silly platitudes to talk about complex problems have adopted his song as their own.
The problem with “Crying for America” is not that a fourteen-year-old with questionable connections has decided that America needs to “spread it’s wings and soar the skies again.” Besides, we were all 14 once, and I can understand the impulse to seek a way to voice your outrage about the government. When I was 13, I started a fake newspaper dedicated solely to making fun of George Bush and mailed copies to all of my grandparents. Kory Shore is probably operating off of the same desire to be heard as my 13-year-old self was, and I’m sure his voice will mature with time and he will stop asserting that landmasses can fly through the air.
The problem here is that, once again, politically opinionated people on both sides of the aisle have something to argue about for no reason. They are seizing the opportunity with relish. The comments on Shore’s YouTube video (and yes, I realize YouTube videos are not the best place to seek reasoned debate) range from accusing Shore of being a member of the KKK to accusing everyone who doesn’t like his song of not being “true Americans.” The political blogosphere has either deemed the song a complete joke or a revelation, depending on the political leanings of the blog in question.
Just because I don’t think that the Constitution should be interpreted literally doesn’t mean that I am not a real American; just because someone else thinks it should be read literally does not mean that they are racist or stupid. There are serious, intelligent people on all sides of politics. Those people are constantly being drowned out by the voices of the blindly opinionated. In Congress, reason has been taking a backseat to political showboating for the last several years. Last week, members of the House were so unable to have a rational discussion that they pushed the government to the brink of a shutdown rather than have a level-headed talk with each other. “Crying for America” and many other pieces of political pop culture encourage principled disagreement more than productive problem-solving. Shore’s song, though innocuous on its own, is just one more thing standing between productive political conversation in this country.
