Why are entertainers mostly liberal?

Question | me

[Chris_Patrick]

Question for those more experienced in politics than me, which should be quite a few since I just got active in politics about 5 years ago. :)

[Chris_Patrick]

Hello,

My wife and I were discussing this last night. Why are actors, actresses, and other enterainers mostly liberal? It sure seems like a huge percentage of them are! What benefits do they get from choosing to support the democrat party? What is in it for them?

Don't liberals (in general) want higher taxes for the rich? Don't they believe the rich should give their hard earned money to those that do not work, and to those that live off government social programs?

I saw a liberal on TV a few weeks back (Michael Moore) that said the rich should pay 70% in taxes! That is ridiculous, and why would someone that worked so hard to be successful, like most entertainers did, support something crazy like this?

Thanks in advance for the lesson today :)

[Chris_Patrick]

Bump

[Chris_Patrick]

"I think that when you make a career in pretending to be someone else you tend to think that you lack an identity."

LOL, that makes sense

[MamaLucci]

The short answer is: to get work, period.

[MNnice]

Hollywood types are "liberal" because they want to work. Who does the hiring in Hollywood? Notice the fate of actors and actresses who are unabashed conservatives. Seen Tom Selleck in anything lately? Bo Derek? Even conservatives with power like Arnold and Bruce Willis have toned down their rhetoric or even disavowed their conservatism because they need the liberals in power to get any projects off the ground. I've seen O'Reilly ask the same question to the few closet Hollywood conservatives who would appear on his show and they get very nervous and uncomfortable abswering the question. Dixie Carter is the only conservative in show business who has had the balls to stand up for her beliefs.

[Chris_Patrick]

How would this get them work?

[Space Wrangler]

Most hollywood types probably start out as apolitical, and quickly realize that the culture of Hollywood is so far left, that they HAVE to be liberal if they want any prayer of getting work. There are very few self-described conservatives in Hollywood, and the one's that are are already well established in their careers. The kiss of death for an up-and-comer in Hollywood is to show any inkling of conservative ideals.

[oyez]

Entertainers arn't big in analytical thought. They make their living by attracting attention to themselves. The publicity if free. They like appealing to the lowest common denominator.

[BillM]

Probably Guilt. They should just give time and money to charities, not take my money.

Don't forget, they can live well on 30% of what they make.

[Jadge]

I think in their mind they believe that by supporting the dems, they are 'giving back' to those who supported them (the people).

When in reality, they should look at 2000 election voting map and realize how much red there is throughout the country. Why would someone in their business want to alienate that large of a crowd? I know I will never see another Hanks, Roberts, Clooney, Baldwin, etc. film. Anyone who speaks out as a lib can forget getting my box office money.

[Chris_Patrick]

Interesting MNnice. Come to think of it, I also have sensed some nervousness when I have seen them asked that question.

[Rightone]

Short answer: Liberalism is a mixture of feel goodism and guilt. The entertainers feel guilty that they make so much money for doing nothing that they assuage that guilt with touchy-feely-goodism.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Many actors and musicians achieve success by being at the right place at the right time - therefore they presume all successful people achieved success through luck just as they did. At some level, these celebrities fear their fame and fortune will be taken away as easily as it was gained, therefore they have a natural affinity for the political view that provides them and others a "safety net". They don't especially care how much damage this political view does to hard-working entrepreneurs because they have no experience in dealing with such people and can't relate to their concerns about excessive taxation and regulation.

To sum up: celebrities become liberals due to their terror of losing what they have (undeservedly) gained.

[FourPeas]

I think it's guilt. Because entertainers possess some specific talent (OK, so this is frequently debatable), for which they can truly take no credit, they are paid huge sums of money and lavished praise and attention. I think deep-down they feel undeserving of it (remember Sally Field?) and believe that anyone who is well paid is equally guilty and undeserving. Since they (the entertainers) are "the rich" and don't deserve it, the it obviously the rest of "the rich" don't and should be taxed to pay for everyone else who isn't as lucky.

Anyway, that's my theory.

[Chris_Patrick]

Yea, it just makes me sick. I saw an O'Reilly show last week when Jane Fonda was the topic about her antics during the Vietnam War and giving comfort to the enemy. It should be the opposite, and she should have NEVER been given work after that.

[Rightwing Canuck]

I think it was Heston who said that, in Hollywood, there were more conservatives in the closet than gays. They're just afraid to speak up.

[MNnice]

This phenomenon also explains why there are so many liberal journalists. Conservative writers and journalists can only find work in conservative publications because the people who do the hiring for the networks and the major newspapers are liberals ... and they don't hire conservatives.

[MamaLucci]

There are only so many big movie studios, and they are, by and large, run by liberals (think Steven Spielberg).
It is common knowledge that it is the kiss of death to an actor's career to admit to being a Republican.

[Tacis]

There have always been commies and leftists in Hollywood, including the evil-doers that Senator McCarthy found under the rocks and drove westward. But, there are at least 2 basic reasons. First, before the war, toward the end of the depression, we had a bivariate world. Evil was clearly the German/Nazi pole and, therefore, the "good" was its opposite, communism. Our media was anti-Nazi and vigorously pro-communist. Hollywood followed suit and some/much of the commie influence still lives, especially in the unions.

Second is that the liberal positions, in the abstract, are attractive and simplistic. Most liberal concepts can be expressed as positive princples, e.g., "we must do something to help inner city children." But, no Hollywood liberal ever actually turned his/her Malibu home over to LA kids. Feed the poor, house the homeless, treat the sick, educate, innoculate, protect the environment are all attractive concepts. But, liberals ALWAYS want to do this with someone else's money, position themselves (or friends or relatives) to profit from it, and, in many cases, only as a diversion to weaken our system to replace it with classic European socialism (with themselves excluded from confiscation as a special category).