Carrie Underwood liked a video against school mask mandates. ‘Now the mob is coming’
It’s open season on country singer Carrie Underwood — kind of — for the offense of liking a conservative commentator’s video opposing schools’ mask mandates for kids.
The “Jesus, Take the Wheel” hitmaker was one of nearly 50,000 people who liked the video, which was posted Thursday on Twitter. It featured conservative pundit and Daily Wire contributor Matt Walsh at a Nashville school board meeting arguing that mask mandates for school-age children are akin to child abuse, given kids’ very small risk of death — not risk of infection, but risk of death — from COVID-19.
“Like anyone else, I am upset and disturbed that Carrie Underwood liked one of my tweets,” Walsh tweeted sarcastically Tuesday afternoon. “She should know better than to indirectly endorse the opinions of an extremist and scoundrel such as myself. Her lack of judgment is appalling. I demand that she renounce me and apologize.”
A few hours later, he tweeted, “Carrie Underwood liked my video and now the mob is coming for her. She should know better than to like something that they don’t like. This is an unforgivable sin.”
Despite the threats posed by the Delta variant, there are ways to enhance kids’ safety at school. Here’s what it will take to protect students.
And the mob was there, perhaps nudged by a trending blurb on Twitter.
“Carrie Underwood being a God-over-Science person is the least surprising thing I’ve heard today,” author and Unitarian pastor John Pavlovitz tweeted. “Delta take the wheel…”
“Carrie Underwood is an anti-masker. She’s canceled in my book. Who else’s?,” actor Angela Belcamino asked.
Some extrapolated Underwood’s like of the Walsh video to mean she’s against the COVID-19 vaccine.
“Carrie Underwood being Anti Vaxx….anyways we still stan Kelly Clarkson forever the best winner of American Idol,” one person wrote.
“Dolly Parton help fund a vaccine to fight off covid. Carrie underwood is helping spread anti mask & antivaxx misinformation,” another user wrote. “Class vs trash.”
L.A. County is imposing a mask order for outdoor events that attract crowds of more than 10,000 people, such as concerts and sporting competitions.
But others, including “Relatable” podcast host Allie Beth Stuckey, defended the singer.
“Carrie Underwood liked a video about kids not being forced to wear masks — a position totally supported by data — and she’s being called an anti-vaxxer,” Stuckey wrote. “In case you thought your ‘nuanced’ takes would save you from the leftist cancel mob... they won’t.”
Meanwhile, other Twitter users thought folks had their priorities screwed up in general.
“In Afghanistan, women are getting raped by terrorists. In America, people with blue hair are throwing a tantrum because Carrie Underwood liked a tweet,” wrote free-speech radicalist Christian Walker, son of NFL great Herschel Walker. “We’re doomed.”
Underwood and Rhett seemed equally taken aback after host Keith Urban announced the tie at the awards show held at the Grand Ole Opry House in Nashville.
The “Before He Cheats” singer previously drew COVID-related criticism for performing at the Country Jam music festival, which ran over three days in late June just outside Grand Junction, Colo. The event, held outdoors and in line with state and local pandemic guidance, resulted in a few COVID-19 cases among festival staff and the 24,000 people per day who attended.
She and husband Mike Fisher have two young sons, ages 6 and 2.
Underwood hasn’t taken any action on Twitter since Thursday. Her publicist didn’t respond immediately to a request for comment Wednesday.
“We are aware that there might be some pushback, but I’m confident we will be on the right side of history” the Coachella and Stagecoach promoter said Thursday.
Walsh, a Nashville-area parent of four, is against mask mandates in general and made his point about kids and masks at a recent meeting of the Metro Nashville Board of Education.
“You and the school board have decided that our kids should go to school all day, every day, wearing muzzles like rabid dogs,” he said in the video. “I have listened to your arguments and I’ve noticed they are missing a few things, namely evidence, data, science, common sense and basic human dignity. You presented no facts at all, so let me do that now.”
Walsh then compared death rates in kids from the flu to those from COVID-19. The flu death rate was higher, he said, before emphasizing that in the 2018-19 flu season — the year of his data — nobody had suggested that kids wear masks.
The video now has more than 1.2 million views, almost 50,000 likes and more than 15,200 retweets.
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