cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/popculturechat/p/1070082/billie-eilish-on-why-she-speaks-out-on-global-issues-why-is-it-controversial-to-step-in
Context
Eilish has a fierce rebel spirit. Upon accepting her latest Grammy Award in February, she riled up conservative politicians and commentators when she spoke out against the escalating ICE raids, stating, “No one is illegal on stolen land.” And when she appeared at the WSJ. Magazine Innovator Awards in October, she openly challenged billionaires in the room, including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Star Wars creator George Lucas, to part with some of their wealth. “If you’re a billionaire, why are you a billionaire?” she asked the crowd. “People need empathy and help more than ever. Especially in our country.…If you have money, it would be great to use it for good things, maybe give it to some people that need it.” Her speech wasn’t just lip service. That same night, it was announced that she had pledged $11.5 million of the revenue from her last tour, which reportedly amounts to a little less than a quarter of her net worth, to multiple charities and organizations. (She raised the money by selling special “Changemaker” tickets to fans who wished to pay a little extra to help combat food inequality and the climate crisis.)
“I was raised like this,” explains Eilish of her comfort with speaking out. “When you have this insane platform that you can use to advocate for people, but you’re not advocating for people because you don’t want to be controversial?” she says, petting Shark as he snoozes peacefully in the seat between us. “Why is it controversial to step in when someone’s getting bullied and try to stop it? Yeah, you’re probably gonna have to deal with some problems, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it.”
It's a snarl, precisely because so much of the ICE expansion came from right-wing media hysteria around "migrant crime". You've got a population that sees migrants as this existential danger being told to "stop bullying" the people you have been told are bullying you.
Eilish can say she was "raised like this", but then that's the generic American culture in a nutshell. You're supposed to get up on a soapbox and denounce the Evil Other for doing the Wicked Deed. Tim Ballard was saying much the same shit while promoing "Sound of Freedom". Rhetorically, its an easy sell on its face. Where you run into dissonance is when multiple factions within the political discourse are pitching the same rhetorical framing from distant points on the ideological spectrum.