In this age of hyperpartisan politics, performers have taken to lecturing concert-goers who paid for the price of a ticket to a political lecture as well. A recent example came from Lady Gaga, who at her Tuesday night concert in Arlington claimed that Texas was a "purple" state, and that she hoped her fans would help turn it "blue."
Writing for the Houston Chronicle, Ariana Garcia praised and highlighted parts of Lady Gaga's speech:
During Lady Gaga's Arlington, Texas stop Tuesday night for her ongoing Chromatica Ball Tour, the popstar gave an impassioned two-minute speech encouraging the Lone Star State to transform its "purple heart." Because, to paraphrase her oft used wisdom, there can be a hundred red voters in a room, but it might take only one to turn them blue.
Between her sets, Gaga called Texas a "special place" where a lot of "conversations, a lot of dialogue, a lot of opinions, even some division" happens. "I want to celebrate you all tonight in the name of love," she added. "I want to celebrate the importance of these hard conversations. From what I understand, right now, this state has a purple, purple heart. I think I'm hoping that that purple is gonna go blue. And if there's anything you can do about it, I want to hear you yell."
Although the audience seemed to largely enjoy their concert having a side of politics, Lady Gaga repeated such a call, just in case someone wasn't having it. As Garcia also wrote:
The audience exploded in cheers and applause in response, but Gaga reiterated the importance of her mid-concert speech. "Maybe I brought this up and you're thinking, 'This is not for me, I do not want to talk about this right now,' and you may not agree but guess what? I don't know that this is about what you believe," Gaga said. "This is about keeping people safe so sometimes we have to put aside what we believe."
Twitter promoted such coverage with multiple tweets of her speech, including an excerpt of it.
Between her sets, Gaga called Texas a "special place" where a lot of "conversations, a lot of dialogue, a lot of opinions, even some division" happens. pic.twitter.com/cJkKScv3GJ
— Chron (@chron) August 24, 2022
Halsey also reportedly subjected her fans to a pro-abortion screed, and called out those in attendance who dared to walk out rather than listen to her spout her ignorant views on the topic.
When it comes to Lady Gaga's hopes and dreams, not only is Texas not purple, and not close to turning blue, it's ranked in the top half of most Republican states by the Cook Partisan Voting Index.
Last October, The Texas Tribune put out an analysis that while we may have heard a campaign slogan to "Turn Texas Blue in 2020," that's "not in the cards for 2022."
Republicans have a super majority in the state legislature, controlling the governorship as well as both the State Senate and State House of Representatives. At a federal level, both senators are Republicans, and of the 36 representatives, 24 are Republicans, while 12 are Democrats.
Gov. Greg Abbott is up for re-election against former Rep. Beto O'Rourke, who has run and lost as both a senatorial and presidential candidate. That race is considered to strongly favor Abbott, with Cook Political Report and Sabato's Crystal Ball ranking it as "Likely Republican," while Inside Elections considers it to be "Solid Republican." RealClearPolitics also has Abbott leading by an average of 6.8 percent.
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