Carrie Underwood’s Trump inauguration performance speaks volumes

The news that Carrie Underwood had agreed to perform “America the Beautiful” at Donald Trump’s presidential inauguration came as a shock to some of the country music star’s fans — especially her LGBTQ+ fans, who had previously seen the superstar as a rare ally in the notoriously conservative genre. “I am humbled to answer the call at a time when we all need to come together in a spirit of unity and look forward,” Underwood said in a statement.

True, country music has never exactly been a haven for queer fans, but Underwood’s rare allies in the genre made her decision to support Trump, whose own allies and administration have been historically anti-LGBTQ+, a disappointing move. How can Underwood ask her queer fans to unite with people who literally have called for their extermination?

The future holds little hope for queer people in America, who face a barrage of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation from the right and increasingly unregulated online hate speech as tech companies like Meta eliminate fact-checking and content moderation.

Understanding the country star’s not-so-sudden pivot from LGBTQ+ advocate to MAGA supporter makes more sense if you consider Carrie Underwood not as an individual, but as a company. If you take a look at both her public LGBTQ+ advocacy and her embrace of Trump, you’ll see that both are driven by the practical necessity of commercial success in country music.

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Underwood launched her career in 2005, just two years after the Chicks were ousted from country music in 2003, and she likely felt the pressure to keep any political stance to herself lest she suffer the same fate. So the LGBTQ+ community sat up and took notice when she argued for gay marriage in a 2012 interview with The independent, says, “As a married person myself, I don’t know what it’s like to be told I can’t marry someone I love and want to marry. I can’t imagine how that must feel. I definitely think we should all have the right to love and love publicly the people we want to love.”

She got some backlash from his fellow evangelical Christians over the comments, but Underwood had popular opinion on his side at the time. Public support for same-sex marriage in the United States was on the rise in 2012 before the Supreme Court legalized it in 2015. Even in country music, a song that affirmed LGBTQ+ fans — Kacey Musgraves’ “Follow Your Arrow” — won song of the year at the 2014 CMA Awards, despite that country radio completely ignores it. It peaked at no. 43 on the country airplay chart, and Musgraves became the rare woman in country music to build an audience without the support of country radio.

In 2018, Underwood moved from her longtime label Sony Music Nashville to Musgraves’ label, Universal Music Group. That year, she seemed to double down on her LGBTQ+ ally, releasing the single “Love Wins.” Although the song does not explicitly call for LGBTQ+ acceptance, and Underwood never made that connection in interviews, the lyrics make a general plea for love and acceptance in the face of “politics and prejudice” while using the slogan of the marriage equality movement as the title.

Underwood’s LGBTQ+ fans adopted “Love Wins” as an affirming anthem, but country radio wasn’t on board. After 27 consecutive top-10 singles, “Love Wins” broke Underwood’s streak and stalled at No. 11.

Underwood later denied that her music contained political messages at all, Narrator The Guardian in 2019, “I feel like more people are trying to pin me down politically. I try to stay far away from politics if possible, at least publicly, because nobody wins.”

Fast forward to 2021, and any post-Chicks notion of avoiding political discourse in country music was long gone. The Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol served as a coming-out party for country star Jason Aldean, whose wife, Brittany, emerged as a right-wing influencer, sends his support for the insurrectionists in real time as they stormed the Capitol.

A few months later, Underwood released a duet with Aldean, “If I Didn’t Love You”, securing Underwood’s first No. 1 on the country chart for five years. Apparently, the radio success and industry awards Underwood took home for the song outweighed any concerns she may have had about taking on the Aldeans’ political baggage.

In May 2021, Underwood’s husband, former professional hockey player Mike Fisher, appeared as a guest on the former Daily Wire correspondent Candace Owens’ talk show. That August, Underwood liked one video opposing school mask mandates from Daily Wire commentator Matt Walsh, who moved to Nashville, where the business has been headquartered since 2020. As the debate over Covid subsided, far-right influencers like Walsh discovered a new source of outrage against the medical community — doctors who provide gender-affirming care for transgender youth. Underwood remained silent on that matter, but the villagers leaned into hard and sold clothes printed with anti-LGBTQ+ messages when they accepted invitations to spend New Year’s Eve 2022 and 2023 with Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

Musically, Aldean translated all that MAGA appeal into the biggest hit of his career with 2023’s “Try That in a Small Town,” which paints a cartoonish picture of the urban-rural divide, with the video depicting civil unrest stemming from Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.

After Country Music Television pulled the video from rotation, the ensuing controversy further cemented Aldean’s status as a marginalized warrior among the MAGA faithful, and the song became his first to top the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 chart. His success was a clear indication of where the industry was headed.

In the wake of that success, Aldean points to newer country artists Parker McCollum and Cody Johnson as MAGA supporters who are “like-minded now, who aren’t afraid to come out and talk about it.”

McCollum and Aldean are both scheduled to perform at Trump’s inaugural ball, and Johnson has also spoken about divisiveness and politics at his concerts. IN a clip, Johnson shares a more concrete view of what unity under Trump will look like, and it pointedly does not include more room for discussion of gender. Still, Republicans have already introduced more than 100 anti-trans bills into state legislatures this year. The House has just passed a law that would ban transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports at schools and institutions receiving federal funds. If the issue is resolved for Johnson, he must be happy to see these bills progress.

Underwood’s current single on country radio is a duet with Johnson, titled “I’m Gonna Love You.” It’s poised to enter the top 10 on the airplay chart very soon, offering Underwood another much-needed boost from a conservative male artist after her last two solo singles stalled at No. 20 and no. 18.

Despite her recent struggles at country radio, Underwood is easily the highest-profile artist ever booked to perform at a Trump political event. It is a big win for the right wing. As an eight-time Grammy winner, Underwood has a stamp of approval from the creative community. As the face of NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” for a 12th season this year, she is a spokesperson for the NFL; the concert film from her extended residency in Las Vegas, “Reflection,” premieres on Hulu on January 24; and now she’s returning as a judge on the show that launched her career, “American Idol,” in March.

Unlike in 2016, there is little risk of Underwood losing key partnerships as a result of her ties to Trump.

As for Underwood, while she still believes in marriage equality, it may not be obvious to her that the right’s persistent anti-trans campaign directly correlates with its efforts to turn public opinion back against gay marriage.

Overturning gay marriage is clearly part of the plan, as evidenced by Justice Clarence Thomas’ concurring opinion in the 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, in which he said the Supreme Court should “reconsider” marriage equality. Recently Republicans in Idaho has filed a resolution is asking the Supreme Court to overturn its decision to legalize gay marriage so the state can reinstate its ban on same-sex unions.

With everything she has to gain by aligning herself with the MAGA movement, connecting those dots isn’t likely to cause Underwood to change course. Whether that association leads to continued commercial success for Underwood, as it has for Aldean, remains to be seen. Despite its long track record with no. 1 hits and millions of albums sold, Carrie Underwood is still a woman in country music, fighting for one of the precious few “female slots” on the radio.