On Monday, Axios reported that Underwood is scheduled to perform at Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, which is a pretty big upgrade from his 2017 inauguration, when he was turned down by multiple A-listers, including Elton John, Céline Dion, Andrea Bocelli and Garth Brooks. The biggest performer he had during his first swearing-in was Jackie Evancho, who was the 2010 runner-up of America’s Got Talent.
Underwood will perform “America the Beautiful,” with the Armed Forces Chorus and the United States Naval Academy Glee Club. Obviously, Republicans have used “America the Beautiful” for their campaigns and rallies for decades, but I still want to quickly mention that the original poem, which inspired the song, was written by Katharine Lee Bates, a journalist, poet, and author who was a professor at Wellesley College in the late 1800s. Bates was also a social activist who fought for women, immigrants, and workers’ rights, spoke out against American isolationism, and broke with the Republican Party in 1924 to endorse Democratic candidate John W. Davis—because the GOP was against the U.S. joining the League of Nations following World War I. I’m sure Bates would be thrilled to hear that Underwood is singing her lyrics about America being for everyone at the swearing-in of an orange, wannabe dictator.
Underwood, for her part, has never really been political. But in 2017, Underwood and Brad Paisley poked fun at Trump while hosting the CMA Awards, performing “Before He Tweets,” a spoof of Underwood’s song, “Before He Cheats.” However, during the covid pandemic, she received some backlash for liking a tweet from conservative podcaster Matt Walsh, in which he spoke against mask mandates for students in Nashville.
“I feel like more people try to pin me places politically,” she told the Guardian in 2019. “Everybody tries to sum everything up and put a bow on it, like it’s black and white. And it’s not like that.” She added that she tries to “stay far out of politics if possible, at least in public, because nobody wins.” Famously, one party actually always does win. And this time, it was the party against women having bodily autonomy, but OK, Carrie, sure.
