It’s fashionable in mentally disheveled circles to revile and disrupt America’s ICE agents, and law enforcement in general. Doing so is symptomatic of the subversive impulse. In Marshalltown, it also illustrates what’s become of those who, decades ago, gathered each night on the Courthouse lawn. (Today, their Age of Aquarius beads clank against their walkers.)

Hardly a week passes without some entertainer voicing anti-Trump poison into the nearest microphone. (Remember those annoying high school Drama Club kids? Many now reside in Hollywood.) Mark Ruffalo is but one tinselly luminary who sported an anti-ICE button at recent Golden Globe festivities.

And despite the objective sorrowfulness of Christian conservative Charlie Kirk’s assassination last year (and prior attempts on President Trump’s life), no small number of red-carpet fops donned party hats at the dire news.

It’s true, of course, that entertainers are as much citizens as any of us, and have no less right to opine on significant events and officials. I don’t dispute that. And some show business successes are inarguably talented. They merit respect for that.

Dismayingly, though, many have exploited their platforms to inveigh against America’s duly elected president and our foundational liberty spirit.

While I appreciate their superior creative ideas, I certainly do not value their inferior political ones. Often, though some may be skilled at stagecraft, their skulls seem jam-packed with yellow-green diarrhea when they speak on matters of cultural or political import.

The ability to galumph about under lights and effect pratfalls does not automatically confer wisdom as to weighty matters. An ill-considered opinion remains just that, regardless of the speaker’s renown in an unrelated area.

I believe there are two reasons some marquee names acquit themselves despicably.

First, celebrities prioritize profit in grubby calculations. Unfortunately, a hatred market does exist. And just as there are garbage-hearted buyers, there breathe conscienceless show-business graspers with big eyes. Whether someone is selling a movie ticket, TV program, or recording, market-viability is surely a consideration.

Potential sales-chart downturns from foul public brayings would be negligible. A star’s audience yesterday likely already knew his leanings. New anti-American rants might even heighten ardor in desired precincts.

Persons previously outside a celebrity’s base – well, they were already not in the equation. Save for this: Non-fans who vocalize criticism play as much of a role in stoking fame as do rah-rah fanatics. Controversy means headlines. Headlines mean sales.

“Why do you think Frank Sinatra punches some driver in the mouth?” Alice Cooper manager Shep Gordon asked writer Bob Greene, in the seventies. “To get into the straight press – which is hell of a lot harder than getting into the entertainment press.”

From Gtreta Garbo donning slacks in the 1920s, to the Sex Pistols cursing on 1976 UK television, to current Pop and Rap annoyances hurtling toward cameras and bellowing PR agent-blueprinted venom, celebrity has often been a schemed contrivance, not an organic product.

Too, audiences want to believe they and an idolized celebrity are as one. That the person on screen or stage shares their opinions. Surely, that is especially the case for callow enthusiasts. Their generational contrarianism is a knee-jerk animal. Many, I suppose, are eager to shout or do absolutely anything to antagonize the world at large. To feel significant.

They will spend monies on whoever claws most visibly at existing mores.

Important to remember is that spotlighted sorts may say one thing in public — to curry fan approbation — but seize opposite voting levers when in a booth’s secrecy.

Of course, there is a second possible explanation for celebrities’ stated terribleness: They may truly be terrible people.

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Waterloo’s DC Larson is the author of That a Man Can Again Stand Up and Ideas Afoot. He counts among freelance credits the Daily Caller, American Thinker, Iowa Standard, and numerous heartland papers. His political blog is American Scene Magazine.