I feel for Ed Sheeran, I really do.

There was a time when you could be a pop star, an athlete, or a musician and sidestep politics, but Ed earned his notoriety a couple of decades too late for that.

Our world today is not one of neutrality, and just going about your business as a bystander, abstaining from the chaos around you, doesn’t work. In 2026, silence and neutrality are endorsements of the evil in this world. “I don’t want to get involved” is a softer version of “I don’t care.” It may be an unfair burden, but that really doesn’t matter.

In the news storm swirling around Sheeran and his friend and former tour mate Macklemore, Sheeran lost badly and Macklemore won big. Why? Because today is a time of conviction, not a time of keeping your head down and doing your thing oblivious to the world around you. 

American politics and the length of its fuse ebbs and flows between the easy times and the hard times. Put a pin in the Civil War, the labor movements of the late 19th century, the Dust Bowl, and the Civil Rights movement that exploded in the 1960s. Those were not times to be on the sidelines in politics. Today is like those times. We face real threats to the principles we aspire to, and those threats can’t be overcome by remaining silent.

Macklemore clearly understands this and during his set as an opener on Sheeran’s tour, he took the opportunity to speak out in support of Palestine. He did so rather eloquently in fact, but of course that didn’t matter to the strange segment of our population that believes you are either for or against Israel in all things without exception. 

I’ve been perplexed by this intense push by our government and many Americans for us to pledge unwavering support for Israel and its government. I know history. I get it. But saying a population of people that have been through hell is justified in putting a different group of people through similar hell and can’t be questioned is ridiculous to me.

Supporting the right of Palestinians to not be killed and be entitled to a place to live doesn’t really feel anti-Israel to me. 

Regardless, Macklemore closed his call for a free Palestine with these words, “My message is for peace, love, for all human beings to be treated equally and with dignity,” and he was soon removed from the tour by the promoter.

Of course that pulled Sheeran into politically-charged debate, and this is where things began to fall apart. His response to Macklemore being pulled from the tour was to support his friend, but to tell the world he chooses not to use his platform for political causes, concluding that “there is room for multiple approaches to the same end: peace.”

I don’t feel for Sheeran because I agree with his stance. I feel for him because it would be really nice to live in a world that wasn’t politics first. But politics has changed. It is supercharged, it is dangerous, sometimes hateful, and intensely polarized. I understand there are many people in this world – most I’d argue – who don’t want politics to be a big part of who they are and they are. But to live that way today, you are either very good at tuning out everything around you, or comfortably self-centered and callous. 

In response to Sheeran’s words, what is the approach to peace that begins with choosing not to get involved? 

We are not in a time where political discussions are about high and low tax rates, how much we should spend on infrastructure, or the level of emissions testing standards we expect. 

We’re in a time fraught with culture wars, racism, the marginalizing of people over their gender and sexual orientation, and scapegoating entire ethnic populations for many of our problems. We’re in a time where those in power abuse the system and the less fortunate, and are actively rewriting history to alter the narrative. We’re at a time when right-wing influences are growing again, and governments are inching toward authoritarianism in places we assumed would always prize freedom.

We are not in a time of neutrality and if Sheeran is paying attention to the world he is touring he knows that. So are we to conclude he doesn’t really know what’s going on? If so, shame on him for being so completely uninformed. Or maybe we’re to conclude he made a decision to protect his livelihood and appeal by not disappointing or angering any group of people who might buy his music, merchandise or concert tickets?

We have enough people protecting their financial interests today. What we don’t have are enough Macklemores who step out and say what they believe, recognizing the potential consequences of their words is a small sacrifice compared to the suffering in this world.

Americans love to tell their heroes to shut up and play music or focus on the game when they stand up for beliefs we disagree with. Colin Kaepernick and Kid Rock have both suffered greatly from cancel culture. I happen to wholeheartedly believe one was fighting for an important cause and the other is a racist opportunist, but that’s neither here nor there in this debate.

No one with a platform and a following should be able to say, “I’m not really political, I’m going to sit this one out.” 

If we’re lucky, by the time Ed Sheeran is an old crooner 30 years from now, he can take the stage and no one will be thinking about politics. But that’s not likely unless people take the stage today and do what’s right, rather than what’s comfortable.