Sydney Sweeney Controversy Part 2: Why Does this Matter?
To answer the question in the title: it doesn’t. But the impact of our rage against this fake Nazism has quickly been used to promote the real thing by some white supremacist pages on Twitter and beyond. Trust me. To research for this article, I dug through hundreds of tweets.
Since the election, my fellow Progressives, and even mainstream Democrats, have been asking themselves, “How do we get young men to support us”? Apparently, step one is attacking one of the most attractive celebrities in the world. Step two is to then show the entire world that Sydney Sweeney, a woman beloved by millions of men, is a registered Republican. I have a feeling that might maybe possibly backfire a little bit.
The argument above is obviously a bit shitty. We shouldn’t take stances based on placating people who think with their brain downstairs when making political decisions.
But we should always be aware of how our actions in this false scandal have made the real conservatives stronger.
Donald Trump is already capitalizing on this situation to attract more voters to the Republican Party. Upon learning of her conservatism, Trump voiced his support for Sweeney's recent American Eagle campaign. “She’s a registered Republican?” the president, 79, said in reply. “Oh, now I love her ad,” Trump added. “You’d be surprised how many people are Republicans. That’s one I wouldn’t have known, but I’m glad you told me that.”
To seal the deal, he went on Truth Social to make it even more of a talking point, which means he intends to use this scandal more as the months go on.
Congratulations, Twitter progressives! We just hand-delivered America’s sweetheart to the Republican Party. She was already a registered Republican, but now she can be used as a spokeswoman. I’m sure this won’t have any unintended consequences.
But that is by far the least serious problem with this fake scandal. The second way this hurts our cause is by making us look completely ridiculous. The overwhelming majority of people rightfully disagree with the assertion that a Jewish philanthropist and a Hollywood actress are secretly Nazis.
If we cry wolf in situations like this, we will be openly ignored even by people who are Democrats. When we rightfully complain about the very real rise of Fascism in the United States, no one will listen. In an age where “Woke is Dead”, mistakes like this are deadlier than ever before. A mistake like this can have consequences that hurt the progressive cause, not just in elections, but in society as a whole.
The third problem with the scandal is that it has generated a massive backlash, which is being used to spread actual white supremacist talking points. Remember those anti-Sweeney tweets I showed you earlier? It took me a very long time to find them. I almost gave up on finding a tweet to put there. Why? Because the vast majority looked like this:
You see what is happening, right? A lot of the criticism of Sydney Sweeney was seen as anti-white. Is that true? Obviously not, the majority of the people sounding the alarm were white women. However, many of the people attacking the ad openly said that if a person of a different race did the same ad, they would not be suspicious.
Even worse, we have spoken our nightmares into existence. Exclusively because of our actions, an ad that was completely innocent is now being actually used by the white supremacist movement.
This is the perfect opportunity for White Supremacists to pull more people in. If a woman is attractive by Eurocentric standards, can we never say she is attractive because it “perpetuates Eurocentric features”? Things like this controversy make it look like our answer is yes to that question. Whenever people of any race feel attacked or sidelined, they inevitably feel the need to fight back. Which inevitably leads to them doing so.
Some people say that we shouldn’t care about things like that. Some people also say that it doesn’t matter what white people think about the situation, and it certainly doesn’t matter if their feelings get hurt.
Those people are not very good at long-term thinking.
If we want to win the House in 2026, and more importantly, the White House in 2028, stuff like this should be strongly avoided. Every second we spend talking about some random actress is time we are not spending spreading our message about issues that even many Republicans can get behind. We should be focusing on the massive housing crisis impacting our cities. Or the extremely high cost of health insurance.
Better yet, we can put even more time and energy into trying to stop the genocide currently happening in Palestine. Instead, we are making wild conspiracy theories about ads created with the singular purpose of making money.
Still not convinced we should move on from this? Let me tell you another story. In February 2025, Andrea, a 31-year-old woman from Argentina, was detained by ICE after calling the police during a domestic dispute. She was initially held in a county jail before being transferred to ICE custody.
At the Krome North Service Processing Center, Andrea described being held in a small visitation room with up to 30 other women for five days, with no beds, no shower, and no privacy for using the toilet. She specifically noted, "There were cameras right above the open toilet." She was later denied access to her prescribed mental health medication, and when she sought help, she was allegedly placed in solitary confinement as punishment.
These are the stakes. This is what is happening. But you never heard of any of these stories before now. Why? Because our movement has been hijacked by social media influencers interested only in getting more likes and retweets, no matter how many people they need to mislead to do so. Sensationalism is quickly replacing true activism.
Why is this happening? Because it is easy! Going out into your local community soup kitchen, or trying to protect immigrants, or voting in local elections are all very boring. But getting in fights on the internet about a celebrity you will forget in 2 years maximum is very fun. It doesn’t require any actual work. Better yet, there is no chance of failure because you aren’t trying to do anything productive in the first place.
Let’s try doing things more useful than hanging out on Twitter. At least every once in a while.
