Chappell Roan’s meteoric rise to stardom in the past year has practically made her a household name among young, queer communities. Many see themselves reflected in Roan, a 26-year-old lesbian drag queen who speaks openly about trans rights, the horrific assault on Gaza, exploitation in the music industry, and her own mental health.

This past June, the “Pink Pony Club” singer refused to perform at the White House’s Pride celebration in protest of the Biden/Harris administration. In an interview with Rolling Stone, she raised candid criticism of the role the US has played in supporting Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and took aim against a Biden official who spoke in favor of limiting access to gender-affirming healthcare for minors. 

It might not come as a surprise, then, that she didn’t rush to join in on the avalanche of celebrity endorsements for Kamala Harris in recent weeks. Roan made headlines for refusing to endorse Harris, giving voice to the deep frustration that radicalizing young people feel as they search for solutions to the global crises that have defined their lives. 

After facing huge amounts of pressure from mostly angry liberals online, and believing she has no one to vote for, Roan said that she will vote for Harris but not endorse her. We think Roan should stick to her first gut instinct—both options are horrible, and we don’t have to support either of them.

A Real Choice?

The media and many of Harris’s supporters quickly criticized Roan for her stance on the election, even accusing her of supporting Trump. The reality is, neither the Republicans nor the Democrats have anything worthwhile on offer for working people. The choice between two politicians closely tied to big business and imperialist interests is not a genuine choice.

Chappell Roan is right not to endorse Trump or Harris as a candidate or as a solution. But we need more than what many young people have resigned themselves to—a disgruntled vote for Harris. We need a multi-gender, multi-racial movement of young people and workers willing to take the fight beyond the ballot box and into the streets and our workplaces. We need a new party, built by and for the working class, that will fight for our needs and put people over profit.

We think Chappell Roan should call for a massive protest vote against Harris and Trump, and for antiwar, pro-worker candidate Jill Stein. This would be a hugely inspiring stand against the dead-end cycle of lesser evilism. Building the largest possible protest vote in November would deliver the message that the working class and young people are ready to stand up and fight back.

“Problems On Both Sides”

Explaining why she won’t endorse a candidate in this election, Roan said there are “problems on both sides,” a sentiment many of us resonate with. If given the opportunity, Trump would enter a second term in office prepared to efficiently attack ordinary people with anti-worker, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ+ policies. 

But a Harris presidency filled with more broken promises and outright attacks on working people would not be capable of actually fighting the right. The influence of the far right has grown under the current administration as the rotten Democrats have failed to offer a real alternative.

Harris gives lip service to calls for a ceasefire in Gaza while she continues to support U.S. aid to Israel. In response to Trump’s racist fear mongering of immigrants, she promised to bring back a border control bill which proposes even stricter immigration policies than those Trump has supported. 

She has been outspoken in her support for the continuation of fracking, despite its appalling impact on the climate. The Harris campaign is happy to co-opt Chappell’s hit song “Femininomenon” for twitter memes and sell rip off camo hats, as long as they don’t have to adopt Chappell’s message with it.

We Can Do More Than Just Vote

In a TikTok video defending her position, Roan said that the only thing we can do in politics is vote, so we should just vote in local elections because we don’t have a good choice for president. There’s nothing wrong with voting in your local elections, but real change has always been made by mass movements in the streets and in our workplaces, not at the ballot box. Voting is just the very beginning of what we can do to fix this broken society.

Without a political force to challenge them, the two pro-corporate, pro-imperialist, anti-immigrant parties can survive just fine with influential people like Chappell Roan saying there are “problems on both sides”. It’s necessary to go beyond that and call for a new political party whose power is rooted in the social movements Roan has supported, and is prepared to challenge capitalist politics-as-usual like she has done.

The struggle for a better world and real change needs to be a struggle against the capitalist system that fuels endless war, poverty, and misery. It needs to be a struggle for a socialist future, built by a mass movement of working-class and young people regardless of who is in the White House.