As the world waits to find out what killed Prince, his fans have flooded the Internet to debate a question of even greater mystery: was Prince really a Republican?
This is of very little importance, but supposedly Prince was a Republican/Conservative…
— Young Conservatives (@USYCCoalition) April 23, 2016
That’s right – the musician actually left behind signs, in his writings and public statements, even in his political donations, that he was a religious conservative. A meme has been flying around the web, featuring a long quote purportedly from Prince affirming his fealty to the Republican party.
#Prince was Republican because he understood Gov't dependency weakens& self-reliance instills pride. @Pieter_Gericke pic.twitter.com/idZNJKJj2m
— Feisty☀️Floridian (@peddoc63) April 22, 2016
We can find no real evidence that Prince ever actually said this. However, there actually is evidence that point to what at the least could be Republican sympathies:
- Prince was raised as a Seventh Day Adventist and later became a Jehovah’s Witness (religions that both have very conservative views).
- Prince appeared to come out against gay marriage to the New Yorker magazine in 2008, saying, “God came to earth and saw people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever, and he just cleared it all out,” he told the magazine. “He was, like, ‘Enough’.”
- His only political donation was to the Senate campaign of Republican Rudy Boschwitz, in 1990 (Boschwitz lost).
- His lyrics are imbued with religious and directly Christian themes.
It’s pretty clear that if Prince was GOP, he didn’t actually vote on it. The star said in a TV interview that, as a Jehovah’s witness, he could not do so.
@LouiseMensch #Prince on #Votinghttps://t.co/efCcqNwl2A
— zero (@Fucked_IT) April 24, 2016
Former MSNBC commentator and tax delinquent “Toure”, who wrote a biography of Prince, said on Bloomberg this week that Prince was “a conservative, a Republican”.
.@Touré: Prince Was a 'Conservative,' a 'Republican' – Will this stem the MSM's flood of deserved praise for Pr… https://t.co/ldOkhYdea1
— NewsBusters (@newsbusters) April 23, 2016
As for evidence to the contrary, you need only watch a highly sexually charged Prince performance to doubt he’d feel comfortable at a Rotary dinner with a bunch of Republicans. If Prince really was a Republican, then he occupied the furthest, darkest corner of Ronald Reagan’s proverbial “big tent”.
But then again, this is Prince we’re talking about.
Read about theories of how Prince died.
