‘Defies rational explanation’: Meghan’s major US election backtrack exposed
As America votes in one of the tightest and most consequential elections in history, the outspoken Duchess of Sussex has raised eyebrows.
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Well, the results of the US presidential election are in. Phew.
Rest easy – we can declare an easy winner in the race for the White House – in the star stakes, that is.
Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Oprah Winfrey, Jennifer Lopez, Rihanna, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Springsteen, Lady Gaga, Lizzo, Jennifer Aniston, Kelly Rowland, Billie Eilish, Julia Roberts, Tyler Perry, LeBron James, Cardi B, Eminem, Megan Thee Stallion, Bad Bunny and Samuel L Jackson to name only some – everyone with a modicum of decency and an agent has come out for Kamala Harris as she fights to make history and to prevent the United States toppling into fascism.
(And on the celebrity side for terracotta toddler and aspiring tyrant Donald Trump? A lot of men who look like they have been charbroiled and who are on the wrong side of middle age and the IRS).
Except. But. However.
There is one glaring name missing from that list – Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex.
With polling about to close, the most famous bi-racial woman in the world has failed to come out and endorse the second most famous bi-racial woman in the world, a scenario that defies rational explanation and is guaranteed to result in some unflattering consternation-y frown lines.
You’re going to ask me why – and I have no idea.
As I type, hundreds of millions of American citizens have just made their voices heard on the very simple question of whether they support basic things like a woman’s right to choose or whether they would prefer to deport anyone who can correctly pronounce huevos rancheros.
We have to assume there is only one candidate that the Sussex household backs – and yet, Montecito has been nearly totally silent in the lead up to election day.
Making this situation even stranger is the major shift since the last presidential election, when the duke and duchess actually had something to risk by wading into the political fray.
The last time we played this gut-churning, anxiety-inducing game of Oval Office Russian roulette, the Sussexes eagerly stuck their very well-meaning oars in.
In August 2020, the duchess joined Michelle Obama’s nonpartisan organisation When We All Vote, saying, “If you’re complacent, you’re complicit” and made it clear which side of the aisle she’s on, calling the former first lady “my friend”.
The same month, feminist royalty Gloria Steinem revealed that Meghan had also been making cold-calls urging people to vote.
In September 2020, while the Sussexes were still in their cooling-off period post-Megxit and with the final result of their royal separation yet to be determined, they risked the ire of Buckingham Palace and 10 Downing Street by issuing a video that was widely interpreted as backing Joe Biden.
The duchess told the camera: “When we vote, our values are put into action and our voices are heard”.
On election day, Meghan made history by becoming the first member of the British royal family to have ever voted in an American election and their Archewell Foundation released a photo of her proudly wearing an “I voted” sticker.
Go back even further to 2016, when the duchess was newly dating man-who-can’t-vote Harry, and she threw her Suits stardom, such as it was, behind Hillary Clinton, calling now-convicted felon Donald Trump “misogynistic” and “divisive”.
Yet here we are in 2024, years on from them having been officially cut loose by the Palace, with more freedom and independence and communications staffers than they could poke an artisanal, locally-sourced stick at, so you would have thought it would be a given that the Sussexes would play an even more vocal and visible presence this time around.
Mais, non.
The sum total of the Montecitan contribution to this year’s election cycle on this front came in September on National Voter Registration Day when “The Archewell Foundation team came together for a meaningful volunteer activity to support and empower our communities”, with Harry and Meghan very conspicuously missing in action. A few photos of staffers doing paperwork, no matter how well-intentioned, is a bit of a limp sausage of an effort.
Not only has Meghan failed to explicitly and proudly endorse Kamala, but the couple has also in no way inserted themselves into the election story this time – and it is simply too strange for words.
Could we put this bizarre silence down to Harry and Meghan, after a bruising, battering few years in the eye of a never-blowing-out media storm, wanting to keep their heads down? That might make sense, but also, these are people whose brands and public identities, not to mention personal passions, are all about doing what is right, not what is easy.
Or could the motivation be commercial?
The Sussexes’ Netflix contract is reportedly set to expire next year, leaving them with an ever-dwindling number of days to prove they have mass market appeal.
In December, the duke’s Polo will be released, a name that took several months of brainstorming no doubt, and then next year, it will be the duchess’ entertaining series turn.
Maybe they don’t want to risk becoming too polarising, to risk becoming culture war cannon fodder and putting off potential viewers – to which I’d say, well, that horse bolted so long ago it’s crossed several sets of state lines.
“The only wrong thing to say is to say nothing." Thank you, Meghan, for this powerful statement. pic.twitter.com/tDf26TSgNz
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) June 5, 2020
Or maybe they saw the numbers from a July Redfield & Wilton poll conducted for Newsweek that found that nearly half of Americans (48 per cent) said that the Sussexes backing a particular candidate would not sway them, and they threw their hands up. Why bother?
(Meanwhile, 21 per cent said it might move them and 20 per cent that speaking out might put them off).
Or maybe Meghan has forgotten something she herself said back in 2020 when she addressed the graduating class of her alma mater, Immaculate Heart Los Angeles, and talked about the Black Lives Matter racial reckoning which was then playing out on the streets.
As she told the high schoolers, “the only wrong thing to say is to say nothing”.
And do you know who retweeted that comment and thanked her for her “powerful statement”? One Vice President Kamala Harris.
Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles
Originally published as ‘Defies rational explanation’: Meghan’s major US election backtrack exposed
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