Sarah Jessica Parker moves like a shark when it comes to politics. She rarely discusses her politics or political issues in interviews, but she doesn’t hide the fact that she’s a longtime Democrat. She’s been a pretty major Democratic fundraiser for decades, and she’s even hosted presidential-campaign fundraisers at her home. SJP did make the rare move of publicly endorsing Kamala Harris and Tim Walz last year as well. But Sarah Jessica really doesn’t think it’s a good thing to be political online. I sort of agree with her.
Sarah Jessica Parker is defending her decision to not often talk about politics on social media by pointing out that other major elections took place before apps like Instagram existed. While appearing on the Monday episode of Nicolle Wallace’s The Best People podcast, Parker explained that she tries to avoid political conversations on social media and argued that there’s a better way to express her thoughts on important topics.
“I often don’t talk on social media because I don’t think it’s a place that’s deserving of any real complicated conversation. I’m not interested in quick little snippets when it’s dealing with conflict or even elections sometimes,” Parker said. “I really was so thoughtful about how I wanted to talk about the election because I think it turns into a distraction from a campaign. It turns into fodder. It’s misunderstood. You have no control over it.”
The Sex and the City actress said that there are “so many ways to work toward a more civil society” and she pointed out that “FDR was elected without social media” in 1932.
“Many things happened, right and left, Republicans and Democrats for many, many, many, many years — many generations were elected without someone having to say something on Instagram,” Parker continued. Parker said that people have urged her to “be vocal” as a public figure, though she has had to find her own way to be “comfortable being vocal.”
“I’m not going to talk about stuff that I don’t feel educated on. I’m not going to jump in on really complex areas that I feel are deserving of far more thought, consideration, nuance — which I know no one’s interested in,” she said. “And I just feel like I want to be helpful. I don’t want to hurt something that matters to me.”
I agree that social media is not the place for thoughtful discussions or nuanced political conversations. Sometimes, those nuanced conversations happen online, but yeah… it’s a rarity, especially these days. While Sarah Jessica doesn’t say it outright, I kind of think she feels like “I don’t want to participate in the outrage machine, it’s a huge waste of time.” It’s a version of “protecting my peace” – I’m not going to waste my time arguing with neo-Nazis or bots (or both).
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- MAX Original ‘And Just Like That…’ Season 3 Series photocall at the Crane Club Featuring: Sarah Jessica Parker Where: New York, New York, United States When: 21 May 2025 Credit: Dave Allocca/Starpix/INSTARimages
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I agree…
In fact last night I finally realized it’s not worth it…
Never will any argument or even(especially?) facts change the mind of a MAGA
Facts are in such short supply these days…and can be manipulated so easily…it’s just not worth fighting online with people you will (hopefully) never meet and certainly never convince.
I had already greatly scaled back my online presence, but ten days ago I deactivated my facebook account. I’m less informed, I guess, but so much of what we are shown isn’t actually important to know. The big things still make their way to my consciousness.
She’s not wrong…
I am not American so I find it funny when I read a celebrity I thought would be the opposite turns out to be something else. Like people swear Kim K is secretly Republican but you would think her lifestyle and who she surrounds her self with means she is a Democrat and Sarah I would have definitely guessed she was a republican. I knw I am probably looking at it from a shallow point of view. Should prob research on what those parties represent.
SJP is a longtime member of the Democratic Party. She regularly attends the convention every four years and donates to the party and individual candidates.
Politics in general inspires an emotional reaction, whether it’s in person or online. So it doesn’t really make sense to get into it with people if you actually want to get through the rest of your tasks during the day.
Even when two people agree with each other, they seem to wind up disagreeing with each other. Maybe it’s the urge to contradict or seem superior that comes into play.
I agree with her. yesterday I started to type replies to people on my Facebook and then I just made myself stop. It wasn’t going to go anywhere and the people posting the original comments or whatever weren’t looking to engage in meaningful dialogue anyway.
I get a little more political on threads but I’ve also created an echo chamber on there (that I am very happy with TYVM) so its not usually a debate.
I also think in general right now its hard to have any kind of nuanced or intelligent debate when facts don’t matter anymore or what people consume is so edited. I’ve realized that out of my friends who seem to be Charlie Kirk supporters for instance (not that many but some, I’ve been defriending and unfollowing quite a few), they are just completely ignorant of so much of what he’s said. Like they insist that he’s never said anything racist and when people would present them with some of his quotes they would say something like “well I never heard him say that.” So they’re mourning this very specific of Charlie Kirk that the algorithm has fed to them.
How can you debate that? How can you even have a conversation about it? I know there is propaganda and misinformation on both sides but one sides trades in it to a much larger extent and it just feels so hopeless because you can’t have even a civil discussion with someone who won’t agree to the basic premise of said discussion – for example agreeing that he did actually say the things he’s recorded as saying.
But CK aside, I do think that a lot of situations are just too complicated to be boiled down into a FB comment or status update or a tweet. And I think a lot of times when people do try to boil them down into 240 characters or whatever, they look like they’re going for the cheap win and aren’t interested in actual dialogue.
What I have found is that for me, social media is useful politically in the opposite way from what’s usually thought of as political discourse online.
Rather than use my social media to amplify the same memes, outrage, latest breaking horror story etc. that everyone else is anyway, I use it to uplift.
To provide a moment of respite, a moment of joy, a reminder that life is beautiful and that all we are fighting to keep and expand is worth the effort. To give a little strength toward that effort.
I’m not going to pretend that I figured out this was a good idea and then did it. Instead, it came about as a feedback loop.
I started running my FB page as a poetry project, sharing my work and that of other writers, 15 years ago. As soon as FB allowed it, I started adding images of art and photography to each post too. And then I started doing the same on Twitter, now moved to Bluesky.
Over time, what I found is that people explicitly thanked me for the fact that they could come to my page and find that moment of respite, of beauty. That it was important to them, amid all the noise and pain and chaos.
I still publish whatever I write, and sometimes that writing is painful, or angry, or despairing. And at those times my readers listen, because it’s not the usual thing for me, so they know it’s important. And often they thank me for that, too — words that express what they feel.
But I keep paying attention to that need people have for a break, a reminder that even in the worst of times, the world is beautiful. It must be, to be worth fighting for. And we do have to fight for it. Our world, the one that contains a free democracy. That protects the vulnerable.
So. There are thousands of people sharing anger and fear and outrage, to every one of us who swims upstream against that tide. I choose to be one of the few.