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Meghan Markle: “We can make the difference in this election”
The Daily Beast reported last month that Meghan Markle was planning to be heavily involved in Get Out The Vote messaging, and this week Meghan made her strongest remarks yet about the need to vote in November’s presidential election. Her comments have provoked (yet another) debate about how politically outspoken she can be, even if she is no longer a senior member of the royal family.
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Speaking during the When All Women Vote #CouchParty, she said, “I think we are obviously faced with a lot of problems in our world right now both in the physical world and in the digital world, but we can and must do everything we can to make sure all women have their voices heard.”
"At this juncture, if we aren’t part of the solution, we are part of the problem,” Meghan continued. “If you aren’t going out there and voting, then you're complicit. If you’re complacent, you’re complicit. We can make the difference in this election. And we will make the difference in this election… We vote to honor those who came before us and to protect those who will come after us. Because that’s what community is all about and that’s specifically what this election is all about… This fight is worth fighting, and we all have to be out there mobilizing to have our voices heard.”
The election, said Markle, was “very close, and yet there is so much work to be done in that amount of time. We all know what’s at stake this year. I know it. And all of you certainly know it…” Meghan hoped those watching were “just as mobilized and just as energized to see the change that we all need and deserve.”
“This week we are recognizing the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which of course gave women the right to vote, but not all women,” Meghan told the #CouchParty. “And specifically not women of color. As we look at things today, though it had taken decades longer for women to get the right to vote, even today we are watching so many women in different communities, who are marginalized, still struggling to see that right come to fruition. It’s just simply not OK.”
Some British commentators, Piers Morgan among them, objected to Meghan speaking out on political matters (royals typically do not), and asked that the couple be stripped of their royal titles. (Hardly surprising: Morgan is one of Harry and Meghan’s most vociferous critics.)
Meghan had previously spoken to Marie Claire about voting being a “fundamental human right” that men and women had “put their lives on the line for.”
“I know what it’s like to have a voice, and also what it’s like to feel voiceless,” Meghan said. “I also know that so many men and women have put their lives on the line for us to be heard. And that opportunity, that fundamental right, is in our ability to exercise our right to vote and to make all of our voices heard.
Meghan has also spoken to Emily Ramshaw, co-founder and CEO of The 19th*—as part of the site’s “The 19th* Represents 2020 Virtual Summit”—about voting, saying people should “be really aware” of not taking voting for granted. “The right to vote is not a privilege; it is a right in and of itself,” Meghan said. Women’s voices, she said, “are needed now more than ever, and the best way to exercise that is through voting.”
Meghan reportedly ignored Camilla’s media training 101
Meghan Markle ignored advice from Camilla Parker Bowles on how to deal with Britain’s aggressive tabloid press, the Mail on Sunday claims. Camilla, who was savaged by the U.K. press as Prince Charles’ “other woman,” reportedly invited Meghan to a private lunch in which she advised Meghan to focus on the positives of her new role in the Royal Family and “ride out the storm” of any negative press.
A source told the paper’s royal editor Emily Andrews: “Meg was really grateful to Camilla, who was very supportive and invited her out for private lunches, particularly around the time of her marriage.
“She listened to her and understood that it’s really difficult joining the Royal Family from an otherwise ‘normal’ life.
“She was very sensitive to Meghan and provided her with support, advising her to ride out the storm and that it would all pass—but ultimately Meghan didn’t listen.”
Meghan and Harry pitch worthy TV
Meghan and Harry have reportedly pitched a TV series “focusing on the empowerment of women and young girls in today’s world” and issues of racial justice to producers. A TV industry source told the Mirror: “It will home in on race issues, something Meghan has always been passionate about. It’s got quite a political stance and will also draw on feminism. They want the series to continue their vision of empowerment for young people.”
The couple are likely to make an appearance on the proposed show, although the source said, “It’s about ‘normal’ people, not them.”
Burnishing their social credentials, Harry and Meghan also did some volunteer work this week, the Daily Mail reported. Donning face coverings, they distributed supplies, clothes and nappies at a drive-through run by Los Angeles charity Baby2Baby, at Dr Owen Lloyd Knox Elementary School in South LA on Wednesday.
Meghan’s ‘Sayonara Zara’ party sounds fun
What to do when your entire wardrobe no longer sparks joy? Give it away to your pals, of course. According to Vanity Fair, Meghan was aware that her “star was rising” after being cast as paralegal Rachel Zane in Suits in 2011 and was keen to reinvent herself, and her wardrobe. A source said Meghan hosted a party at her home, “unofficially billed as a ‘Sayonara Zara’ party”, at which Meghan gave away her “lower-priced clothes” to her guests.
Only one question: where was our invite?
Meghan and Harry’s (alleged) freebies
The Daily Mail claims to have established what Harry and Meghan have gotten for free (or a lot less than normal, the Mail cannot be sure) after their flit from the U.K, having undertaken an extensive set of calculations and reading between the lines of bio Finding Freedom: Harry and Meghan and the Making of a Modern Royal Family.
The Mail’s sums include their stay at Tyler Perry’s mansion before they moved to their Santa Barbara home, which the Mail pegged at around $60,000, though it has not been confirmed if they did or did not pay for this. The Mail continues to list a lot of things—like a holiday at George and Amal Clooney’s place in Italy, and the controversial use of Elton John’s jet. The total cost of all this stuff: an estimated $4.6 million.
The point seems to be to paint Harry and Meghan as freeloaders, when really it could be argued it just shows that they have plenty of rich pals who interact with them in the ways rich people have long interacted with each other.
This week in royal history
After a marriage, and marriage breakdown, graphically played out in the pages of tabloid newspapers, Prince Charles and Princess Diana divorced on August 28, 1996. Just over a year later, Diana died in a car crash in Paris.
Unanswered questions
The Royalist suspects our readers can guess which side Meghan is on politically, but will she go as far as to mention Donald Trump or Joe Biden by name? How overt will her pre-election campaigning get?
