Carrie Underwood’s account clicked like on an anti-mask tweet. The outraged reaction shows what happens when country stars are silent on politics.

Carrie Underwood, one of country music’s most popular superstars, generally does not generate controversy. That changed this week with the click of a button.

On Tuesday, a screenshot started making its way around Twitter that showed Underwood’s account “liked” a Twitter video posted by conservative commentator Matt Walsh. The video showed Walsh speaking at a recent contentious school board meeting over a mask mandate for Metro Nashville Public Schools, likening mask requirements for kids to child abuse and saying that more children have died of the flu than covid-19. He argued that the mask mandate was politically motivated and students’ masks are a “symbolic security blanket.”