Politics & Power Quote by Max Cannon

It reads like a shrug, but it lands like a boundary line drawn in thick marker. “Yeah” sets the tone: casual, slightly defensive, preemptively impatient with the assumption that an artist should have a hot take on whatever is trending. The phrase “I don’t deal with” frames current events and pop culture as transactions, chores, even contaminants. He’s not merely uninterested; he’s opting out of the workflow of relevance.

“Avoid politics like the plague” is doing double duty. It’s an old cliche that now carries post-2020 echo: plague isn’t metaphorical anymore, which sharpens the sense of self-protection. The subtext is less “I’m apolitical” than “I’m guarding my attention.” In an era when audiences and platforms reward immediate commentary, refusing the mandate can be a statement of artistic method: the work comes from somewhere slower, less reactive, more interior.

At the same time, the line telegraphs a familiar cultural posture: the claim that you can stand outside politics, as if politics won’t stand inside you. For an artist, that’s risky and revealing. It can signal a desire to make work that isn’t reduced to slogans, but it can also read as privilege - the luxury to treat politics as optional noise.

The intent, then, feels like triage. Max Cannon isn’t selling ignorance; he’s selling a space where art doesn’t have to perform civic awareness on demand. The friction is the point: in saying he won’t “deal,” he exposes how much we’ve come to expect everyone to.