Just three weeks after American hip-hop artist Macklemore was kicked off megastar Ed Sheeran’s tour over the rapper’s “Free Palestine” messaging, it looks increasingly obvious that Sheeran overestimated the power of pro-Israel cancel culture and underestimated the American fanbase.

Last week, country superstar Zach Bryan wore a “Free Palestine” t-shirt during his concert at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. His band wore similar attire. Robert Kraft, who owns Gillette Stadium and was primarily responsible for pressuring Sheeran to ditch Macklemore last month from the tour, was nowhere to be seen.

Meanwhile, Sheeran’s back-up band and all of his opening acts on the tour dropped out to support Macklemore, who went on to launch his own Free Palestine Tour this fall as his own popularity is experiencing a resurgence. The three-date European leg of the tour sold out immediately .

In fact, the backlash against Sheeran in favor of Macklemore was so intense that Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots and a billionaire AIPAC donor , was forced to issue a statement , insisting his humanitarian donations to the region also went to help Palestinians. Meanwhile the distraught Sheeran lost a half million social media followers, and ended up performing without support in front of a significantly smaller audience at his next show.

And Bryan? He wore a “Free Palestine” shirt again the second night at Gillette Stadium (yes, there was a return performance because there was no Kraft intervention to stop it), where he broke the venue’s all-time attendance record, a number also boasted by the stadium’s X account.

The former record holder? Ed Sheeran in 2023 . And as with Macklemore , older Zach Bryan songs began surging back into the Top 10 in Apple streaming over the weekend.

Of course there are critics, mostly doing what they always do: trying to fuel a mass boycott/cancellation by the right. Pro-Israel Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) compared Bryan’s act to the 2023 transgender Dylan Mulvaney-Bud Light ad controversy that reportedly cost Anheuser-Busch over a billion dollars. So did rightwing site Gateway Pundit, which ran the headline "Zach Bryan ‘Bud Lights’ Himself — U.S. Navy Vet and His Band Members Wear T-shirts With Unpopular Woke Messages On-Stage."

“Will never go to a Zach Bryan show again," vowed former George W. Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen.

“I’m done giving him a dollar," declared conservative influencer Gunther Eagleman, who also told his 1.7 million followers, "I’m not buying the tickets, I’m not buying the merch, and I’m not streaming the music.”

“He can have the politics,” Eagleman added. “I’ll keep my money."

Bryan and others appear to have watched the Sheeran-Macklemore debacle and are making a calculated decision to shrug off the critics’ threats. Aside from moral and ethical considerations, sticking to one’s guns on the issue of Gaza seems to have become good business. Bryan is one of the biggest country stars in the world right now, and this controversy hasn’t seemed to damage his brand at all — it may have even helped it .

This is what largely happened when more and more artists committed to never “playing Sun City” in solidarity with the anti-Apartheid movemen t in South Africa in the 80's. It eventually became an imperative. There was political risk to not joining the movement.

Three weeks ago, I speculated in these pages that Sheeran could find himself in his own "Sun City moment" comparing his dilemma to that of the rock band Queen in 1984. Queen elected to perform at the Sun City casino in Apartheid South Africa despite widespread opposition, particularly from fellow artists . It hurt the band professionally for years.

Robert Kraft thought he had not only fellow billionaires and the lobby to back him up, but popular culture too. He, like others, has been ignoring or dismissing polls of young Americans who are turning against Israel for the government’s treatment of civilians in Gaza. They don’t take seriously the surveys that say Americans want no more taxpayer dollars going to bombs and technology that surveil, target, and kill innocent people in Gaza, the West Bank, or Lebanon.

Ed Sheeran, who did not stand up to Kraft, may have miscalculated too. After Bryan, it is unlikely that many more, if any, will make the same mistake.