The Presidential Race in the Face-Palming Year of Our Lord 2024 is probably the first where both parties effectively have an incumbent running for reelection. As a result, both primaries are essentially over and it’s not even Groundhog Day. That has left us with news, political and social media machines absolutely starving for content. There’s only so many articles you can write about why Ron DeSantis didn’t try to be more human during the campaign or why Nikki Haley only chose now to actually attack Trump. And so we now enter the long spring of our discontent. There’s no Elizabeth Warren to quixotically endorse. There’s no Pete Buttigieg to fluff. There’s no Marco Rubio to watch reboot on live television. So what do we do?
Apparently, attack one of the most popular women in the world:
The online world’s capacity for wild, untamed nonsense is endless. If we’re being honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that this is the reason we keep coming back to the old social-media watering hole, despite its regular and casual carnage — you never know when the next pack of ravening hyenas will go tearing after a random gazelle. And the chase is on yet again, this time with the Trumpist Right jackaling off in pursuit of none other than Taylor Swift. You see, pop megastar Taylor Swift — known Democrat — is dating NFL tight end Travis Kelce of the Kansas City Chiefs, who are headed to the Super Bowl after yesterday’s victory against the Baltimore Ravens. (I’m sorry to have to be the first person to tell you all of this.)
Surely some sinister political mischief is afoot. Publicity-hungry pop stars and handsome athletes with reality-TV-show experience don’t just go hooking up like that, now do they? One necessarily wonders which shadowy puppet master is really pulling the strings here. So America’s foremost former junior intelligence officer, Pizzagater, and MAGA-branded influencer Jack Posobiec was on the case yesterday afternoon, as the Ravens were frittering away opportunity after opportunity: “Thinking about when Taylor Swift called out the Soros family in 2019 for buying the rights to her music and then how she came out a super liberal in 2020.” (This refers to a far-right conspiracy theory I’m embarrassed to admit exists, holding that Taylor Swift made a secret deal with George Soros to get the rights to her music back in return for becoming a Democratic partisan.)
Vivek Ramaswany, having stepped down from his position as Presidential Candidate The Public Most Wants to See Dangled from a Basketball Hoop By His Underwear, has chimed in as well, implying, I think, that the NFL is going to rig the Super Bowl for Kansas City in exchange for Swift endorsing Biden. I can only sum up this conspiracy theory with a Simpsons clip:
As Blehar points out (and I strongly recommend reading his post), this isn’t just Posobiec and Vivek, who latch onto crackpottery the way a particularly dim remora might latch onto the business end of a Great White. The idea that there is … something … going on with Taylor Swift has spread through the Right Wing faster than diarrhea at Lauren Boebert’s restaurant. Even the ones who shy away from the conspiracy theories are dumping on her. Swift was mostly non-political until relatively recently, when she started to tentatively endorse Democrats in a fairly generic left-of-center way.
Although … one branch of the conspiracy theory is that Swift was actually a conservative because, during her very public fight over the rights to her music, she criticized a number of the groups controlling those rights, including Soros Fund Management. She was then either blackmailed by the Deep State into supporting Biden or support Biden in exchange for her current success, and maybe Kelce’s too. No, I am not making this up.
The one thing the MAGA movement cannot tolerate is dissent. Any criticism of Trump, least of all an endorsement of his opponent, instantly moves one from favored status to Enemy of the State. And so social media is filled with ridiculous posts like this.
Who thinks this country needs a lot more women like Alina Habba, and a lot less like Taylor Swift?🙋🏼♀️ pic.twitter.com/TdIq5wEqLR
— 🔥Desiree🔥 (@DesireeAmerica4) January 27, 2024
I mean, Taylor Swift is self-made billionaire who is currently on a record-smashing tour and has become an avatar of the AFC Champion Kansas City Chiefs. Habba, by contrast, has been losing every case, racking up nearly a million in sanctions for bad lawyering and is facing a big ethics complaint. But Habba lashes out at the press and liberals, so I guess that’s what tickles MAGA’s fancy. Swift, by contrast, plays the media like a golden fiddle.
I might dismiss this as a stupid social media kerfuffle except that it has now apparently reached the Trump campaign itself, with members of the campaign promising a “holy war” against Swift if she endorses Biden and Trump himself grousing that he’s more popular than she is.
There’s a lot to unpack here, but the point I want to focus on is this:
Celebrity endorsement don’t mean crap.
“But Mike”, you cry, “there was a poll that showed that 20% of Swift’s fans will vote the way she tells the to!” To which I respond, that’s because they already know who she’s going to endorse. And Trump’s obnoxiousness, destruction of Roe and liability for assaulting E. Jean Carrol have already made him wildly unpopular with women in general and specifically the young women who are the core of Swift’s fandom. If her fans thought for a second she was going to endorse Trump, then that 20% would refrain and a different 20% would say they’ll vote the way she says.
Taylor Swift may be the most popular and powerful entertainer in the world right now. But even she can not overcome one of the most basic realities of American politics: people don’t actually care what celebrities think. If the celebrity endorses their politics they love it. If a celebrity goes against their politics, they hate it. If James Woods came out in favor of Biden, his haters would turn into fans and his fans would turn into haters. And the same thing would happen if George Clooney suddenly bunny-snuggled Trump. When it comes to politics and celebrities, the former drives our respect for the latter, not the other way around. Maybe it can make a difference in turnout. But even then, the effect is marginal at best.
So ultimately, we come back around to where we started this post. There is a massive vacuum in political discourse right now and it is, for the moment, being filled by the most famous woman in the country. Maybe they’ll move on; maybe this silliness will continue all summer. The Right Wing are convinced that they destroyed Bud Light for an endorsement, so they might be thirsty for more. Or they may grow tired and move onto something more lucrative than Swift-bashing.1
For the record, while I am technically a “Swiftie” that refers to my involvement with the Swift Gamma-Ray Burst Mission, not to Miss Swift herself.2 I don’t hate her music but I’m not a fan either (although I think she is quite good when she goes “unplugged” with just an acoustic guitar). There was a time when my wife and I were trying to have our second and were on the road constantly between State College and the fertility clinic in Maryland. This was when “Blank Space” was being played roughly every four minutes by radio stations and we grew to fear the song. But I admire her as a businesswoman and performer. She seems to have a good support team and a good head on her shoulders. I don’t begrudge her an iota of her success. And I can’t bring myself to hate someone and something that brings so many people so much joy.
We’re going to see her on camera a lot during the Super Bowl. The Chiefs might win and there will be lots of speculation on her and Kelce’s future. She’ll endorse Biden. The Right will rage. The extremely online pro-Hamas left might as well. But her tour will go on and politics will go on and the world will keep spinning. Because, for most sane people, sports and music are far more important than politics.
- I would note we seem to have moved on from when the NFL was going to be destroyed because of players kneeling for the anthem.
- When I moved here to work on Swift the Mission, Swift the Singer was building up to a concert in State College. My move-addled brain was quite confused by all the news reports about Swift fans.
The *ONLY* reasonable play that any given politician should make about any given musician is “I loved their last album!” or, and this is *ONLY* if it’s 100% true, “They were better when Lou Gramm was still the lead singer”.
AND THAT’S IT. Otherwise, it’s the same thing as any given person out there giving their opinion. It shouldn’t have an impact and it has the additional problem of how the musician is likely to have more charisma than any given politician. Like, do you *WANT* to get into a verbal slap fight with someone who is *USED* to playing to full arenas?
SHE WRITES HER OWN STUFF. This is someone who knows her audience and knows it well!
The only consolation that might come from this is that Tay-tay may be able to do something that the Donor class could not do: She could destroy Donald Trump.Report
Thank you for summing this up.
I’m glad to know I’m not alone.
I’m convinced people are saddling this woman with their own (very faulty, flimsy at best) perceptions about what she believes just to point fingers at the other side.
Give this woman a break! I’m not a fan by any stretch, but this caterwauling over her is ‘bout to turn me into one.Report
LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!!Report
This isn’t a “Leave Britney Alone!” as much as a “You’re not going to do as well against that group of Hippie Chicks at that musical festival as you think you will”.Report
I think we all share your incredulity about the attacks on Taylor Swift from the right.Report
I did not have white supremacists angry at the paragon of Hot White Womanhood for, cheks notes, on dating the paragon of White Masculinity on my bingo card.Report
We point and mock, but we need to understand that the MAGAs take this very seriously, and most people aren’t really listening.
They have lost the culture war on many fronts, and instead of moderating their views, are just furiously searching for ways in which they can force their views on an unwilling majority.Report
https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/31/media/taylor-swift-travis-kelce-right-wing-media/index.htmlReport
I think my favorite take so far is this one:
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See, my problem with her is that she isn’t white enough.Report
Thank you for including the excellent classic Simpsons clip so I don’t have to.Report
Brought to you by the same people who cheered on Kid Rock as he took potshots at a case of Bud Light. Just when you think that movement can’t get any more nonsensical, they manage to top themselves.Report
It’s awesome that with the United States on the brink of civil war, the world on the brink of WWIII, that the good people at Ordinary Times continue bringing us the hard hitting stories that really matter – white knighting for one of the richest and most culturally powerful people on the planet.Report
Do you think she deserves the treatment she is getting?
Do you think the right wing folks doing this should be focused on the other issues you highlight? Because they sure don’t think so.
Do you disagree that her treatment is a piece of the same puzzle of approach that the culture warriors are bringing on all sorts of other issue?Report
Who among us deserves the treatment they receive?Report
Donald Trump?Report
I’d say he’s treated far better than he deserves.Report
I’ve often buzz-killed a gathering by asking people if they would rather have the life they have or the life they deserve — by which I mean actually deserve, not what they think they deserve.Report
God’s bodykins man, better. Use every man after his desert, and who should ‘scape whipping?Report
Hey, I’m up for any culture war, but there just isn’t one here.Report
and bringing takes from such shockingly influential Republican Conservative Thinkers as, um, Ramaswamy and Posobiec, and, um, who else exactly? Somebody on Twitter? Really, that’s all we got?Report
Charlie Kirk.
Who is currently moving into a position of challenging the head of the Republican National Committee for control.
As I referred to above, our democracy is in peril precisely because people like Charlie Kirk are no longer fringe actors howling in the wind, but major players in deciding how this nation is to be governed.Report
I think it’s hard to say who is and isn’t influential on the conservative side. There’s part of me that would like to think this is a purely extremely online phenomena and few real people actually believe or have heard of this.
However the vast, vast majority of conservative voters are also going to line up to vote for Donald Trump who increasingly throws in nods to all manner of strange conspiracy theories floating around the conservative ecosystem. Is it any weirder to think there would be widespread credulity towards bizarre beliefs about Taylor Swift than the other conspiracies about Q or the 2020 election that seem to have currency? I don’t know why it would be.Report
As noted in the post, the Trump campaign itself is getting more and more involved in this. Because apparently they have nothing better to do.Report
There’s plenty of room to talk about both serious issues and the silliness of election season. It shouldn’t all be “ah, we’re all about to die” posts. And I don’t think we are on the brink of either a civil war or World War III.Report
Nearly all of this is people looking to produce hot takes. This has nothing to do with Taylor Swift. It’s only about what’s trending. It’s worth noting that most of it doesn’t even refer to a specific thing about her. Most of it’s not even about her, but how we think other people are reacting to her.Report
Well, someone who wants to attack Tayvis has realized that Kelce has a safer attack surface.
For *MY* part, I do not care that he tweeted those things.
His joke about fat people falling down was unfortunately kind of funny, though.Report
Maybe the NYT will publish an essay yearning that he repent by starting to identify as an obese, mentally handicapped, gay man. Or woman. Or whatever squares the circle.Report
He’s only made quiet overtures to the obese. Isn’t it time that he makes one that even normies recognize?Report
And now a special message from Travis Kelce, brought to you by the NFL’s partner, Burger King.
Whopper, whopper, whopper, whopper, junior, double, tripple whopper…Report
Heh, 2010 tweets. Oh to be an historian in 2110.
But let’s be serious for a moment; there’s a 100% chance that Taylor’s people have, under a mutual NDA, started work on his social media brand. They probably chuckle at his rudimentary NFL media training and report back to Taylor that he’s got potential, but needs a lot of work. Just part of the ROI analysis on whether the Swift/Kelce ’25+ project is greenlit.
Anonymous sources I have in the Swift camp hint that break-up is showing more favorable numbers with focus groups testing the new single: “I bet on Kansas and lost my ass(ets)”Report
I think that Kelce has legs and staying power. After the disasterous Matty Healy incident, the social media branding team hired a woman on it. Immediately the “chicks love Tom Hiddleston… chicks love Harry Styles…” brainstorming ended and we immediately pivoted away from “poetic and wistful” to “BIG AND DUMB.”
Watch out sensitive fellas. Your gameplan has just been cut off at the knees. You should have gone to the gym.Report
2024 will be the Year of the Himbo.Report
Big and Dumb, but scores off the charts on loyalty and teamwork. Also accustomed to playing second fiddle to bigger draw.
Hope it’s a love match and they have a dozen children… maybe they will have discovered the secret to lonely Artists failing at love with other lonely narcissistic artists and a new dating paradigm will emerge?
The Gretzky, Beckham, Kelce project.
Though, the DiMaggio/Monroe variable could be a confounder.Report
The statue of limitations on most of that has run out, but a grown man spelling “your” as “ur” is unforgivable.Report
Just for the record… it’s cool to look up things people said online 15 years ago and attack them for it?Report
That does seem to be the rule that has been established, yes.
It’s more common than you’d think.
To everybody from relative nobodies out there to Harvard students.
Should we make exceptions for people dating Taylor Swift? We didn’t for Matty Healy, that’s for dang sure.Report
Oh no… you’re all wrong there. There are no rules. I mean, anyone can SAY whatever they want. What I’m asking is whether all sides have more or less AGREED that it is an acceptable thing to do. I recall lots of gnashing of teeth about what an awful practice it was. Which, if a principled position, should not be something one starts doing just because others are doing it.
I’ll take your unwillingness to answer my question sincerely as evidence that such complaints were unprincipled crap. THANKS!Report
“What I’m asking is whether all sides have more or less AGREED that it is an acceptable thing to do. ”
I remember it happening and people like me saying “this is bad, you probably shouldn’t do this” and people like you saying “but we gotta, they’re racist, we gotta, they’re RACIST“.
So I wouldn’t say that “we” “agreed” on anything, more like you insisted that was how the game was gonna be played now and we said “well, okay then”.Report
Oh, my opinion? It’s the same one as the other 17 times we’ve discussed this. And remember when I said this above? “For *MY* part, I do not care that he tweeted those things.”
I even said that one of his jokes was funny.
Has your opinion changed since one of the 17 times we’ve discussed this?Report
Well she’s officially announced she will not be at the Super Bowl. I guess we have to find something else to talk about.Report
I thought it would be obvious that she wasn’t going to be there from the fact that she was going to be at a concert in Japan until four in the morning the day before, but I do see from an internet search that people have carefully calculated the exact distance from concert venue to airport and from airport to football stadium and concluded that if she was literally scooped off the stage by a helicopter and did about a half-kilo of coke on the flight back to the USA she could maybe do the Super Bowl halftime show.Report
They’re looking at it all wrong. If this was ever in the cards the Biden admin was going to lend her a hypersonic jet and top secret cryogenic technology to get here there in a quarter of the time and in a perfectly preserved state.Report