2024-02-03 14:48:09
Upon a time not far away Taylor Swift would have delighted the conservative movement in United States. A white artist with country roots turned into the biggest global music star who begins a romance with an American football player. He, Travis Kelce, is also white and a perfect symbol of those large, bearded men that a part of the right sees as the representation of a supposedly threatened masculinity. And, as a cherry on top, he has arrived with his team, the Kansas Chiefs, to the Super Bowl, the biggest celebration of the king of US sports, which is celebrated on Sunday the 11th.
That time is clearly not today. It is 2024, presidential election year. Swift has his own political ideas and on issues such as reproductive and LGTBQ community rights, gender and sexual identity or race, it does not agree with the dominant line in the Republican Party. This is dominated by Donald Trump and his MAGA movement (acronym for Make America Great Again) and lives given over to populism which increasingly feeds on and fuels conspiracy theories.
With Swift, the fall down the rabbit hole of conspiratorial paranoia has accelerated to extremes that even the editorial team of ‘The Wall Street Journal’, hardly suspicious of leaning on the Democratic side, has described as “strange” and which have been laughed at. without concealment. And Rich Lowry, voice of traditional conservatism, points out that she has reached the point of “lose touch with common sense and reality”.
The theory
The buzz began in December, when ‘Time’ magazine chose Swift as person of the year (a selection that, according to press reports, angered Trump himself). Then some of the more eccentric, radical and downright unhinged voices on the right, such as Jack Posibiec and Laura Loomer, began to suggest that Swift, her phenomenon and her romance were all part of a dark psychological operation (“psyop” in American slang) concocted by the Pentagonfor which she would be an asset.
“They are preparing for an operation to use Taylor Swift in the election against Trump, in favor of (Joe) Biden, they are going to achieve it and they are going to return to the ‘swifties’ in voters, you see,” said Posobiec, who also assured that Kelce was “a handpicked decoy groom” by those supposed dark forces and, incidentally, took the opportunity to denigrate Swift’s lifestyle as ‘DINK’ (acronym in English for “two incomes, no children”, something that the far right does not see as ideal for 34-year-old adults) .
Is Taylor Swift writing mystery novels?
When the year started, things left the internet and social networks to reach conservative and ultra-conservative television, from One America News or News Nation to the even more influential one: Fox News. And there last month host Jesse Watters suggested that the success of the ‘Eras Tour’ has not been the result of Swift’s professional dedication or the passionate adoration of millions of fans around the world.
“Do you ever wonder how or why it broke out like this?” Watters said. “Well, about four years ago the Pentagon’s psychological operations unit toyed with the idea of making it an asset.” during a meeting of the I’LL TAKE. What type of asset? “A psyop to combat online misinformation.”
Their supposed proof was a video with part of the intervention at a 2019 conference by Alicia Marie Bargar, but it was a meeting of a group in which 25 countries participated and Bargar, a researcher at a university, only mentioned Swift as a potential example of famous people with influence.
Super Bowl “dawn”
Kelce is also targeted by the far right, both for having appeared in a Pfizer ad urging people to get vaccinated against Covid and in another for Bud Light, the beer brand that experienced a boycott after another ad with a transgender influencer. And paranoia kicked in when last Sunday the Chiefs ensured their presence in the Super Bowl.
Ignoring that the Kansas team has reached the final four times in the last five years, it began to be suggested that This classification was last updated, as the conspiracy theorists say the final will be. And the idea in the crazy theory is that then Swift and Kelce will get engaged and, heading into November, will endorse Biden and ask for the vote for him and the Democrats.
Vivek Ramaswamy, who was Trump’s primary rival and is now one of those who sounds like his potential vice presidential candidate, has added fuel to the fire of conspiracies. So has Stephen Miller, who was one of Trump’s top advisors in the presidency and may have even more power if he returns to the White House. And even in the Pentagon, aware of “the dangers of conspiracy theories,” they have come out deny that Swift is part of a “psyop”.
Political asset
What no one denies is that the artist’s possible support for Biden (which he already received from her in 2020), would certainly be a political asset. The Democrat would be delighted to have him again and, according to an article in ‘The New York Times’, he is the celebrity endorsement that his campaign team is most looking for. Because certainly They are going to need all the help they can get to try to compensate for apathy or disappointment. and the anger of the young vote with him (especially for his support for Israel despite the situation in Gaza). And they know what Swift is capable of.
Last year, for example, an hour after a ‘stories’ was posted on Instagram (279 million followers) calling for people to register to vote, traffic on the Vote.org website had skyrocketed by 1,200%. And 35,000 people registered that day, more than any other since 2020.
It wasn’t always like this. Swift didn’t always talk about politics and in her documentary ‘Miss Americana’ she regretted not doing so against Trump in 2016. And in 2018, when she gave her support to two Democrats in Tennessee, her favorite for the Senate lost by 11 points to the Republican candidate.
His political voice, however, was becoming more refined and with it raised blisters among conservatives. “I have always voted and will vote for the candidate who protects and fights for the human rights that I believe we all deserve in this country,” he said then. “I believe in the fight for rights of the LGTBQ community and that any form of discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation is wrong. “I think the systematic racism we see in this country towards people of color is terrifying, sickening and prevalent.”
In 2020, he denounced Trump for “blatantly cheating and putting millions of American lives in danger,” in reference to the Republican’s efforts to limit mail-in voting during the pandemic. And after the Supreme Court repealed the constitutional protection of abortion, she tweeted supporting a right that is anticipated to once again be a central issue in November and decisive for the mobilization.
“Don’t get involved in politics!”
The message Swift hears these days from the right is clear. “Don’t get involved in politics!”, “You should think twice before making a decision about 2024”, “If she wants to preserve her legacy she should stay away from politics” is read on networks and heard on Fox News (where climate change suddenly seems to be of interest, even if it is to question what will contaminate Swift’s flight to the Super Bowl final on her private jet from Japan, where she has a concert ).
Trump, as ‘Rolling Stone’ has published, privately boasts that he is “more popular” than her and with “more committed” fans. He assures that there will not be enough celebrities to save Biden. And it is an idea that they repeat from her field. “The thing about celebrities supporting Biden is like donating to Nikki Haley,” said pollster John McLaughlin, taking the opportunity to take a dig at the rival who remains in contention in the primaries against Trump. “Are methods of moral boasting, like wearing a mask in public after Covid. Celebrities can support him but it doesn’t lower inflation, stop wars, fix the border or reduce crime. “Biden’s approval rating still sucks.”
Others, however, are aware that Swift’s support for Biden could have an impact. And Charlie Kirk, the far-right founder of the group Turning Point USA, has said that it would be a “tsunami (…) very difficult to stop.”
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