Taylor Swift. Some know her as the singer songwriter behind major airplay hits such as “Look What You Made Me Do” and “Anti-Hero.” Others – the more devoted – have flocked to and come to know her through stage performances and her ability to entertain and entrance crowds of tens of thousands.
For right-wing politicians and media, however, Swift is viewed as a threat to their campaigns and their electability. Now, allies of former president Donald Trump have pledged to engage in “The Great War” against the 12-time Grammy-award-winning artist. Not surprisingly, the smear campaign is already in full swing to try and discredit Swift’s reputation.
Swift was silent on her political views prior to 2018, and in fact, was criticized for not making her stance known during the 2016 election between Hillary Clinton and Trump. In an interview with Vogue in September 2018, Swift discussed a conversation she had with friend and fellow singer Todrick Hall where he confronted her about her silence on LGBTQ+ issues.
“Maybe a year or two ago, Todrick and I are in the car, and he asked me, ‘What would you do if your son was gay?’” she says. “The fact that he had to ask me … shocked me and made me realize that I had not made my position clear enough or loud enough.
“If he was thinking that, I can’t imagine what my fans in the LGBTQ community might be thinking. It was kind of devastating to realize that I hadn’t been publicly clear about that.”
The year 2018 marked the beginning of Swift’s advocacy era, when she came out in support of Phil Bredesen, who was the Democratic candidate for U.S, Senate in her home state of Tennessee, against Marsha Blackburn. A year later during Pride month, she dropped the music video for You Need to Calm Down, which is one of the most political songs the singer has ever released. Not only does the song include lines such as “’Cause shade never made anybody less gay,” the video included easter eggs to LGBTQ+ history, such as quotes from Cher, cameos from LGBTQ+ activists such as Laverne Cox along with other known queer celebrities, fake anti-LGBTQ+ activists with misspelled signs, and then it ended with a call to action for her followers to support her Senate petition in favor of the Equality Act. In 2020, Swift posed with a bunch of freshly baked cookies iced with Biden Harris 2020 decorations, marking her first official endorsement for a presidential candidate. That 2020 Instagram post resulted in over 35,000 people registering to vote before the election, showing just how much political influence Swift had then.
Now, four years later, Swift’s impact is bigger than the whole sky — her Eras Tour became the highest grossing music tour of all time, she became the first musician to be named Person of the Year by TIME magazine and she is now dating Travis Kelce, a well-known football player for the Kansas City Chiefs. The combination of Swift’s elevated success and her pro-equality and pro-Democratic stance has conservatives screaming more about the people they hate, working to whittle down Swift’s big reputation as an ally for all.
Fox News host Jeanine Pirro — who also served as an unofficial political advisor to Trump during his presidency — called out Swift during her show, telling her to not get involved in delicate issues such as politics.
“Don’t get involved. Don’t get involved in politics; we don’t want to see you there,” the Fox host said. “Joe Biden is in [a] hole with young people, he knows it. And if he thinks Taylor can get him out of that hole, he’s gonna go for it.”
Politico recently spoke with Brian Donovan, a University of Kansas professor who teaches a popular college course called “The Sociology of Taylor Swift.” Donovan explained that at the beginning of Swift’s career, most of her criticism came from the left.
“There was a feminist discourse that argued that she was too heteronormative, that she is supporting the patriarchy by writing these love songs with a straightforward, boy-meets-girl, happily-ever-after kind of narrative,” he said. “You would think that her dating a football star (Travis Kelce) would be something that would be satisfying to cultural conservatives… but the fact that she’s not on their team is especially irksome for a lot of folks. On the right, it’s seen as a betrayal.”
Donovan cites sexism and misogyny as one of the main contributing factors, as it seems Swift managed to push their buttons through her success and platform. In fact, the professor noted her unique persona as a celebrity gives her the ability to reach a broader audience and have a greater influence.
“She certainly has appeal among women, but she has such a broad demographic appeal — racially, in terms of age, in terms of socio-economic status. It just seems like attacking her, from a strategic political standpoint, makes no sense whatsoever,” Donovan offered. “It will alienate women voters in the long term, for sure, because Taylor’s politics, they’re not that radical.
“She’s not the kind of radical feminist figure that they are painting her to be, and I think a lot of women see themselves in Taylor. She is highly relatable. And she, through her songwriting, lets us feel like we have a bond with her. And so the rabid attacks against her are going to turn people away on a very deep level.”
While Swift – as of this writing – has yet to endorse a candidate for 2024, most fans expect the singer/songwriter to voice her support for Biden and Harris and remind people about the importance of voting, as she did in 2020. In her documentary made that same year, “Miss Americana,” behind the scenes footage showed Swift telling her team she needed to “be on the right side of history.”
“This was a situation where, from a humanity perspective, and from what my moral compass was telling me I needed to do, I knew I was right, and I really didn’t care about repercussions,” Swift said. “To celebrate but not advocate felt wrong for me. Using my voice to try to advocate was the only choice to make.”