Taylor Swift stimulates Democratic vote in 1:43 midterm elections
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(CNN Spanish) –– In 2018, pop megastar Taylor Swift criticized Republican candidates in her home state of Tennessee and urged people to vote for their Democratic opponents. In response, President Donald Trump said that he now liked Swift's music "25% less." Following the tweets the artist published last Saturday in which she criticized the president's efforts to "dismantle" the US Postal Service - which she described as a way of "blatantly cheating" in the 2020 elections - - Trump probably doesn't like the other 75% of his music anymore.
Swift joined many others on social media in condemning Trump's apparent efforts to undermine the ability of the Postal Service (USPS) to deliver ballots by mail in the 2020 polls. The singer first criticized Trump's failed handling of the covid-19 crisis, which has made it necessary for many to want to avoid the risk of voting in person in crowded polling stations. "The ineffective leadership of Donald Trump seriously worsened the crisis that we are going through and now he is taking advantage of it to subvert and destroy our right to vote safely," wrote the singer.
- LEE: Democrats fight back in Trump's confrontation over the Postal Service
She is absolutely right! The reason many don't feel safe voting in person is due to Trump's incompetent approach to the virus. If Trump had taken the coronavirus crisis seriously in February, more Americans might feel better about having to wait in line at polling stations in November. In fact, a Fox News poll released on Friday found that 54% of Americans do not believe that the federal government, led by Trump, has responded "to the outbreak seriously enough," compared with 29% who believe that yes.
Swift, who has nearly 87 million Twitter followers - 1.7 million more than Trump - was outspoken about why she thinks the president is trying to undermine voting by mail. "Trump's calculated dismantling of the USPS clearly demonstrates one thing: he is WELL AWARE that we don't want him as our president." Swift added: "He has blatantly chosen to cheat and put the lives of millions of Americans at risk in an effort to cling to power."
Trump is not being subtle. It forces people to choose between their health and to vote. This is the least American you can be. By pointing this out, Swift, 30, a 10-year-old Grammy Award winner, whose large following includes many young people, could play a major role in Trump's defeat.
We don't even need to speculate why Trump wants to avoid voting by mail. In April he assured via Twitter that "it doesn't work well for Republicans." And it claims that vote-by-mail is riddled with "fraud," but as fact-checkers have made clear, that's a lie. (Trump lies so often that we should assume everything he says is false and let the verifiers only deal with the few things he says are true.)
Trump and the controversy over the vote by mail and the Postal Service 2:26Trump again said aloud last week in his safe space in an interview with Fox Business that he objected to granting the funds that Democrats (and others) have requested for the Postal Service, since without those resources “you cannot have a universal vote by mail because they are not equipped to manage it.
This is not the first time that Swift, who never spoke publicly on partisan political issues before 2018, has criticized Trump for his attacks on American democracy. In August 2019, he questioned the president's attempts to silence opposition voices, telling The Guardian newspaper : "I really think he thinks this is an autocracy."
And in May this year, the artist lashed out at Trump's call to shoot looters during protests over the death of black citizen George Floyd. On that occasion she tweeted: "After stoking the fires of white Stalism and racism throughout your presidency, do you have the nerve to feign moral superiority in the face of the threat of violence?" And she added: "We will vote against you in November."
On Saturday, Swift provided new advice for those who shared her desire to defeat Trump this November: “Request an early ballot. Vote early. She is right again.
Donald Trump Taylor Swift