As of: February 4, 2024, 5:02 a.m
Comments
Press
Split
Joe Biden wants to recruit Taylor Swift to fight for votes in the 2024 US election.
Donald Trump and Co. are already sensing a conspiracy.
Washington DC - Taylor Swift plays a starring role almost everywhere she performs.
On stages around the world on her Eras Tour, cheering on her boyfriend at NFL playoff games, on the list of nominees for this year's Grammys.
And now she is also the center of attention among Republicans who are worried about whether she will interfere in the presidential race for the 2024 US election.
On Monday , The New York Times
reported
that US President Joe Biden's campaign is seeking the superstar's support ahead of the general election, in which the incumbent president is likely to face former President Donald Trump.
Although Taylor Swift has not yet endorsed the presidential election, the story sparked outrage among right-wingers, who are now spreading baseless claims that the pop star is a "psyop" - psychological operation - to turn voters to the Democratic Party.
Taylor Swift.
© Guerin Charles/Imago
Taylor Swift in the US election campaign?
Republicans worried
Some Republican figures, like Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, warned that Swift's endorsement of Biden could unleash a "tsunami" that "will be very difficult to stop."
Meanwhile, conservative pundits on
Fox News
,
One America Network
and
Newsmax
have spent a lot of airtime on Taylor Swift this week.
Fox News
anchor Jeanine Pirro looked directly into the camera on Monday and had a message for Swift: “Don’t get involved in politics;
We don’t want to see you there.”
Read The Washington Post for free for four weeks
Your quality ticket from washingtonpost.com: Get exclusive research and 200+ stories free for four weeks.
Here's what you need to know about how Swift got under conservatives' skin:
While the Biden campaign has focused on securing the support of major political players such as labor unions, the campaign seems to know all too well that endorsements from pop culture icons can help the president gain traction with young voters the choice to gain a foothold.
My news
Ukraine speaks of “flying garbage”: Australia wanted to supply Kiev with F/A-18 fighter jets
“Balloon burst”: Strack-Zimmermann clearly rejects Taurus ring exchange
Russia sees plan behind NATO maneuvers: diplomat attacks Deutschlandlesen
Attack on Russia: Failed drone attack sparks fire at huge oil refinery
Out of the blue: Ukraine blows up Russian tank column with swarm of drones read
“Considerable unrest”: Pistorius is causing trouble in his ministry with his reform plans
It's nothing new for campaigns to seek endorsements from celebrities during an election cycle - and an endorsement from Swift has the potential to mobilize millions of voters nationwide.
Taylor Swift got involved in the 2023 US midterm elections
During the 2023 midterm elections, Taylor Swift shared a message on her Instagram Stories encouraging her fans to register to vote.
“I was so lucky to see so many of you at my US shows.
“I have heard you raise your voices and I know how powerful they are,” Swift wrote.
“Make sure you're ready to use them in our elections this year!” Traffic to vote.org jumped more than 1,200 percent in the following hour, CEO Andrea Hailey said at the time, a record-breaking number of visits to the voter registration website that day.
According to the organization, 35,252 new voters were registered that day, the most since 2020.
Gwynn Thomas, a professor of global gender and sexuality studies at the University at Buffalo, said that the political science literature is somewhat mixed when it comes to the influence of celebrities on voter turnout, but that Taylor Swift appears to be an exception because she is one have a particularly close relationship with her fans, the so-called Swifties.
There are millions of Swifties worldwide, and their loyalty to Swift is such that Swift's Eras Tour has enriched not only the pop star's wallet, but also the US economy by billions.
Taylor Swift supported a Democrat back in 2018
On Monday,
Fox News
host Jesse Watters appeared to acknowledge the power of Swifties.
After calling them "a huge - and emotional - audience," Watters noted that "when Taylor likes something, they love it."
For much of her career, Taylor Swift largely stayed away from politics.
That changed in 2018, when she supported Tennessee Democrat Phil Bredesen in his Senate race against Marsha Blackburn, who was a Republican congresswoman at the time.
In a lengthy Instagram post, Swift said that in the past she has been "reticent to express her political opinions publicly" but that "due to some events in my life and in the world over the last two years, I feel very differently about it now." “I have and will always cast my vote based on which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights that I believe we all deserve in this country,” Swift said.
Bredesen lost the race to Blackburn in the red state.
But Swift spoke more about her decision to publicly support Democrats in her 2020 documentary "Miss Americana," in which she expressed regret over not speaking out against Trump in 2016.
In the documentary, Swift is warned by her team that her support for Bredesen could give the public the impression that she is condemning Donald Trump.
“I don’t care if they write it,” Swift says.
“I’m sad I didn’t say this two years ago.”
Republicans want Taylor Swift to “shut up”
Brennan Suen, deputy director of external affairs at the left-leaning research platform
Media Matters
, said Swift has been "praised for years" for not speaking out on political issues.
But now conservative pundits appear to be trying to get her to “shut up and sing again” by whipping up her following to stop Swift from speaking out.
Fox News
' Tomi Lahren
, for example, said Monday that Swift would "stay out of politics if she wanted to protect her legacy."
Taylor Swift has been in a public relationship with Kansas City Chiefs star Travis Kelce for months.
The highly publicized love story not only sparked Swift's fan base's interest in the NFL.
It also sparked a barrage of false claims from the right that — now that Kelce and the Chiefs are reaching the Super Bowl, presumably with Swift in tow — the two are part of a Democratic plan to get NFL viewers to root for Biden agree.
Taylor Swift: About the person
Surname |
Taylor Alison Swift |
|---|---|
Old |
34 years (born December 13, 1989) |
Place of birth |
Pennsylvania, USA |
Profession |
Singer, musician |
Separate from Swift, Kelce had already drawn the ire of conservatives for being sponsored by Bud Light.
The beer brand angered some in right-wing circles last year by partnering with a transgender actress.
Kelce also appeared in ads to promote the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine - a move that didn't go over well with anti-vaccination groups.
Watters said on Fox News
on Monday
that Kelce is "sponsored by Pfizer" and that his relationship with Swift was "developed in a lab."
Alison Steinberg, a host on the ultra-conservative
One America Network
, claimed Swift's relationship was a "fake, carefully crafted show" to make children "obsessed with a grown man who gets paid millions of dollars every year to throw a ball around while he promotes lethal injections.”
“The league sport itself is nothing more than a psyop,” said Steinberg.
Singer Taylor Swift (r) kisses her boyfriend Travis Kelce after the NFL football game in Baltimore.
© Julio Cortez/AP/dpa
Jennifer Lawless, a political science professor at the University of Virginia, countered that it was not Swift but right-wing pundits who were “bringing partisan politics into football.”
“The average person watching the soccer game is fascinated by the fact that they are there because they are a global superstar, not because they might vote for Joe Biden,” Lawless said.
Joe Biden hopes for votes from the “Swifties” camp
Taylor Swift openly supports equality, abortion rights and LGBTQ rights - issues that are deeply important to young voters.
Lawless said that right-wing pundits "seem concerned that the Biden campaign, with someone like Taylor Swift in its back pocket, might be able to engage young people in a way that ... he cannot." .
Swifties are predominantly young women - a bloc that Republicans are already having trouble with, especially after the Supreme Court's Roe v.
Wade tipped.
Following the court's decision in 2022, Swift declared her support for abortion rights in a Twitter post.
She has also repeatedly expressed her support for the LGBTQ community as well as her stance against racial inequality.
In a statement Wednesday, the Gen Z-focused group Voters of Tomorrow warned conservatives who want to attack the singer's fans using Swift song lyrics.
“Generation Z knew Trump was trouble when he entered the White House and waged a war on our abortion rights, our voting rights and our safety,” the group said.
“If you mess with Taylor, you mess with young voters.
And the last thing you need is an even worse reputation with us come November.”
About the author
Mariana Alfaro
is a reporter for The Washington Post's political news team.
The native of El Salvador has been working for the post office since 2019.
Previously, Mariana interned at The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Insider, and The Texas Tribune.
We are currently testing machine translations. This article was automatically translated from English into German.
This article was first published in English on February 1, 2024 at the “Washingtonpost.com” - as part of a cooperation, it is now also available in translation to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.