Donald Trump will not win a war against the Swifties
Donald Trump will not win a war against the Swifties
Swift's US adult fan base is larger than the 2020 presidential vote, is unafraid to "go low," and has a long history of sending death threats.
It's amazing how dumb this entire situation is. To my knowledge she hasn't even publicly endorsed a candidate or political party, right? Just suggested her fans register to vote?
Republicans understand that demographics are against them, and their only chance is to whip their base into a froth while simultaneously making it harder for Others to vote.
Yes. That is all she did. Got them to register to vote. She didn't even hint at who they should vote for. That might change now, and not the way Republicans want.
Honestly, it's such an incredible own goal. By aligning themselves in opposition to her, Republicans are begging for her fans to vote against them.
Correct. They've tacitly acknowledged for quite a while that discouraging their enemies from voting is a big part of their strategy, though, and I don't think anyone involved thinks the Taylor Swift fans are also Trump fans.
Honestly, if someone tries to tell you voting won't change anything, just point to how hard they try to rig the systems that drive it and how much they freak out about any indication that their enemies are planning to vote in large numbers.
It's been going on ever since black people got the right to vote. It's been suppress the vote ever since. Used to be let the radicals do their thing away from the party, now it's imbedded in Fox and gop itself.
just point to how hard they try to rig the systems that drive it a
My city: 80% white, 20% Asian, and rich. Voting is super easy.
City next to mine: nearly 100% POC. Every election multihour long waits to vote.
Yes, I have tried to help but I can't do much besides pass water bottles out and give out voter registration forms. They won't let me be an election worker unless I live there.
Registering to vote helps Democrats more than Republicans, because first time voters and younger voters are more likely to vote Democrat. Republicans do better when less people vote.
Here she is speaking about Republicans in a 2020 documentary. I would say it’s a bit more than asking people to register.
Edit to add: She comes across so genuinely in this clip, I really love it. Listen to her speak and then think of any time you’ve ever heard Trump speak. I can understand why they feel threatened.
She did call Marsha Blackburn,"Trump in a wig". Her fans aren't stupid.
That may as well have been a direct attack against the GOP. Their whole motus operandi is suppressing the vote and voter apathy, keep people away from the polls and sick of the whole process. They don't really need to run a better campaign than their opponent, just make their opponents' supporters so sick of all the noise and both-sidesing everything, they just sit out the whole thing because there's no difference between anybody, right?
She and Travis are pro-vaccine so that's all the endorsement they need to hear.
It’s amazing how dumb this entire situation is. To my knowledge she hasn’t even publicly endorsed a candidate or political party, right? Just suggested her fans register to vote?
Is it really amazing anymore? Bud Light sent one specially printed can to a trans influencer last year and they lost their shit for months. (You know everything they did, I'm sure, so I'm not going to catalogue it here.)
Dumb? Yes.
Ridiculous? Yes.
Conservatives behaving in a way that shows us yet again just what kind of people they are? Yes.
Amazing? No.
I'm not sure that would really make this any less stupid.
Elections have become entertainment. Same with the house and senate. Everybody wants to be famous.
"Donald Trump and his far-right 'holy war' against Taylor Swift could cost him the next presidential election."
News from a completely normal and not broken at all timeline. Imagine reading that sentence to someone 10 years ago.
10 years ago was still 2 years left in the final Obama administration. Add on just a bit more to really drive those 2014 people crazy:
“After an unsuccessful violent insurrection to stay in the White House after being voted out, Donald Trump and his far-right ‘holy war’ against Taylor Swift could cost him the next presidential election.”
I feel like that headline would be completely normal during the 80s satanic witch hunt.
I think they'd be confused about why a real estate celebrity is going after a 1 year old girl but yeah not too far off
Watching Kimmel's monologue from yesterday-
The same people who believe Joe Biden has dementia and needs Kamala Harris to feed him butterscotch tapioca every night also believe that he has somehow planned and executed a diabolicalically brilliant scheme to fix the NFL playoffs so the biggest pop star in the world can pop up on the jumbotron during the Superbowl in between a Kia and a Tostitos commercial to hypnotize her 11-year-old fans into voting for Joe Biden.
So weak you can crush them, so strong you’re terrified.
It's the Fascist™ way!
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And the only reason Taylor Swift got involved is because the crazies started saying she was, with no evidence, until she felt pressured to speak out
They're not trying to win the popularity contest. They're trying to win the "do what we say or maybe one of our violent followers will try to kill you" contest. That's what Hannity means by "think twice."
They abandoned the pretense of nonviolence and freedom of speech for their enemies quite a while ago.
do what we say or maybe one of our violent followers will try to kill you
I guarantee you Taylor Swift has some of the best security in the world, so I'm guessing that doesn't worry her much.
They could still bomb one of her concerts, or drive a car into fans waiting in line, or some other type of stochastic terrorism. Like a lot terrorism, it's not necessary to do enough to actually endanger a real high percentage of people, just enough to make anyone who won't toe the line a little fearful about their safety because of it. A little bit's enough.
That’s a bit extreme, isn’t it? I mean, they’re just music fans.
I see you're not familiar with their work
After 8 years of whatever Democrats claim they're doing, Donald Trump may have finally encountered opponents who are interested in fighting back.
Out of the two of these people only one is actually a billionaire :)
That’s gotta chap his orange ass
My friends dad who had spent his entire life as a staunch republican like Reagan style came to her and said "who do you want me to vote for, you are going to be here I wont".
I hope this perspective shift happens with all boomers.
spent his entire life as a staunch republican like Reagan style
TBF his perspective hasn't changed that much. It's his party that has abandoned him.
Reminds me of my grandfather who was one of those "Voted for Eisenhower 'cause Lincoln won the war" types according to my dad. He voted straight Republican in every election until 2004.
See, the Bush campaign started handing out Purple Heart Band Aids as part of the swiftboating of John Kerry. My grandfather, who had earned a Purple Heart and delivered one to his dead friend's parents, didn't appreciate the joke, and voted Democrat for the rest of his life.
Thats fair!
Taylor Swiftboating.
Make America Great Again (Taylor Version)
OMG, you have a point here. Imagine if Taylor started wearing maga gear. The swifties could claim it!
If Trump loses, I hope they have Taylor Swift play at Biden's Inauguration. I don't even like Taylor Swift's music, but it'd be a nice slap in the face to the GOP.
Actually, one tactic the Biden campaign could use to get out Swifties to vote for him is to pre-emptively get Taylor Swift to agree before the election to a concert at his inauguration. "Hey, if we win, guess who you can come see for free in concert?"
I can hear my mom yelling about it now. Funny how she was mostly ignorant about here existence until Fox News started complaining about her and now she hates her guts. Always liked watching the super bowl until this mess and now she's "maybe I don't bother".
But if I poke her about it she turns into "I am not just parroting them. You need to stop reading CNN and all those brainwashed sources."
It's so close to realizing, but won't cross the line. I have read about 2 articles from CNN in my entire life. The entire news industry hates maga now. It's pretty much just FN, Newsmax, and the absolute far end of the spectrum of hate preachers and Alex Jones that say anything close to what you want to hear, as far as I can see.
Yeah if the entire world can agree on something, but my preferred group is the holdout, I think I would re-examine my view. It's just mind boggling that just one huge mainstream network says stuff that all the others disagree with, and that's the one you are just so sure it's right about everything.
I feel this... They think that, just because the only way they know how to consume "news" is through trashy 24 hour news channels, that you must be doing the same, but with "liberal" sources.
Just more projection.
After weeks of Republican media pundits and a former presidential candidate vilifying her, going as far as saying she's a Defense Department psy-op asset
Of course. Everyone is an agent of darkness. The right has this problem. They can’t say „We fight to make your lives miserable and we will fuck you and the whole nation over. It will be a complete clusterfuck”. Because that would be honest. So they have to make up enemies.
it seems all but certain Trump will jump into the fray soon after Rolling Stone reported one of his confidants predicted a "holy war" against the pop sensation.
“Holy war” sounds way cooler than what it really is. If you just could see how pathetic you really are, Donnie. And your followers are somehow even worse.
If you didn't hear the opening riffs to Megadeth's Rust in Peace, you're not metal enough for this comment.
Fans who caused seismic activity in Seattle versus septuagenarian overly impressed with himself is going to be the best fight.
Not to mention her fans broke Live Nation. A website supposedly robust enough to handle ticket sales virtually every major live event every day in the entire nation. And they broke it so badly that congress got involved.
Yeah but I'm sure she was paying those people more than Trump was to show up at her event, right? What, she didn't pay them anything unless they were working the event?
Well, it's not hard to attract people to a free concert. Huh? It wasn't free? More people were willing to pay how much to see her than were willing to be paid by Trump to see him?
Wow.
The difference between Swift and Trump is that Taylor understands she needs to give back to her fans, in music and performances. Trump just sees his fans as providing something for him, their money in donations and ego boosts.
I avoid pop culture wherever possible so I am almost entirely ignorant of Swift’s musical catalog. That said, the attention the republicans have been giving her lately has me interested enough to start listening to her music to see what the big deal is. I have found quite a few songs I enjoy and Apple Music has been suggesting more and more of her stuff that I find myself not skipping.
So, the GOP war on Swift has added at least one more person to her fanbase 🤣
I feel the same about Taylor Swift. It’s not really my genre of music, but I like pretty much everything she does and can’t think of any song I actively dislike. My daughter’s into her, so it’s nice I can listen to music with her and legitimately enjoy it.
She's popular because she puts out catchy pop songs. You missed out on like 13 years of bangers.
It's not my kind of music, but someone the WGA and SAG/AFTRA gave their blessings to show her concert movie during their strike because she said, "okay, I'll give you whatever you're asking for" is okay in my book.
Plus getting her fans to register to vote is just a good act.
I didn’t think it was but as I’ve started listening, I’m finding a lot that I actually enjoy. It started with “You Need to Calm Down”, my wife was playing it in the car and I dug the music (has a good beat, is interesting vocally, etc.). Then I listened to the lyrics and was a bit taken aback because of her apolitical reputation.
She’s got much more of an edge than I expected so Ive got a lot to explore :).
I still fail to see anything resembling logic in the GOP's sudden war against Taylor Swift. I don't follow Taylor Swift at all, but to my knowledge has never publicly endorsed a candidate or even taken a side on a political issue. She is a pop singer currently enjoying outsized popularity, but it's mostly about catering to preteen girls, and showing up at NFL games acting as if she's just the world's richest starstruck fan.
Her base, or at least the ones old enough to vote, aren't interested in her politics. They're interested in her music. They're interested in her fashion. They're interested in watching her fawn all over Travis Kelce like she's a 12 year old girl. There was no overlap between Swifties and the political left.
But if the GOP wants to put that ball in play, there will be. They are currently trying to frame it as you can either be a Swiftie or MAGA. And if the GOP thinks that Swifties are going to abandon her for Donald fucking Trump, they're going to have a bad time. And given how tight the race is in some of the swing states Trump needs to carry if he has a shot at winning, there is a very real possibility that he could end up losing races in states he may have otherwise won because he pissed off enough Swifties to swing the election. (Remember that some of these states were decided by barely 10,000 votes. I will guarantee you there is not a state in the country that doesn't have at least that many Swifties, probably several times over.)
Taylor Swift's fan base aren't cans of Bud Light. Taylor Swift doesn't have corporate shareholders to answer to. Taylor Swift isn't going to back down out of fear of lost sales. Any Swifties that are motivated enough to go to the polls based off of this stupid culture war I will guarantee will vote in lockstep for Biden. Not even for policy reasons, but just as their way of telling the GOP to go fuck themselves.
They’re worried she will convince a fair amount of younger folks to register to vote. It will make it harder for them to cheat, so they have to invent crazy conspiracy theories about her instead of admitting their policies are just actual shit.
It's crazy how simple it is.
Just to be clear Taylor avoided commenting on politics until 2018. At that point she endorsed some Democrat candidates in TN. Since then, when asked, she had made it clear that she will never support DJT or the GOP in general. The GOP absolutely put this ball in play, because The View were the "reporters" that drug it out of her. You're correct that she seems to avoid politics like the plague, and with good reasons.
See I didn't even know that she did that much. I remember seeing one random clip from an interview at her house or something where she mentioned her position on abortion and she definitely came off as being left-leaning, but beyond that I've never heard her make a political statement. But again, it's not like I follow Taylor Swift. She could be Biden's campaign manager for all I know....
I think this is silly and her influence is blown way out of proportion.
But Taylor Swift has endorsed candidates in the past.
Thank you for the information. Not that it changes much of my opinion, but I like to be informed, and I like to be told when the information I'm going on isn't correct.
They're mostly worried about this: https://www.npr.org/2023/09/22/1201183160/taylor-swift-instagram-voter-registration
When Taylor Swift speaks, her fans listen.
On Tuesday morning, the singer posted a short message on Instagram encouraging her 272 million followers to register to vote. Afterward, the website she directed her fans to — the nonpartisan nonprofit Vote.org — recorded more than 35,000 registrations, according to the organization.
"I've been so lucky to see so many of you guys at my U.S. shows recently. I've heard you raise your voices, and I know how powerful they are," she wrote on her Instagram Stories. "Make sure you're ready to use them in our elections this year!" Her post included a link to register at Vote.org.
The 35,252 new registrations on National Voter Registration Day were the most since 2020, the organization said, and a 23% jump over last year. The number of 18-year-olds registered was more than double 2022.
They know what's coming. They can't stop it.
The thing about an angry ideolog is everything is at play. There is nothing they feel they can't weight in on nothing that isn't part of the unseen all powerful enemy.
Like I told my eldest once "it is very unfortunate but you are going to meet people in life who are going to punish you for the crime of existing and them noting it".
I was always pretty skeptical about the impact Taylor Swift had on the 2018 election. There were a few other factors from 2016-2020 that definitely increased political involvement and compare 2014 to 2018 Senate voting numbers in any state. They all dramatically increased.
Also, Bredesen(the person Taylor endorsed) ended up losing.
I still fail to see anything resembling logic in the GOP
You could have just ended the comment there...
Taylor Swift for presidentress! 😅
Lmfao she's got no experience but might actually do a better job.
For the purpose of this discussion, let's take her lack of political experience off the table entirely.
I'm not a fan of her music by any stretch of the imagination, but she's got to one of the hardest working people in the industry with some of the best people working for her. In other words, she's everything Trump pretends to be, but for real.
She is LEGITIMATELY massively successful and became so while intentionally staying out of politics. She's a real version of everything the MAGA goons pretended made Trump a qualified candidate: an outsider who has their own money and is therefore immune to lobbying and/or corruption.
So by MAGA's own metric, she's ABSOLUTELY qualified for the position.
I have to agree. He will not.
He can’t even win a war with a crossword puzzle.
It wasn't Bill & Ted but actually Ms. Swift that might unite and save the future. What a timeline.
I really feel this is a Streisand Effect taking action. There's no way this doesn't make Taylor Swift more political.
Her voter-turnout drives will be massive for the election.
Oh and if you hear any of these people complain about celebrities, remind them that they got Clint Eastwood talking to an empty chair at the RNC in some demented rant.
Also Trump himself.
and Ronnie Raygun.
Swift's US adult fan base ... is unafraid to "go low"
The fan base is very large and in any group of that size there are going to be enough people willing to "go low" to form a mob. That doesn't mean that the average Swift fan is more willing to "go low" than the average person who isn't her fan. (I'm pretty sure that the average Swift fan is less willing to "go low" than the average Trump supporter.)
I doubt the average Swiftie is willing to decapitate a family member, yes
[sure, that guy is seriously mentally ill but it’s a very low bar for those people]
This is the best summary I could come up with:
After weeks of Republican media pundits and a former presidential candidate vilifying her, going as far as saying she's a Defense Department psy-op, it seems all but certain Trump will jump into the fray soon as well after Rolling Stone reported one of his confidants predicted a "holy war" against the pop sensation.
If that and the aforementioned survey are correct, that means there are nearly 137 million voting-age Swift supporters situated across the US, or approximately 60% of the total number of votes cast in the 2020 presidential election for either Biden or Trump.
Sure, many of those millions of conservative fans won't cross the aisle in retribution for sullying Swift's name, but Biden won nine states in 2020 by less than 100,000 votes.
If just a small fraction of Swift's Republican fans defect over such attacks, it could legitimately help Biden secure a second term in the White House.
A colleague of mine was baselessly slandered as a groomer and a pedophile, had their family doxxed, and received death threats from Swifties for the crime of simply enjoying Beyoncé's recent tour more than Swift's.
The Swifties' condemnation of that opinion, as minor as it was, highlights a major reason they're more dangerous to Trump's reelection plans than any Democratic leader in the country: While Democrats have routinely refused to "go low" instead of "high" responding to Trump's bullying, Swift fans have never held back and they're not held to the same standards and in positions of power.
The original article contains 460 words, the summary contains 249 words. Saved 46%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Everyone wants Taylor Swift to enter the political fray but I’d be a little wary if you value democracy. Swifties have a charismatic leader, are very organized, and everyone one of them likes to make five year plans and let 100 flowers bloom. We’ve seen that combination before and it got very messy for a few years.
I don't want Swift to be an actual candidate or anything, but I am amused that Trump picked this fight.
Frank Herbert has entered the chat.
I see a holy war spreading across the universe like unquenchable fire.
They call her Reverend Mother Taylor Swift
I'm not following what you're getting at. Are you suggesting that Taylor Swift is going to run for president?
No. I was suggesting she’s going to lead an army of Swifties and seize power after a violent civil war and become America’s version of Mao Zedong. Communist parties tend to make 5 year-plans. And when Mao came to power, he originally talked about “letting 100 flowers bloom” as a reference to allowing dissent and alternative ideas. That only lasted a couple of years before a crackdown (and then, after that, some much much worse events).
Donald Trump is losing the war against his own stupid mouth, of course he's not going to win against the Swifties.
To put that into perspective, the 2020 US Census found there are around 258.3 million adults in the country. If that and the aforementioned survey are correct, that means there are nearly 137 million voting-age Swift supporters situated across the US, or approximately 60% of the total number of votes cast in the 2020 presidential election for either Biden or Trump.
I've always said a third party vote is a waste.
But the vast majority of my presidential votes has been for candidates I think will be bad presidents, just a Republican would be worse.
If Tay Tay ran a third party campaign...
I'd vote for her in a heartbeat, literally every reason that's making me vote Biden is true for her as well. She has the support to pull it off, enough that if she ran, voting for Biden would be the "throwing your vote away" choice.
Even if she literally did nothing as president, that's better than Biden only doing some of the awful shit trump would do.
You son of a bitch, I’m in!
We have elected a movie star and a reality tv show figurehead, why not t-swift?
It's not even much of a joke.
Like, we have to put up with Dems favoring corporations and all types of shit because "that's what it takes to get elected".
But Taylor doesn't need to do that to get elected.
Her campaign could literally consist of a tweet saying:
I'm registered to run in the 2024 election
And her fans would take it from there.
The Democratic party just insists on running geriatrics that over 50% of the country hate. It's a terrible strategy, but that's what happens when the people coming up with the strategy are geriatrics over 50% of the country hates...
They're just going to keep saying they're the ones who should be in power, and since they're a private organization we have no other choices...
A billionaire celebrity is literally the only one who can win from outside the system and has a chance to fix it.
Reason 2,763 why America's political system is so fucked, only Tay Tay can save us
If Tay Tay ran a third party campaign
Gotta love the fame worshipping going on in this entire thread. People are fawning over one billionaire versus another.
If you're only comparing someone to trump or Biden, most people are going to seem like the "no brainer" pick for president.
It's what happens when Dems aim for just slightly better than Republicans' consistent "worst candidate of all time".
Ok... Part of me is having trouble not believing that Trump is trying to tank his entire campaign, while making it look like he's not trying to tank his entire campaign. Like, I don't think he really wanted to win last time, and I think having experienced the job he wants it even less this time, but he has to actually campaign and make a good show of it both for ego and staving off jail time reasons, so maybe he's waking up every morning going "...ok what if I wear a really obvious diaper under my pants? Maybe that'll make them stop voting for me..."
But most of me is just realizing, nah, he is actually legitimately making choices that are that stupid.
If it’s good enough for DeSantis to tank campaign creating fake drama vs cultural stars, it’s good enough for Trump
Remember when all the donnie dumbfucks thought that Taylor Swift was going to be their white nationalist queen?
I wonder how much of that has to do with all their incel rage that 1) no, she's not going to bang any of the incels and 2) nope, she's not some secret white nationalist...
She can run for office next time.
Battle of the mouth-breathers. Should be epic!
What a fucking stupid title - Swifties?
I am becoming less of a fan of our species... Just idiots as far as the eye can see.