Latest Republican obsession Taylor Swift
Of all the bizarre, circus-like political outbursts from Republicans in the past eight years or more, one of the silliest has to be the GOP’s explosion of fear over pop music star Taylor Swift. That Republican terror is set to peak this Sunday during the Super Bowl, which features the Kansas City Chiefs versus the San Francisco 49ers, and which is being played, appropriately, in Las Vegas.
For those few who haven’t been exposed to this latest circus, Taylor Swift is a singer-songwriter who has millions of fans, has won multiple Grammy awards, has sold approximately 200 million records worldwide (near the top of the all-time list for musical artists), and encourages her fans to register to vote. Swift also dates Kansas City Chiefs football player Travis Kelce. Swift often attends Kelce’s games, during which the broadcast network airing such games invariably turns the cameras on Swift, wearing a Chiefs jersey and cheering from the skybox, for a few fleeting seconds here and there.
The last two parts are what terrify Republicans, including those at Fox “News.” They have lashed out at Swift, the National Football League (NFL), and even President Joe Biden‘s administration. These Republicans first charged that Swift is part of a Biden administration “Pentagon psy-ops” effort. Okay, that doesn’t even make sense. Now Republicans also say that the NFL rigged the entire 2023-24 season in order to put the Chiefs into the Super Bowl so that Taylor Swift can be featured prominently for political reasons. Okay, that also doesn’t even … you get the idea.
So what is the Republicans’ obsession with Taylor Swift? For one thing, Republicans just hate it when more people vote. They know that more voting means more Democratic voting, which is why Republicans actively try to suppress voting each time. The funny part is, Swift simply asks her fans to vote. She doesn’t tell them which party to vote for. Republicans just assume that these fans (many, but certainly not all, of whom skew younger and female) will vote Democratic. That’s a tacit admission that Republican policies are very unfriendly to most American voters, unless maybe you are an older male white supremacist who runs an oil company.
Republicans also just hate powerful women. The list of women they have attacked, or continue to attack, is long, including Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rosie O’Donnell, and even Republican presidential candidate Nimrata “Nikki” Haley. Many Republicans would rather have their women subservient to men, quiet and at home cooking and birthing babies. Some Republicans don’t even want women to vote, let alone encourage others to vote. And Taylor Swift has certainly joined the ranks of powerful women, not just by influencing many fans to register to vote, but by having a significant effect on the U.S. economy. This is especially the case when Swift goes on tour, where she generates billions of dollars in ticket sales, tourism, travel, hotel bookings, merchandise, etc., in addition to her record sales. According to one analysis, “each of Swift’s shows is like the economic engine of the Super Bowl” (emphasis added).
So along with the cheering, eating and drinking that will take place among those watching the Super Bowl this Sunday, you can expect that the players won’t be the only ones sweating.
Photo by Jeremy Joung, used under Creative Commons license. https://shorturl.at/ar148
