“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.”
We’re about 80% of the way to Idiocracy.
We’re past Idiocracy. President Camacho listened to the smartest person in the room. Trump thinks he is the smartest person in the room.
Trump knows he’s not the smartest person in the room. Trump wants to claim to be the smartest person in the room, and enjoys watching nobody correct him. That makes him feel like the most powerful person in the room. He doesn’t care who the smartest is, as long as he gets to claim it and all the credit for everything smarter people do near him.
Nitpick: He’s gone on record as saying he doesn’t hire people who he thinks is smarter than he is.
That’s part of the kink. He says that so that smart people who want to work for him will tell him they think he is smarter than they are. It’s a power move. Like the handshake thing.
After I got out of a relationship with a malignant narcissist, I realized that everything they do and say is a power move. They live in a world without objective reality. They cannot tell the truth because they function for a delusion. While you are thinking that you’re having a conversation sharing ideas, they’re observing you up and down to measure your strengths, weaknesses, social power, and threat to their social power. They listen intently to create a character they will present to you so that you enmesh with them. They run little secret experiments to learn how you react to things. Once they’ve figured you out, you’re going to have a bad time. The sad thing is that underlying all this, is that they feel deeply insecure. They confuse envy for love. The more of an asshole a malignant narcissist is, the more they’re telling the world they’re insecure because the more they want people to envy them, which means the more they need love in their delusional world. Trump is extraordinarily insecure.
When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.
That’s being generous…
who has ‘pop star saves democracy’ on their bingo card?
Isn’t that the plot from half a dozen 1980s movies?
Shit. Is she actually Kevin fucking Bacon‽
I feel like this was a Jem and the Holograms episode.
“Truly Outrageous!”
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
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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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You know what? It’s kinda nice that it may come down to mainstream culture to bring this poison down. It just highlights how different our culture is from our politics. I’m not sure I have point.
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and it’s well made
I’d say it is now that you helped.
Don’t forget abortion.
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I’m sure there’s a blank space for it.
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
Having watched Fox News from time to time I am amazed that this kind of thing hasn’t yet started happening more often.
Bro what the fuck
I read your comment, then I read the article. Well said
You know what’s telling me the real truth? The TV. You know who’s a horrifying enemy who can’t be trusted? My dad.
(Only some parts of the TV; the others are all horrible dangerous lies)
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 usually backfires though.
Yeah, maybe so. I hadn’t really realized it before you said this, but historically the violence that helps usher in a fascist takeover is either police violence or big, public, mob-style events – not this sneaking around planting pipe bombs nonsense. I think you may well be right that stochastic terrorism ultimately inspires more resistance then obedience.
The only analogs I can even think of where a successful fascist takeover was accompanied by terrorism in secret, are the Reichstag fire and the false-flags from Putin’s early days – and both of those inspired a strong reaction against the party that, supposedly, was the one that had perpetrated them.
although getting a lot of people who are apolitical but have progressive values to pay attention by bombing their favorite pop star isn’t going to have a favorable outcome for the bombers
Maybe, but I don’t see how that would end up helping Republicans, so if that does happen, it will be some lone crazy. That’s always a risk.
That’s a bit extreme, isn’t it? I mean, they’re just music fans.
I see you’re not familiar with their work
I was making a joke about Swifties. ;)
Ah got it
We’re talking US politics, no jokes, only dread and unhappiness allowed here
🙂
After 8 years of whatever Democrats claim they’re doing, Donald Trump may have finally encountered opponents who are interested in fighting back.
I really, really want the history books to say that Taylor Swift was responsible for Trump losing by a landslide.
It’s oddly fitting for this cursed timeline
You’re right, it fits all too well. I’m not currently really a Taylor Swift fan but I would buy every album if she did that
The real plot 🤪
Yeah, Democrats think this is what fighting back looks like.
You’d prefer civil war and your own brand of fascism instead or Democracy?
You would prefer [strawman]?
If you’re going to argue with me, argue with me, not the fictional version of me you’ve constructed.
Donald Trump is by definition a demagogue and proto-fascist. Given the opportunity, and using the document the GOP drafted entitled “Project 2025”, we can see that a 2nd Trump administration would dismantle the system of checks and balances that provide equality across the 3 branches of government in favor of a unilateral (authoritarian) executive branch. So it’s not a strawman, it’s what the GOP has announced they’ll do in 2025 should Trump retake the WH.
Then maybe Democrats should actually fight against it, like I said, instead of making a huge deal about half-assed efforts.
None of that means I want Republicans to win or accomplish their goals. Now point to something else Republicans want and baselessly accuse me of wanting it too because I don’t buy your apologia for Democrats’ deliberate uselessness.
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.
Ray-gun was a Trump precursor. It was Bush Sr. that took a step back from the brink and went back to just being an awful jackass.
Yup. All of the problems in the US are basically a game of “6 degrees from Reagan”
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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.
Love the John Prine line!
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.
You should try to sit down with her and watch, “The Brainwashing of my Dad” documentary. See if anything resonates with her at all.
Alternatively remind her that the RNC had Clint Eastwood speak at the convention, talking to an empty chair strangely…
She is stuck on that side. If she knows some kind of news or information is not sanctioned by Fox News she automatically either avoids listening to it in the first place, or discounts it immediately. Even on just local news (and this is a very conservative area, at least this half of the state) if they say something about gay people, or just mention a gay event and if they don’t immediately say something negative about it, she just rolls her eyes.
Even with a TV show she likes, if gay characters do a gay thing (omg 2 dudes kissing!) she will literally make the noise… Umm what is the word for it… Retching, I think? Whatever the barf noise is called. She will literally make that noise and look away from the screen.
There is nothing rational about this kind of behavior, you can’t win this argument. The chess board is already on the floor here.
So I don’t know anything about that documentary, but if she has any reason to think it’s not sponsored by Fox News, it’s literally just fiction at best and “Communist Marxist propaganda” at worst.
Yeah that’s sad but I can completely understand. Religions have been abusing this for eons and now it’s being used directly for a political ideology. There comes a point where reason doesn’t even matter.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Same. I don’t listen to her, but my kids love her. She’s cool and aspirational. She’s a great role model.
Indeed. As is Lizzo, as long as your kids can handle a little profanity.
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’ve heard a few of her songs out of curiosity, but I’m just not into modern pop music. She obviously has a lot of talent, she’s just not musically for me.
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.
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.
I mean, check all the numbers around the country. Obviously numbers are going to increase closer to election season, especially another very controversial one.
Let’s just hope Swift isnt the big moving force, since the candidates she endorsed in Tenessee in 2018 lost while she was getting the same type of news stories
Meh, Tennessee is Tennessee. Can’t expect much from there. I suspect they simply would’ve lost by wider margins. The key question is how her generalized drive for voter turnout influences youth turnout in hotly-contested swing-states. When youth turn out, Democrats win. 2022 midterms proved that.
Is Taylor Swift’s fan base still “youth”?
Good question. I found this: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1416130/share-of-us-respondents-who-consider-themselves-taylor-swift-fans-age
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.
