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US rights fear Taylor Swift
Taylor Swift at an NFL game in Baltimore. photo
© Julio Cortez/AP/dpa
Megastar, gamer girlfriend – and Pentagon secret agent? Right-wingers in the USA are aware of Taylor Swift’s popularity. They are worried that the singer could become politically active before the election.
In the midst of the election campaign in the USA, conspiracy theories about superstar Taylor Swift are gaining momentum in right-wing circles. The background is that the successful singer supported Democrat Joe Biden before the 2020 presidential election and has since repeatedly urged her fans to vote.
The agitation from the right against Swift gained new momentum after football player Travis Kelce’s team qualified for the Super Bowl in a week and a half. The Super Bowl is the sporting event of the year in the USA and Kelce Taylor’s boyfriend. The relationship between the two had recently received a lot of attention, also because the 34-year-old was present at Kelce’s team’s games – and then all eyes were on her.
“I wonder who will win the Super Bowl,” wrote ex-Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy on X (formerly Twitter). “And I wonder who an artificially hyped couple will support as a presidential candidate this fall.” Republicans fear that Swift could use her as-yet-unconfirmed presence at the event to campaign for Biden and his Democrats. “This woman has made a career out of writing songs about electing the wrong man,” a spokeswoman for former President Donald Trump said earlier this week. It is therefore to be expected that she will also bet on the wrong man in the presidential election on November 5th.
Pentagon disagrees
But conspiracy theories about Swift were already making the rounds in right-wing circles. The absurd speculation went so far that the Pentagon felt compelled to take a stand in mid-January. Moderator Jesse Watters had previously suggested in his TV show on the right-wing conservative Fox News that Swift could be a secret agent for the US Department of Defense. “As far as this conspiracy theory is concerned, we will shake it off,” said spokeswoman Sabrina Singh in a statement to Politico – in English, she made a tongue-in-cheek reference to Swift’s mega-hit “Shake It Off” and made other puns.
Swift has enormous influence among her fans and has around 279 million followers on the Instagram platform. Swift caused a particular stir among Trump fans in 2018. At that time, she took a political stand for the first time and opposed the ultra-radical candidate for the US Senate, Marsha Blackburn. Trump jumped to Blackburn’s defense, saying he liked Swift’s music “about 25 percent less” now. Although Blackburn won the vote, poll watchers noted a significant increase in young voter registration following Swift’s comments. It is not yet clear whether Taylor will be present at the Super Bowl – nor whether she will openly support a party before the election in November.