Election 2024: How Taylor Swift is Another in the Endless Line of Pointless Electoral Battles Over Celebrity

 

I have spent as little time of the last twenty five years away from both cable news and social media, something I pride myself on. That doesn’t mean I can avoid the batshit conspiracy theories that are basically the pride and joy of conservative media  when it comes to the elections. From Hilary having Vince Foster murdered to the Swift Boaters to Hunter Biden I’ve heard them all – and I disregard them as noise.

Now while all of you leftists are taking victory laps, I need to emphasize your theories are just as nuts. That W won in 2000 when his brother was governor of Florida (an election where most of you were voting for Nader), that Ohio was rigged so that W would win reelection over Kerry, and some of the more recent historical ones such as the idea that the ONLY reason Reagan beat Carter was because he convinced Iran that they would get a better deal from his administration if they didn’t release the hostages until AFTER the 1980 election. I’ll be honest that one was crazier than anything I’d ever heard said about Hilary. I also don’t like when the parties close ranks around their leaders and argue partisan attacks as conspiracy theories. In hindsight I’m not thrilled that the Democrats closed ranks around Bill Clinton, whose history makes him look pretty much like a sexual predator, was the victim of a Republican witch hunt. Don’t worry, the left’s not defending him anymore. Not because of the sexual harassment but because his Presidency was too conservative for their ideals. Priorities, you know.

But I have to say the one that is currently circulating has to be some kind of record. Now I’m not going to watch the Super Bowl next week because I don’t like football, but according to Fox News, it has been rigged so the Chiefs can win the game. After which Taylor Swift will apparently run on to the field, kiss Travis Kelce (or maybe have celebration sex, I’m not sure) do an impromptu version of the Eras Tour, and at the end give an impassioned speech urging all of her fans and every single person who is watching to vote for Joe Biden this November. This apparently will cause millions of Americans, none of whom had no minds of their own, to reject their long-sworn beliefs and cross party lines to give Biden the biggest landslide in history ten months later.

Now I know how crazy this sounds just by writing, but I’m also just as sure that if this exact series of events does not take place, there will be a sizable contingent of leftists who are infuriated at Taylor Swift for not seizing the opportunity.

I’ll get to the reason why, like everything else that has to do with celebrity today, both sides of the political spectrum clearly have misread Taylor Swift’s power, but before I get there, this is as good a time as any to talk about the perceived influence celebrity has on electoral politics.

Ever since Frank Sinatra campaigned for JFK in 1960, the Democratic Party has had this conception of Hollywood that basically comes down to the following:

1.        Celebrities are extremely popular and carry influence.

2.      We need many people to help us win elections.

3.      If we are close to Hollywood, we will win more elections.

Never mind that Sinatra campaigned with JFK because Peter Lawford at the time was one of JFK’s in-laws or that Sinatra could not help JFK carry California. Never mind that Sinatra was rejected by the Kennedys immediately after the inauguration and became a Republican. The Democrats have held to this myth ever since.

 

There is no proof in the last sixty years that the presence of Hollywood has ever helped the Democratic Party. On the contrary, it does more to make them seem elitist with the mainstream voters. Shirley MacLaine was a member of the California delegation for George McGovern in 1972; McGovern lost 49 of 50 states. Warren Beatty was one of Gary Hart’s closest friends; that never got Hart’s campaign of McGovern  or his two subsequent campaigns for the Democratic nomination anywhere. Reagan’s ‘speech’ for Goldwater didn’t help prevent an LBJ landslide and it took sixteen years – and a near complete rejection of all things related to Hollywood – for Reagan to win the White House. In my lifetime I have never seen the influence of Hollywood help any candidate win the Presidency. I will acknowledge that Oprah’s backing of Obama might have helped him with the Democratic primary; given the circumstances of the 2008 election, I’m unconvinced it would have been a factor in him winning the Presidency.

And having seen so many campaigns involving celebrities and politicians on either side of aisle, all the presence of a celebrity on the trail ever does, is make the politician look even more awkward and out of touch by comparison. The movie stars or singers often will too, to be sure, but they have enough charisma that they can wash it off. The political figures always look like hanger-on’s desperately hoping to glean coolness by association. The idea of Joe Biden on the same platform with Taylor Swift and anyone even thinking that she would even talk to him under other circumstances is laughable.

The reason the Republicans are obsessed with the idea is fundamentally entirely the Democrats doing. All of this has nothing to do with whether Democrats agree with anything celebrities do or say; they are only doing this for the money. There’s also the fact that, given conservative media’s knee-jerk reaction to anything any major celebrity does as ‘destroying America’  that they do this not so much for hope of popular support but to get in the heads of Republicans and conservative media. Honestly every time any Fox News commentator says anything about Hollywood, they’re playing into Democrats hands: they know it’s the easiest way possible to get a temporary ally without any work and that’s the kind of thing they like.

And when it comes to Taylor Swift, the Democrats – and interestingly the left-wing – could not give a damn what they actually think. This is the heart of what the conservative media and Republicans have never truly gotten about the relationship between celebrities and so many Americans. They’re not going to like them more because of their values; if anything, the opposite is true. If celebrities don’t have values that leftists and identity groups like, they will reject them.

I need bring up no more clear example of this than J.K. Rowling. An entire generation of children grew up loving her books and films while so many on the Christian right considering a godless harridan because she was, in their minds, promoting an ‘agenda that did not have Christian values’. I remember that many parent’s groups wanted her books pulled from shelves in libraries across America throughout the 2000s.

Now a new generation of young people – who either know nothing about previous attacks on Rowling’s and just as likely would not change their opinion if they did -  want the writer ‘cancelled’, not because of her books but because of her views on the transgender communities. I’ve read many posts and I have little doubt many would want to see the Harry Potter books pulled from school libraries, if not outright banned. The fact that these books take place in the midst of a magical world that deals with battles involving prejudice, racism and bigotry is an irony they will ignore if it does fit their world view; if anything, they would use it as an example as to how clueless Rowling is about the world and another reason her books should be banned.

All of the Sturm und Drang about Swift has nothing to do with Taylor Swift but rather what both sides want from her. For all the public persona Swift has, she has done very little to express views on politics or social issues – something, it’s worth noting many on the left are angry with her about. In essence she is Schrodinger’s celebrity: both sides are obsessed with her more about what she might represent, rather than what she actually thinks.

There’s no evidence, for the record, Swift has any political clout at all. In 2018, she actively campaigned for Phil Brissenden, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Tennessee against Marsha Blackburn. Blackburn won in a landslide – I think the margin was about ten percentage points. If Swift couldn’t convince voters to come out in her home state, there’s no evidence she has similar clout in a general election: something everybody on both sides of the political spectrum seems to have forgotten.

But let’s engage in some magical thinking. Suppose this scenario that the right is so sure will happen starts to play out. The Chiefs win, Swift comes down to kiss Kelce and shouts to the millions watching – to vote for Nikki Haley. “Us Southern belles have to stick together against the patriarchy!” she might shout. (I’m guessing; I know nothing about Swift at all, even in regard to her music.)

Now I know the leftists are shouting: Taylor would never do that! She’s registered as a Democrat. I’d ask: “How do you know she’s just not a Never-Trumper?” She’s from Tennessee, which as you love to remind us is a deep red state and Swift is, as you have repeatedly said, the only good person to come out of it. For all you know, she spent her years when she was becoming a singer listening to Rush on the radio and watching Tucker Carlson. After all, according to ‘reliable sources’  that’s what the people in ‘that part of the country’ all do.

But she tweeted about being pro-choice!, you cry. How do you know she’s not a fiscal conservative? After all, she is a billionaire, something you love to point out in your articles praising her. She has as much reason to want to have tax breaks as all the other rich white people you spend your time berating.

I realize I have reached a level of absurdity here but that’s the point of this article that both sides have to fundamentally grasp about all celebrities, not just Taylor Swift. There has never been any evidence that a celebrity’s personal views have any electoral effect, and that’s the way it should be. Not just for politics, but for all of us. I say that this someone who spends most of his time following Hollywood for a living; the only things I care about a celebrity are about the work they do and the level of their performance. Anything else is background noise. If you truly believe that the only reason you should watch a celebrity’s work or reject it is because of how they think on a certain issue, you seriously don’t seem to have a grasp of any part of art.

I speak only for myself on this, but I’ve never cared. Would I be upset to learn if Bob Odenkirk was a secret MAGA follower or if Phoebe Waller-Bridge voted for Leave? A bit. But I’d get over it and it certainly wouldn’t change what I thought about how much I loved their work in Better Call Saul or Fleabag.

I can not for the life of me get why so many seemingly intelligent people tend to use what celebrities think about a certain issue or their politics and use it to argue that they themselves are representative of everything that’s wrong with society. Should I stop watching Chapelle’s Show because of his views on transgenders? Should I not watch Monty Python reruns because John Cleese has taken views that are more conservative than I like? Should I not enjoy Dead Man Walking because Susan Sarandon has taken an anti-Israel view? Should I stop watching The Good Wife reruns because Juliana Margulies has taken an anti-Palestine view? Should I never watch any episodes of Ray Donovan because Jon Voight supported Trump in his first two campaigns for President? And most importantly, should all of these celebrities not ever be allowed to work again because they have expressed these views, something they are more than entitled to do in a society with freedom of speech?

I know the answer this question already. Because whenever I pose an article acknowledging support for their rights to their opinions, I am called a bigot myself and worse guilty of holding the same opinions these celebrities have.  There should be a point separating celebrities and their work. This generation, social media and political extremism have made this all but impossible.

I don’t pretend to have the answers. But I have a suggestion to both Republican and Democrats in regard to everything involving celebrities.

First Democrats. If you want to break the impression that you are not the party of coastal elites, making campaign stops with film stars, TV stars or pop stars is not the way to do it. It hasn’t worked for you in sixty years; it’s not going to magically start working any time soon.

Next, Republicans. You’ve got a lot of problems. A lot. But you have to stop letting Hollywood occupy so much space in your head rent-free. Hollywood – and honestly everything regarding celebrity – is as fiscally conservative as it always has been. They’re still doing the same thing they’ve done for 100 years; they’re following the money. Every time you make a big stink about something like this, you really make the job easier for the Democrats and the left, something I’d think you’d have learned by now (but I get that’s not going to change any time soon.)

And finally to everybody, Taylor Swift is not the swing voter you think she is. Many of the people who follow her are under eighteen and can not vote yet. The idea that they are distributed evenly enough to swing the balance in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania is so laughable, I don’t know why anyone thinks its buyable. I know the last eight years have thrown everything we thought we knew about politics out of proportion but the idea a pop singer could convince blue collar voters to vote by singing ‘Shake It Off’ shouldn’t be plausible. And trust me, if she ever appears on the same stage as EITHER presumptive nominee, they’ll both look thirty years older, something neither side wants to remind their base about.

That said, enjoy the Super Bowl. Me, I’ll be doing what I always do, watching alternative programming and waiting for  it to end. I’m curious to see if Tracker is any good.