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    The voting bloc that could decide the US election: Swifties

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    After weeks of maddening speculation over whom Taylor Swift might support in the 2024 US presidential elections, the venerated pop star finally revealed her endorsement: the right to vote itself.“Vote the people who most represent YOU into power,” Swift urged fans in an Instagram story amid Super Tuesday’s primary elections, perhaps the last chance to stop Donald Trump from once again seizing the Republican nomination for president.Although Swift could still endorse a candidate in the months ahead, her “no comment” on who should win on Super Tuesday was a noted refusal to engage in party politics at this stage. Joe Biden’s campaign is still jockeying for her endorsement, while Trump has said Swift would be “disloyal” for backing Biden and rightwingers have suggested that her 18-year career is a “psy op” – a ludicrous theory that nearly one in five Americans have said they believe.What is true, though, is that Swift currently possesses unprecedented power: an endorsement from the most beloved singer in the United States could potentially tip the balance in what’s likely to be a close election. A reported billionaire, Swift can reroute economies, trigger congressional action and spur tens of thousands of people to register to vote. While her endorsement is unlikely to sway a voter who is undecided between Trump and Biden – if such an American exists – experts believe Swift could convince people who don’t feel energized by Biden to vote for him anyway.But whether Swift will wield that power or instead stay out of the electoral fray remains unclear. Although Swift endorsed Democrats in 2018, she has in recent years increasingly withdrawn from such overt displays of partisanship or making controversial statements. That change that has coincided with her return to the top of the celebrity food chain and, in the process, left some Swifties feeling like their idol could do better.View image in fullscreen“She’s at the height of her popularity right now, so I think she’s probably pretty hesitant to do any sort of political activism,” said Jared Quigg, a 22-year-old Indiana journalist who said he listened to Swift every day. “But because of the influence she has, if she came out and called for a ceasefire in Gaza, I think that … would put more pressure on the US government, especially if Biden wants her endorsement.“I don’t think that’s an exaggeration,” Quigg added. “She is one of the most popular people in the world.”So are Swifties a voting bloc the parties should be targeting?Usually portrayed as a blur of sequin-wearing women draped in friendship bracelets, Swifties are not quite so homogeneous as they may seem. More than half of Americans identify as Swift fans and 16% say they are “avid fans”, according to a March 2023 Morning Consult poll that was conducted before the launch of Swift’s Eras tour. While the avid fans are mostly white and suburban, 48% are men, contrary to the popular perception that Swift’s music appeals largely to women.If about one in six Americans is a Swiftie, there is simply no way they’ll all agree – on Swift, or on anything else.However, there is a clear political tilt within Swiftiedom. Swift’s own politics lean to the left, and her listeners follow suit: more than half of her avid fans are Democrats, while 23% are Republicans and another 23% are independents.Swift has long taken a pragmatic approach to politics. She timed her Instagram post endorsing Democrats in the 2018 midterms to hit the internet after the US leg of her Reputation tour concluded, breaking her career-long silence on politics but shielding herself from red-state backlash. Swift then portrayed her next album, Lover, as an embrace of liberalism and love – including queer love, in the song You Need to Calm Down.By any normal artist’s standard, both Reputation and Lover were wildly successful, but neither album sold quite as well as 2014’s 1989. Notably, neither garnered many Grammy nods; in her 2020 documentary Miss Americana, which tracked Swift’s political awakening, Swift was devastated by the snub to Reputation.Yet, at her (extremely relative) commercial lowest – and when politics could feed into the personal narrative linked to Lover – Swift was willing to use her cachet for divisive political causes. In May 2020, when that year’s presidential nomination process was all but sewn up – much like this year’s Super Tuesday – Swift took to the platform then known as Twitter to spit at Trump: “After stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism your entire presidency, you have the nerve to feign moral superiority before threatening violence? ‘When the looting starts the shooting starts’??? We will vote you out in November.”Today, three original albums and one Ticketmaster-breaking world tour later, Swift has managed to soar past even the stratospheric heights of her 1989 fame, becoming as ubiquitous as gravity and just as untouchable. Yet after endorsing Democrats in 2018 and 2020, including Biden, she only urged fans to “vote” in the 2022 midterm elections, just as she did on Super Tuesday.“I feel like a lot of the things that she has spoken out about are things that are directly benefiting her if they go one way or negatively affecting if they go the other way,” said Jess Simpson, a 21-year-old who is a member of the University of Oregon Taylor Swift Society, which holds Swift-related karaoke and trivia events. “She claims to be a feminist, but that’s not what that is. It’s not just speaking out about the things that you fall into. It’s about reaching past that.”Ryan Kovatch, who also belongs to the University of Oregon Taylor Swift Society, was frustrated to see the Eras tour visit states that had passed laws attacking the rights of LGBTQ+ children.View image in fullscreenSwift did give a short, relatively vague speech about those laws and Pride month. “There have been so many harmful pieces of legislation that have put people in the LGBTQ and queer community at risk,” Swift told a Chicago crowd in June. “It’s painful for everyone, every ally, every loved one, every person of these communities, and that’s why I’m always posting, ‘This is when the midterms are, this is when these important key primaries are.’”Meanwhile, far less successful artists, such as Swift’s friend Haley Kiyoko, took a risk by bringing drag queens on stage in Tennessee after the state passed a law banning drag shows. Ariana Grande, whose fame comes closer to Swift’s, has publicly pledged to donate more than $1m to fight bills targeting transgender people.“It feels like the stakes have gotten higher and she’s backed off pretty starkly,” Kovatch said. “It is strongly disappointing, as a member of the LGBT community, to see that and see the potential there and watch it be foregone time and time again.“Especially using the rainbow during the You Need to Calm Down set,” Kovatch added, referring to a song in which Swift struts amid rainbow lights and proclaims her support for LGBTQ+ rights.“What is there to lose? You have billions of dollars,” asked Trey Pokorny, a 21-year-old whose drag persona is Treylor Swift and another member of the University of Oregon Taylor Swift Society. “Small artists – their careers can be canceled by a tweet. It takes so much more than a tweet to end Taylor Swift.”Swifties have also repeatedly raised eyebrows at Swift’s use of private jets. In 2022, Yard named Swift as the celebrity with the worst CO2 emissions; a Reddit post about the topic on the main subreddit for Taylor Swift fans triggered more than 2,000 comments.“It’s a little rough to see how many celebrities abuse their power of flying all over the place in their private jets and clogging up the environment,” said 19-year-old Addy Al-Saigh, who said she paid $2,000 to sit in nosebleed seats at the Eras tour. But, she added: “In the end, I know that there’s not really much I can do about it.”If Swift does endorse Biden, Al-Saigh said she would probably direct her Pennsylvania college’s Swift fan club to get involved in the 2024 elections. “If she came out and actually did that, I think I would have a reason to also put it up and say, ‘Go vote for Biden,’ because we’re related to Taylor,” she said.View image in fullscreenWhen it came to the 2024 elections, the Swifties who the Guardian spoke to said they were confident any Swift endorsement would ultimately be for Biden – a move they support. (Or, at least, preferred to the alternative.) But Quigg also cautioned fans to think for themselves.“I generally believe that people should not get their politics from a pop star,” he said. “At the end of the day, she’s a songwriter. She’s not a political genius.”He’s not sure fellow fans share that view. He recently saw a post on X declaring: “I definitely believe Taylor could convince Swifties to do a January 6.”“There is something to that,” Quigg said. More

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      Taylor Swift can teach us all a lesson in how democracy works | Margaret Sullivan

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      If you’re any kind of a Taylor Swift fan, you’ve seen the footage of the pop star arguing with her father. The subject is politics. Or, more specifically, whether Taylor should express herself publicly on political issues and candidates, in this case in defense of women’s reproductive rights.Dad makes the case against it. In protective mode, he wants his daughter to stay in her lane: music. It’s not good for her safety or her career or her mental health to go prancing through this minefield of controversy, alienating people and drawing abusers along the way. One of her managers agrees – does she really want to see only half as many people at her next show?Taylor is, at times, in tears. Speaking out about her core beliefs is simply something she feels a moral obligation to do, she tells her father. And, of course, she does just that – in fact, eventually, she went so far as to endorse Joe Biden for president in 2020. (It must have worked; he did win, after all, despite what certain ex-presidents would have you believe.)Swift spoke out again this week when she urged her fans to take some basic democratic action.“I wanted to remind you guys to vote the people who most represent you into power,” Swift said on her Instagram story on Super Tuesday. “If you haven’t already, make a plan to vote today.”In this case, she wasn’t pushing for a specific candidate – merely telling her millions of followers to be engaged citizens. It wasn’t just “vote” – it was “make a plan to vote”. Swift was specific: she told people to check the locations and hours of their polling places, in her state of Tennessee and beyond.For November, “make a plan to vote” means getting registered, something that Swift has urged before, and which has resulted in voting registration spikes in the tens of thousands. The Biden campaign, of course, hopes that she’ll go further eventually and endorse him again.But even this basic message is important. And simple though it is, it made some people angry. Why can’t she shut up and just be an entertainer, they seemed to think? The Guardian reported one response posted on social media: “WOW: Taylor Swift has officially begun interfering in the 2024 election. She tells her young female fans to vote the candidate that ‘most represents you into power’.”Horrors! Representative government at work! There’s a strong “stay in your lane” vibe from that and other negative responses.I admire Swift for using her vast influence for something important. And she serves as a good role model for the rest of us. We may not have her mass numbers of followers – no one does – but we can all play a role in sustaining American democracy, which is looking rather fragile right now.Last year, when I interviewed scholars, authors and commentators on my podcast, American Crisis, I asked each of them for a pro-democracy “call to action” for both the media and for citizens. They had plenty of pointed advice for the media – like prioritizing journalism’s public service mission instead of focusing on polls, the horserace and chasing clicks. And they were in general agreement about what regular people – non-celebrities – can do.“We face a really existential choice about the type of country we want to have and how we want to be governed,” the author Garrett Graff warned. He added that he had been shocked at how radically and quickly the guardrails of democracy have crumbled in recent years and how “cynically” the news media has played along for the sake of profit.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSo, Graff counseled, citizens need to be intensely focused on the stakes – the consequences – of the coming presidential election and down-ballot elections as well. And to act accordingly.As Ruth Ben-Ghiat told me, staying well-informed is crucial. An expert in authoritarian leaders and the author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, she knows how important it is that citizens resist the temptation to tune out and throw up our hands. Taking advantage of a passive electorate is one way that strongmen manage to gain power.Democracy, by its nature, requires participation. You have to give a damn. That can mean donating to a campaign, volunteering as a poll worker, helping people to register or to get to a voting location. And make your own plan to vote; then carry it out.Being an engaged, vocal citizen isn’t the easiest thing to do, as Taylor Swift’s father tried to tell her.But she went ahead anyway. And so should we all.
      Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture More

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      Taylor Swift endorsement ‘classified’, jokes Joe Biden on Seth Meyers

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      Joe Biden joked that a potential 2024 endorsement by Taylor Swift is “classified” as he made a rare media appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers.Biden’s arrival was apparently a surprise to the audience. He stepped on stage after the announced guest – the comedian and actor Amy Poehler – noted that Biden when vice-president had been a guest on Meyers’s first show. Poehler said she could get him to return, prompting Biden to enter.“It’s good to be back,” Biden told Meyers. “Why haven’t you invited me earlier?”Going into this year’s presidential election, Biden is seeking additional ways to reach out to voters, having largely avoided White House press conferences and on-the-record sit-down interviews. Biden also skipped the traditional pre-Super Bowl presidential interview.Biden has faced criticism as the most media shy president of modern times. Since taking office he has done 86 interviews, compared with 300 by Trump and 422 by Barack Obama at the same point in their presidencies, according to data collected by the nonpartisan White House Transition Project.During the interview, Meyers quizzed Biden about a conspiracy theory spread among some conservatives that Swift and Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce are part of an elaborate plot to help Democrats win the November election.“Can you confirm or deny that there is an active conspiracy between you and Miss Swift?” Meyers asked.“Where are you getting this information, it’s classified,” Biden replied, adding that Swift endorsed him for president in 2020. Meyers followed up to ask if she would endorse Biden again, prompting the president to laughingly add: “I told you it’s classified.”Biden, who at 81 is the oldest-ever US president, also addressed concerns about his age, saying: “You got to take a look at the other guy, he’s about as old as I am, but he can’t remember his wife’s name.”It was an apparent reference to Donald Trump’s appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference last weekend, in which the former president praised his wife, Melania, and also referenced “Mercedes” – Mercedes Schlapp, his former aide who helps run the group and was in the audience. Some on social media, as well as Meyers in his monologue, suggested that Trump had used the wrong name for his wife.Biden added that what truly matters is “how old your ideas are” and proceeded to blast Trump and Republicans for supporting rolling back abortion access and other policies that have been “solid American positions” for decades.The president also criticised Trump for praising those who participated in the Capitol insurrection on 6 January 2021, and for pledging to pardon those who assaulted police officers and tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election.“That’s what happens in eastern European countries,” Biden said. “That’s not what happens in America.”Meyers has taken frequent jabs at Trump, and devoted much of his show before Biden’s appearance to criticising the former president and Republicans over a court ruling that upended in vitro fertilisation treatment in Alabama.He also criticised some Democrats who have tried to inoculate Biden from any criticism, playing a clip of senator John Fetterman who said those doing so might as well be supporting Trump.“Criticising or mocking our leaders is a healthy thing in a democracy,” Meyers said. “I mean, Joe Biden seems to be able to take a joke. We here at Late Night make jokes about him all the time.” More

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      Why do so many Americans believe the Taylor Swift and Joe Biden conspiracy? – podcast

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      Just under a fifth of Americans believe Taylor Swift is part of a conspiracy to help Joe Biden win re-election in November, a new poll found this week. The global pop star has been a regular feature at NFL games since September, when she was first spotted linking arms with the Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
      Before the Chiefs won the Super Bowl on Sunday, rightwing commentators had suggested the championship was rigged by the Biden administration and Swift was secretly helping in order to sway the election in November.
      So where did this conspiracy theory come from? Why are conservatives so obsessed with Swift? And did the Biden team do the right thing by jokingly feeding the conspiracy? Jonathan Freedland speaks to Nikki McCann Ramírez of Rolling Stone magazine to try to figure it out

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      AI firm considers banning creation of political images for 2024 elections

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      The groundbreaking artificial intelligence image-generating company Midjourney is considering banning people from using its software to make political images of Joe Biden and Donald Trump as part of an effort to avoid being used to distract from or misinform about the 2024 US presidential election.“I don’t know how much I care about political speech for the next year for our platform,” Midjourney’s CEO, David Holz, said last week, adding that the company is close to “hammering” – or banning – political images, including those of the leading presidential candidates, “for the next 12 months”.In a conversation with Midjourney users in a chatroom on Discord, as reported by Bloomberg, Holz went on to say: “I know it’s fun to make Trump pictures – I make Trump pictures. Trump is aesthetically really interesting. However, probably better to just not, better to pull out a little bit during this election. We’ll see.”AI-generated imagery has recently become a concern. Two weeks ago, pornographic imagery featuring the likeness of Taylor Swift triggered lawmakers and the so-called Swifties who support the singer to demand stronger protections against AI-generated images.The Swift images were traced back to 4chan, a community message board often linked to the sharing of sexual, racist, conspiratorial, violent or otherwise antisocial material with or without the use of AI.Holz’s comments come as safeguards created by image-generator operators are playing a game of cat-and-mouse with users to prevent the creation of questionable content.AI in the political realm is causing increasing concern, though the MIT Technology Review recently noted that discussion about how AI may threaten democracy “lacks imagination”.“People talk about the danger of campaigns that attack opponents with fake images (or fake audio or video) because we already have decades of experience dealing with doctored images,” the review noted. It added: “We’re unlikely to be able to attribute a surprising electoral outcome to any particular AI intervention.”Still, the image-generation company Inflection AI said in October that the company’s chatbot, Pi, would not be allowed to advocate for any political candidate. Co-founder Mustafa Suleyman told a Wall Street Journal conference that chatbots “probably [have] to remain a human part of the process” even if they function perfectly.Meta’s Facebook said last week that it plans to label posts created using AI tools as part of a broader effort to combat election-year misinformation. Microsoft-affiliated OpenAI has said it will add watermarks to images made with its platforms to combat political deepfakes produced by AI.“Protecting the integrity of elections requires collaboration from every corner of the democratic process, and we want to make sure our technology is not used in a way that could undermine this process,” the company said in a blog post last month.OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman said at an event recently: “The thing that I’m most concerned about is that with new capabilities with AI … there will be better deepfakes than in 2020.”In January, a faked audio call purporting to be Joe Biden telling New Hampshire voters to stay home illustrated the potential of AI political manipulation. The FCC later announced a ban on AI-generated voices in robocalls.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“What we’re really realizing is that the gulf between innovation, which is rapidly increasing, and our consideration – our ability as a society to come together to understand best practices, norms of behavior, what we should do, what should be new legislation – that’s still moving painfully slow,” David Ryan Polgar, the president of the non-profit All Tech Is Human, previously told the Guardian.Midjourney software was responsible for a fake image of Trump being handcuffed by agents. Others that have appeared online include Biden and Trump as elderly men knitting sweaters co-operatively, Biden grinning while firing a machine gun and Trump meeting Pope Francis in the White House.The software already has a number of safeguards in place. Midjourney’s community standards guidelines prohibit images that are “disrespectful, harmful, misleading public figures/events portrayals or potential to mislead”.Bloomberg noted that what is permitted or not permitted varies according to the software version used. An older version of Midjourney produced an image of Trump covered in spaghetti, but a newer version did not.But if Midjourney bans the generation of AI-generated political images, consumers – among them voters – will probably be unaware.“We’ll probably just hammer it and not say anything,” Holz said. More

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      Could Taylor Swift really swing the 2024 presidential election?

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      A decade ago, Taylor Swift liked to publicly mock a Jonas brother for dumping her over the phone. Today, her words may determine the future of US democracy.Over the last few weeks, Swift’s endorsement has become one of the most coveted – and contested – prizes in the 2024 presidential election. After the New York Times reported that Joe Biden’s re-election campaign was desperate to lock it down, Donald Trump’s allies reportedly declared a “holy war” on Swift. Fox News commentators started urging Swift to stay out of politics, while a sizable contingent of rightwingers spiraled into conspiracy theories: that Swift is a covert asset to bolster Biden, that she and her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, are a set-up to bolster Biden, that the Super Bowl – in which Kelce will play as a tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs football team – is being rigged to bolster Biden.All this fervor may seem totally out of touch. No matter how beloved she is, can a pop star from a Christmas tree farm in Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, really decide the 2024 presidential elections?The answer is surprisingly complex, according to interviews with experts, self-described Swift admirers, and people who say they are indifferent to Swift. It is improbable that Swift’s opinion would be the deciding factor for a voter torn between supporting Trump or Biden – if such a person exists – but the pop superstar is far more likely to propel voter turnout. And if the rematch between the two politicians, who still have to win their primaries, turns out to be close, the Swift electorate may make the difference.“We are not used to recognizing people like Taylor Swift with that much political power. That can be unnerving. We’re not used to female fandoms, perhaps, having that much political power,” said Ashley Hinck, an associate professor at Xavier University whose book Politics for the Love of Fandom unpacks the links between fandom, politics and civic engagement. “There’s a way in which pundits, politicians, commentators and regular citizens are coming to terms with a new political culture. If you’re not a part of it, you haven’t seen it before – but it has been around for a long time. It’s been growing for a long time.”As Swift might say, it’s been a long time coming.A lack of persuasionSwift first waded into politics in 2018, when she broke her career-long silence on politics to urge fans to vote for Democrats in a Tennessee election. Although one of Swift’s preferred candidates lost to the Republican Marsha Blackburn, Swift endorsed Biden in 2020. She has also continued to tell fans to vote in subsequent elections, and voter registration has soared by the tens of thousands after each of her get-out-the-vote Instagram posts.Her fanbase is staggeringly large, with 53% of Americans saying they are fans and 16% identifying as “avid fans”, according to a March 2023 Morning Consult poll. (That poll was conducted before the launch of Swift’s world-conquering Eras Tour, which has become the highest-grossing tour of all time and reportedly made Swift a billionaire.)However, Swift’s fanbase is not evenly distributed across the US political spectrum: 55% of her self-avowed avid fans identify as Democrats, while 23% are Republicans and 23% are independents.Although a November 2023 NBC News poll found that 40% of registered voters said they had a positive view of Swift – more than any other figure included in the survey, including Biden, Kamala Harris and Beyoncé – Democrats are still more likely than Republicans to say that they like Swift. Fifty-three per cent of Democrats said that they had a positive view of Swift, while just 28% of Republicans say the same. Compared to Democrats, Republicans are also five times more likely to have a negative opinion of Swift.Experts caution that it is exceedingly difficult to ever pinpoint what makes someone choose one candidate over another. David James Jackson, a Bowling Green State University professor who has studied the effect of celebrity endorsements, was skeptical of the idea that Swift could flip Republicans for Biden.“If the policy position is already popular among the group that I’m surveying, the celebrity endorsement makes it more popular. If it’s unpopular, it makes it less unpopular, but it doesn’t actually make it popular,” Jackson said. But, he added: “Are American elections really about persuasion any more?”View image in fullscreenJackson continued: “If in fact it turns out to be a Biden-Trump rematch, how many people really haven’t formed an opinion about either of those two?”Despite Swift’s relative lack of popularity among Republicans, the rightwing attacks on her may still backfire, according to Jasmine Amussen, a 34-year-old librarian who lives in Georgia.“I really don’t think that they understand that when they’re attacking Taylor Swift, they are actually talking about the millions of millennial women – mostly white – [in her fanbase]. But they’re attacking their own daughters,” Amussen said of Republicans. “I think they’re so confused as to how this 34-year-old woman is a billionaire, is unmarried. They just can’t see past that to the underlying source of her power, which is the people who love her.”Trump pressured Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” about 11,000 votes when he wanted to win the state in the 2020 election, as Amussen pointed out. The margins of the 2024 elections could be equally small, and a Swift endorsement could make the difference in turnout.“She can find 11,000 people to go vote when they didn’t before or vote when they hadn’t in a long time,” Amussen said. “All it takes is a couple hundred women who were not interested before seeing these much older – gross, honestly – men talk about someone they respect and admire in that way.”‘It will affect young people’Nearly 500 people responded to a Guardian survey about their thoughts on Swift’s political influence. Asked whether a Swift endorsement could influence their vote, most respondents said no. They frequently said that they already agreed with Swift’s suspected liberal politics or that they were not swayed by celebrity endorsements.But respondents often said that other voters may be more susceptible. “I’m not influenced by her, but my kids’ generation is,” one person from Massachusetts wrote. “I’m much too well informed,” someone from Colorado added. “But it WILL affect young people.”This kind of attitude is possibly an example of what Desirée Schmuck called “the third person” effect.“People always think that there’s a stronger impact on others than on themselves,” said Schmuck, a professor from the University of Vienna who has studied how parasocial relationships influence youth political behavior.“We see that in interviews, they do agree that influencers have changed their behavior, not necessarily voting behavior, but rather what they buy or what they boycott, for instance, for political reasons,” Schmuck said. “With voting, like with all behavior, there’s not enough introspection to really know what was it in the end that caused you to do something. I don’t think people want to pin it down to one factor, because they don’t want to be that simple.”The responses to the Guardian’s survey, although extensive, by no means constitute a representative or scientific study. The survey design would probably draw in people who already have strong opinions about Swift, whether negative or positive. (A surprising number of people took the time to fill out a totally voluntary survey only to insist they had no thoughts on Swift. “Do not care about her or her opinions,” one 84-year-old from Georgia wrote.)Still, some academic studies have indeed uncovered a connection between celebrity endorsements and voter activity. A study that Schmuck worked on found that a German influencer’s efforts to associate the climate crisis with the European Union elections – “a boring election for young people”, Schmuck said – was linked to a boost in youth voter turnout. Another study, which examined Oprah Winfrey’s endorsement of Barack Obama before the 2008 presidential primary, uncovered that Winfrey’s support led to 1m extra votes for Obama.Some people in the Guardian survey did say that Swift’s opinions may influence their behavior, if not their vote.“If she came up and she said, ‘Here’s the guy running against Marsha Blackburn and I think we should really support this person,’ I would cut that person a check,” said Michael Dee, who works in investment banking in Dallas, Texas, and is deeply involved in politics. He knows he’s voting for Biden but, he said, “Taylor can highlight some candidates to help them raise money and I think that would be … a very good thing.”Ultimately, complicating every calculation about Swift and her endorsement’s power is the singularity of her status. Arguably, the last time musicians commanded this much attention, they were the Beatles, they were men, and there were four of them.The Beatles were also only a band for less than a decade, while Swift has been in the public eye for almost two. Many Americans started to form emotional ties to her long before they could vote.“I’ve never seen a potential endorsement be so anticipated as this one,” Jackson said. More

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      ‘She could absolutely change my mind’: readers on Taylor Swift’s political influence

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      Although Taylor Swift, 34, avoided discussing Democrats or Republicans in the earlier stages of her career, she has become more politically vocal over time. In 2018, she spoke out against Marsha Blackburn and supported Democratic candidates in Tennessee. During the 2020 election cycle, she endorsed Joe Biden and vowed to the then president Donald Trump on Twitter that “we will vote you out”.In recent weeks, a string of rightwing figures have begun to spread conspiracy theories claiming Swift is a “Pentagon asset” who will influence the next presidential election by endorsing Joe Biden.Here, six US voters from across the country share what they make of Swift taking a stance on US political issues, what issues they would feel comfortable having Swift talk about, and whether the superstar could influence their vote.‘Could Taylor Swift influence my vote? Yes, absolutely’“I love that Taylor is getting political! Every American has the right to their own political ideas, and to express them.“Taylor has a voice that is all caps, a megaphone. I’d like her to take a stance on women’s issues, youth issues, social issues, LGBTQ+ issues, the NFL draft, drug use, or anything else on her mind. Basically, any issue other than those affecting her personal business interests.“I think she could, potentially, absolutely change my mind politically, because she is a strong woman who is a role model to my 24-year-old daughter and who is unafraid to speak her mind to old, misogynistic, males who can’t find the ability to respect a woman, any woman. It is time we prepare the next generation of women for leadership. The far right are scared to death of Taylor, who has an opportunity to move the needle, to politically mobilise particularly young women and men, and I think she should.” Michael Dee, 67, an investment banker from Dallas, Texas‘Her words are a drop in the ocean compared to the Maga machine’“I am very supportive of Taylor taking political stances. Country stars have supported Republicans for years and it didn’t seem to bother anyone; now a smart successful woman has threatened the football Maga crowd. She’s a smart, aware woman and any speaking she does is a drop in the ocean compared to the Maga machine that is everywhere. If she can prevent another attack on our fragile democracy she should please speak up. She’d be a fool not to.“I’d like her to clear up issues [about which] Trump has gaslit people. He made a mess of things. Let her highlight his failures, his encouragement of the January 6 attack on the Capitol and his lies.“I live in a Republican state, with cowboys and Trump people and pickup trucks driving around with flags. I’m gonna vote for whoever will be the Dem candidate, but I’m hoping Taylor can get a few more people here to vote Dems, educate them politically, people who don’t read the papers.” Roberta, retired, from South Dakota‘If Taylor Swift endorsed a presidential candidate, I’d be angry’“It is concerning that Americans turn to icons like Taylor Swift, a musician, to advise them on how to vote. It further evidences that Americans are not really thinking for themselves but are under the sway of cultural and commercial influences.“Swift is part of a global elite, whether she acknowledges it or not and no matter how much charity she does. She is now a billionaire, and even if she had $500m, $50m or $5m, she would still be living in a completely different world from most of her fans and most people in the United States.“When Taylor Swift experiences an injustice, hundreds of millions of people hear about it in her songs or on the international news, creating the illusion that this injustice is significant to the lives of everyone else. I hate this new trend of celebrities becoming politicians and further capitalizing on their special privileges.“If Taylor Swift endorsed a presidential candidate, I would be angry. Americans do not need more noise in their already noisy election. We do not want musicians having that much power that they could sway a political election to one side or another. Leigh, 34, PhD student from San Francisco, California‘Taylor Swift’s endorsement can influence me more than any man in DC’“She should absolutely take a stance, as much as any American voter! Her stance and/or endorsement is one that I care about as much as my granddaughter does.“I would like to hear her speak out in support of human rights for all, especially women. And to support the asylum-seeking refugees risking their lives to contribute their hard work to the US. That’s what actually makes America great.“For me, Taylor Swift’s endorsement holds more influence than any man in DC or in the media. Why wouldn’t her opinion matter to me?” Louise*, 72, an unpaid family caregiver from Florida‘She should guide her followers if she cares about them’“People who have influence have a duty to speak the truth to their flock. A good leader stands by principles they believe in and advocates for the greater good. If Taylor Swift truly cares about her followers then she will guide them to make a good decision at this crucial moment in time. No one on the right would critique a pastor advancing his world view into sermons, so why can’t a singer?“I think Taylor Swift can speak well on inclusiveness, anti-racism, women’s rights, and democracy – fundamental values that shouldn’t be controversial in modern America, but have been made vulnerable by rightwing fearmongering. She should avoid [talking about] the climate until she leads by example and doesn’t fly from mansion to mansion on a private jet.“My vote would absolutely not be influenced by her: if she endorsed Trump I would just assume she’s horrible. If she endorsed Biden I would be glad that she isn’t a white supremacist.” Jacob Phelps, 38, a registered nurse from Pennsylvania‘She should encourage her fans to make up their own minds’“I tend toward the liberal end of the spectrum but I’m not dogmatic about it. Everyone should be engaged in our democracy. Because Taylor has built a successful career in music she can use her popularity to advocate for the things she cares about. More power to her.“I hope she encourages everyone to become more active in our country’s future. If she could convince people to value the diversity of our society and help to tone down the hate-filled rhetoric from both sides that would be a gigantic achievement.“I think she would be far more effective if she didn’t endorse a candidate but instead told her fans to study the issues and make up their own minds.” Geoff Lusk, 58, pilates instructor from Denver, Colorado*Name has been changed More

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      in US Politics

      ‘Being mean will only rally her fans’: Taylor Swift is winning whether she backs Biden or thumps Trump

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      The 2024 US presidential election campaign, lacking any defining story to tell and with a prevailing lack of enthusiasm in a rematch of candidates in their eighth and ninth decades, last week settled on Taylor Swift – and an endorsement she may or may not make – as its defining obsession.On one side, expectations emanating from the Biden re-election camp were that the 34-year-old superstar would cast her influence over tens of thousands of Swifties their way; on the other, furious Republicans who at first sought to denigrate and wrap her in conspiracy theories, and later thought better of the strategy.Rolling Stone reported that allies of Donald Trump were pledging a “holy war” against Swift if she sides with the Democrats in November. Some theorised that the National Football League is rigging games for Swift’s Kansas City Chiefs boyfriend, Travis Kelce, to sweeten the Democrats endorsement hopes.Fox News host Jesse Watters claimed that the Shake It Off hitmaker had been converted into a psychological operations asset four years ago. The Pentagon hit back, saying: “As for this conspiracy theory, we are going to shake it off.”However, not all Republicans are on board with the attacks on Swift. “I don’t know what the obsession is,” presidential candidate Nikki Haley told CNN. “Taylor Swift is allowed to have a boyfriend. Taylor Swift is a good artist. I have taken my daughter to Taylor Swift concerts. To have a conspiracy theory of all of this is bizarre. Nobody knows who she’s going to endorse, but I can’t believe that’s overtaken our national politics.”While many are preoccupied with whether Swift can cross nine time zones to make it back from an Eras Tour concert in Tokyo to see her boyfriend play in next weekend’s Chiefs-49ers Super Bowl in Las Vegas (she can), the intensity of political questions surrounding Swift mirrors the febrile nature of the election 10 months away.View image in fullscreenDoubtless, Swift could offer politicos lessons in values-based messaging, audience understanding and building genuine connections with fans or voters. Last week, Trump argued that he is more popular than her, even if the values-based narratives he presents are often more aligned with self-victimisation than self-empowerment.A survey last year by Morning Consult found 53% of American adults are Swift fans. There are almost as many men as women, almost as many Republicans as Democrats, including baby boomers, millennials, Gen Xers and young adults from Gen Z. In other words, a constituency that could make or break a national political campaign.The recent Republican primary in New Hampshire indicated Trump’s weaknesses with women, who make up much of Swift’s fanbase. But recent polling, too, has shown that Biden’s ratings and support among young voters has dropped and he’s now closely tied in the 18-34 demographic with Trump.“They’re not crazy about Biden,” says Democratic party consultant Hank Sheinkopf. “If they turn out at all, it may be to oppose Trump and with no intensity at all. But if you’re having trouble with younger people, and you need to do something, what better way to cure the problem, or at least show that you are sensitive to it, than to get Taylor Swift out?”David Allan, professor of marketing at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, who teaches a Swift-focused course, says the Republicans will have to navigate the singer.“Republicans need to be careful with Taylor because she’s extremely popular with all-demographic women and some men. You don’t want to appear to be mean because it will only rally her fans,” he says. Conversely, attacking Swift could bring its own counter-intuitive, culture/class war rewards.“You know she’s having some effect if Fox News is attacking her,” Allan says. “For Trump, having Taylor Swift against him gives him something to talk about.” A salient lesson comes from the Dixie Chicks – now the Chicks – who wrecked their careers before the Iraq war when singer Natalie Maines said from a London stage they were ashamed to be that President George Bush was from Texas.In Swift’s documentary,Miss Americana, her father fretted that an overt political position could put her in the same position as the Chicks. But Swift is now believed to be too big to be commercially vulnerable.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAs the music industry newsletter Hits Daily Double put it: “Her domination of the marketplace from every conceivable angle is next-level. But she just seems to get bigger, and to rule every area she enters – the rerecorded albums, the massive tour, the blockbuster movie of the tour, the NFL games where her mere presence changes the center of gravity.”Whether or not Swift goes two-feet in with Biden, Allan adds: “It’s getting to that point in the 60s that if Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell didn’t speak out about the Vietnam war it would hurt them with their fans. If she doesn’t do something, even if just to help to get out the vote, it will hurt her authenticity.” In September, Vote.org reported more than 35,000 new political registrations, a 23% jump over last year, after Swift urged her 280 million Instagram followers to sign up.Swift, who was politically cautious until she endorsed Tennessee Democratic senate candidate Phil Bredesen in 2018 (he lost) and then Biden in 2020, has not shown any interest in being adopted by political factions. A 5,000-word New York Times essay that claimed her as more than just queer-friendly was criticised for making overreaching assumptions.View image in fullscreenBut US candidates often seek show business endorsements. “The tradition goes back at least 60 years when [John F] Kennedy brought out Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr, Judy Garland and others to go stump for them, and country music stars, who have come out mostly for Republicans,” Sheinkopf notes.Other musical endorsements include the Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd for Jimmy Carter. But musicians including Madonna, Bruce Springsteen and Lady Gaga couldn’t push Hillary Clinton over the line in 2016, and it hasn’t hurt Trump to use Village People’s gay paradise anthem YMCA as a walk-off song, which crowds greatly appreciate.Swift might not even need to formally endorse Biden, Sheinkopf adds. “Even to put it out as rumour makes Biden look less like he’s 81 years old and more like he’s listening to younger people, their subcultural desires and what they feel about things.”For Swift, he says: “She gets to become a decision-maker, and an even larger figure in American and international life. Her public persona becomes as important as her music and that means she’ll make a lot more money.” More

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      in US Politics

      Tell us: how do you feel about Taylor Swift’s political influence?

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      Taylor Swift is at the apex of her fame with a sold-out world stadium tour and now a social media storm as deepfake pornographic images of the popstar rapidly spread through X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, last week.With intense media focus also on her relationship with Travis Kelce, a star football player for the Kansas City Chiefs, Swift has found herself at the center of rightwing commentary in recent weeks.A raft of influential rightwing figures have begun to spread a conspiracy theory claiming that Swift is a “Pentagon asset” who, along with unnamed left-leaning forces, will influence the presidential election by endorsing Joe Biden.Earlier in her career, Swift, 34, avoided discussing Democrats or Republicans, but she has become more political over time. In 2018, she supported Democratic candidates in Tennessee, where she spent some of her childhood. In the 2020 election, she endorsed Joe Biden and vowed to then president Donald Trump on Twitter that “we will vote you out”.As we head further into the 2024 election cycle, we’d like to find out what you think about Swift taking a stance on US political issues. Which political issues would you like or not like her to take a stance on? Would her endorsement of a 2024 presidential candidate influence who you will vote for? Why or why not? More