“Far-right influencers claim singer is ‘Pentagon asset’ conspiring to ‘manipulate’ voters after ‘rigged’ Super Bowl favors Chiefs.” (The Guardian)
Warning: This post contains spoilers for the Taylor Swift conspiracy theory. If you are not ready to learn the exciting ending, you may want to skip this post until February 11!
This is the funniest thing that I’ve seen in quite a while. The idea, apparently, is that the Pentagon (or perhaps just the more general “deep state” or maybe a foreign adversary) is employing this woman, Taylor Swift, as a propaganda asset, and that they will set it up so that the Chiefs win the Superbowl, and then at the climactic end of the game, Swift will address the world from the field and tell everyone to vote for Joe Biden, and everyone will comply because…
Gosh, I’m not sure what the next part is. I feel like the righties just never really come up with a narrative for anything that makes complete sense. They always lose the thread at some point. Here’s a version that is better and also has a lot more flare:
Taylor Swift, a biomorphic AI android engineered by the Red Chinese, has been employed by the CPC-controlled Biden administration to control the next US Presidential election by way of arranging the Chiefs to win so that the Swiftbot can be on the field (with her boyfriend, a cybernetically-enhanced Chinese agent disguised to look like a regular white guy) right after the climactic end of the game, and will use a new experimental hypnosis ray that can travel over normal hi-def TV to mind-control everyone who is watching the game into voting for Joe Biden. (They tried using 5G for mind control, but that just gave everyone COVID!)
Eh? Eh? Yes, I know it is derivative.
If you peel away all the idiocy, there might be something real to the right-wing freakout over Taylor Swift telling the Swifties (fans of Taylor Swift) to vote.
Way back in 2017, right wingers were in love with Taylor Swift, and I think there’s something about the Taylor Swift brand/aesthetic that really gets normal Americans excited in a way that no politician can. I’m not a fan, but I do admit that “Shake It Off” is a real banger (or is it a bop?), and I see nothing wrong with anything she has said in the press.
Let me provide you with some interesting numbers:
In the 2016 election, 65.84 million people voted for HRC and 62.98 voted for Trump. Trump lost the popular vote by a bit (2.86 million), but still ended up winning the electoral college because HRC failed to campaign adequately in swing states. In 2020, more people voted (81.28 million for Biden and 74.22 million for Trump) and this time the spread was enough (7.06 million votes) that Biden won the electoral college.
Taylor Swift fans are 53% of the US adult population, or about 137 million people — more than the total of all the people that voted for Trump and HRC combined in 2016. Basically, Swifties alone can elect anyone they want to the Presidency. Even if Biden loses all of the leftist vote, people who identify as “progressive left” or further left are only about 6% of those qualified to vote, or about 16 million people at the most. Swifties are now very motivated to vote for Biden because the Trumpers are being so shitty to Taylor Swift. Since Swifties are concentrated in the age groups that do not typically vote, this right-wing freakout is creating a self-fulfilling prophecy by motivating people to perform the act of voting without affecting their real political views, which are foggy, ill-informed, and fatalistic. “I don’t understand this politics thing and I think it is rigged against us no matter what, but I’m voting against Trump because his people were mean to Taylor.”
In my opinion, the Taylor Swift factor might do a lot more than allow Biden to squeak by — it might make the election a real blowout.
!!! IMPORTANT UPDATE !!!
After finishing this post, I had an important conversation revealing the ending of the righty version of the Taylor Swift tale: She’s “Satanic” … and not just Satanic, but a “Satanic witch” … and not just any Satanic witch, but a clone (I shit you not) of Zeena LaVey, celebrity Satanist and daughter of Anton LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan. So, obviously, she will use the Power of Satan™ to mind control everyone into voting for Joe Biden when she appears on the field at the end of the Chief’s Superbowl win! I can see now why they were holding back on the ending — it’s a real doozy! Personally, I prefer the scifi version of the Taylor Swift story, but I guess a lot of people are still into folk horror (why??).
Maybe that is why righties never seem to have an ending to their narratives — the ending is always tHe PoWeR of sAtaN!!1! which is boring and stupid, so they have to kind of hint at what the ending might be, just like when a movie doesn’t have any budget for the monster, they never really show the full man in the rubber costume, but instead keep showing little bits of it in shadow.
What’s interesting about this take is that the central premise pre-dates the right-wing love affair with Taylor Swift that happened around 2017. I guess they are just really fickle!