The Far-Right Is Swiftly Unraveling
The Far-Right Is Swiftly Unraveling
It’s odd to have to report on far-right conspiracies about Taylor Swift, the Super Bowl and the election, but here we are.
I don’t pay much attention to tabloid gossip or football. But I do know that it’s pretty stupid to pick a culture war fight with the world’s biggest pop star and an NFL icon. This is especially true if you don’t want legions of fans rushing to Taylor Swift’s defense and lining up to vote this November the way she tells them to.
But pick a battle is exactly what the MAGA right and right-wing media have done. And they are seeing Red.
It’s been brewing for months. After her Eras tour sold out to packed stadiums around the world, no less than the CEO and founder of The Federalist published a piece in September of 2023 attacking Swift. “Taylor Swift is dumb and her music sucks,” wrote Sean Davis, from the unhappy pages of his magazine.
Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA then went after Swift in early December, putting her on blast for some 25 minutes on his Thoughtcrime podcast, with vile comments about her appearance and her fanbase.
Donald Trump got into the game not long after, reportedly furious when Swift, rather than Trump, was named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year. On his Truth Social platform, Trump even amplified an article from the DC Enquirer, written by “a 19-year old die-hard supporter,” arguing that it was a mistake to award the “left-wing singer” the honor, insisting without irony that Trump was more deserving because “he has been successful at quite literally everything he's ever tried throughout his life.” (Narrator: No, he has not.)
As Swift attended NFL playoff games in support of her new boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, the tale of Miss Americana and her football prince kept growing—along with the ire of the MAGA right, now granted broad permission to metastasize by people like David, Kirk and Trump. Angry, conservative men who “just want to watch football” simply couldn’t stand seeing the camera cut away to video of Swift enjoying the games and cheering Kelce on, even though the average time spent on Swift was less than 25 seconds per broadcast, according to the New York Times.
MAGA just needed to calm down. Instead, their minds synchronously exploded when it became clear the Chiefs, and therefore Taylor Swift, were heading to the Super Bowl, like they were the last great American dynasty.
As I’ll explain below, the circumstances were almost “Taylor” made for conspiracy theorists to emerge and declare that the relationship was bogus, that the Super Bowl was rigged, and that (checks notes) Swift was a PsyOp asset cleverly inserted to win the election for Joe Biden.
The Super Bowl is rigged
There has long been an undercurrent among a small sector of sports watchers that the Super Bowl is rigged. A lot of money is bet and lost, and a lot of men act very badly and start “just asking questions” when their teams don’t win. But the addition of Taylor Swift to the mix has super juiced their conspiratorial leanings.
“I have never been more convinced that the Super Bowl is rigged,” posted right-wing influencer Jack Lombardi, who unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2022. “With all the unneeded and unwanted Taylor coverage at the games. KC’s journey to the Super Bowl – totally scripted.”
He wasn’t done.
Next … Travis and Taylor together at the Super Bowl, appearing happy, and in love. Then KC wins. And then later announcing their support for Biden.
Coincidental? No.
Bought and paid for couple. SMH.
Lombardi isn’t alone in his bizarre thinking. The post has been viewed 6.6 million times, has garnered 36K likes, and was reshared over 5K times.
Pro-Trump broadcaster Mike Crispi also thinks the whole thing is a set-up. On Sunday he posted on X,
The NFL is totally RIGGED for the Kansas City Chiefs, Taylor Swift, Mr. Pfizer (Travis Kelce).
All to spread DEMOCRAT PROPAGANDA.
Calling it now: KC wins, goes to Super Bowl, Swift comes out at the halftime show and “endorses” Joe Biden with Kelce at midfield.
It’s all been an op since day one.
I’ll explain the Mr. Pfizer part in a bit. You can’t make this up, truly.
“The Super Bowl is rigged” talk got another boost when one-time presidential candidate and current Trump coffee boy, Vivek Ramaswamy, entered the chat. “I wonder who’s going to win the Super Bowl next month,” Ramaswamy posted on X, adding, “And I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall. Just some wild speculation over here, let’s see how it ages over the next 8 months.”
It’s on brand for Ramaswamy to prove to his future media employers that he can just have some “wild speculation over here.” And as I’ll explain below, it’s also on brand for Ramaswamy to suggest that there is something nefarious about the Chiefs winning the Super Bowl and Swift endorsing Biden, both of which were strong possibilities long before he made his “wild speculation.”
It should be noted that Ramaswamy was replying to a post by Jack Posobiec, a notorious conspiracy peddler best known for his involvement in amplifying Pizzagate, the false and debunked claim that (clears throat) Satanic pedophilic Democrats were trafficking children through the basement of a D.C. pizza restaurant. (Posobiec had posted some nonsense about Taylor Swift being influenced into becoming a “super liberal” by none other than George Soros.)
And, oh, about Travis Kelce and Pfizer: To really get the conspiracies going, it so happens Kelce is a spokesperson for vaccinations and the drug maker Pfizer, which manufactures one of the Covid-19 vaccines. Another gig that has MAGA heads melting is Kelce’s ad appearances for Bud Light, which remains under MAGA boycott for having dared to work with a trans influencer on a social media campaign.
Like I said, this is nearly a perfect storm.
Taylor Swift is a PsyOp!
If the Super Bowl is being rigged so that Swift and Kelce can somehow help Joe Biden win, it’s not that far a leap down the abyss to posit that Swift is an asset of the Democratic party or the Deep State, inserted at this precise cultural moment to inflict maximum harm to Republicans.
None other than Jesse Watters of Fox devoted a segment of his show to suggesting Swift is a “Pentagon psyop asset.” He asked his viewers, “Have you ever wondered why or how she blew up like this?”
Couldn’t be her chart-topping music and her broad appeal to young women everywhere, right? Must be the Pentagon!
The basis of Watters’s bonkers claim was flimsy and laughable. Here’s what he said:
[A]round four years ago the Pentagon’s psychological operations unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset, during a NATO meeting. What kind of asset? A psyop for combatting online misinformation.
To back up this extraordinary claim, Watters aired a video showing a clip of a speech by a research engineer. The topic actually was how communities could work with famous people “to counter covert campaigns.” The researcher does not work for the Pentagon or for the U.S. government, but rather for Johns Hopkins University. According to reporting by The Guardian, she gave her presentation at the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence, a research organization of 25 nations based in Estonia.
It was Watters who made the strange leap from there to “Pentagon psyop asset” and that Swift could be a “front for a covert political agenda” after the researcher simply suggested that someone like Taylor Swift could use her broad platform to help stop the spread of misinformation.
“It’s real. The Pentagon psy-op unit pitched NATO on turning Taylor Swift into an asset for combating misinformation online,” Watters claimed, again with no irony about his own misinformation.
The Pentagon responded in a very tongue-in-cheek way. A spokesperson said in a statement, “As for this conspiracy theory, we are going to shake it off.”
But MAGA influencers have nevertheless taken up the call. Wrote Florida-based Trump ally Laura Loomer,
The Democrats’ Taylor Swift election interference psyop is happening in the open…
It’s not a coincidence that current and former Biden admin officials are propping up Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.
They are going to use Taylor Swift as the poster child for their pro-abortion GOTV Campaign.
Loomer was quote tweeting former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, who had simply posted, “8 year old tonight: I am cheering for the Chiefs because Travis Kelce…obvi.”
That’s how triggered these folks are.
Taylor Swift is going to endorse Biden!
Okay, so this isn’t really a conspiracy. It’s not even a surprise. Taylor Swift previously endorsed Joe Biden in 2020. In fact, she took Trump on directly in a tweet in May of that year, even tagging the former president:
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. @realdonaldtrump
The Biden Campaign would be foolish not to seek her endorsement again, given how many new, younger voters she can mobilize to the polls. And in the four years since her last endorsement, she has become far bigger a cultural phenomenon.
No one should be shocked when Taylor Swift endorses Joe Biden for 2024. Nor should they be surprised if the Chiefs win the Super Bowl, though it’s somewhat amusing to watch MAGA have to root for San Francisco.
Where is all this headed?
The Trump Campaign apparently is very worried about her potential influence. His allies have pledged a “holy war” against her, and the ex-president has complained that he is actually more popular than she is.
That “holy war” is playing out in real time in the openly expressed fever dreams of the MAGA influencers.
But here’s an interesting twist: All this conspiracy nonsense about Swift quickly made headlines at The New York Times, CNN, CBS News, Rolling Stone, the Independent and the Guardian, to name a few outlets. In the past, other wacko conspiracies have largely gone underreported by the media and unnoticed by the public.
These attacks upon Swift may prove to be a tipping point for “normal” America to finally pay attention to exactly how crazy and extreme the right has become.
And when Swift does actually endorse Biden, and she asks millions of Swifties to help her keep Trump from office, my only thought will be, “Look what you made her do.”
I am taking a contrarian view. Let the MAGA believe this is part of the same powerful Democratic operation that controlled the weather in Iowa, and has made the stock market break records, and brought unemployment down, and gave millions more access to healthcare, and has built roads and bridges and chip factories, and has a plan to close the border if only the Republicans in congress allowed it, and is fighting to allow access to choice, and protects LBGTQ people, and refuses to ban books.
The Democrats are all powerful and joining them is being in the winning powerful side.
Just wait for what Democrats have planned in a few short months....budding trees, warm weather, baseball. You can’t stop the Blue team. How do they do it.
These nutballs have too much time on their hands, and are getting wackier and wackier as they trundle along.
If they weren't armed to the teeth and dangerous insurrectionists, they'd be funny.