“The distant past” is right. When was a Republcan lying a newsworthy event-- the Lincoln administration?
Seems like the MAGAts are just asking for an attack by mischievous Swifties. Who knows what could happen if they perceive that trump and his flying monkeys are fucking with TS. One of the late shows has to do a skit with TS and TK in the Pentagon war room.
That’s the thing, though, and what really scares the GOP: Taylor Swift doesn’t have to speak out against Trump; all she has to do is speak out in favor of democracy - Get out and vote! It’s your right, and your responsibility! And that’s all it will take to take down Trump and the Republican Party.
Increased turn-out will kill them in this election, and in may elections to come, and Swift’s fanbase would almost all be voting against Trump, even without specific prompting.
Unfortunately, the right considers anything that promotes voting in general to be counter to their interests. (And they’re probably correct.) So if Swift says “Hey guys, there’s a big election this year – make sure you vote!” MAGAts hear “Trump sucks, and all Republicans are evil.”
I’m pretty sure she’ll give some sort of endorsement, this link is old but she’s said she regrets not speaking out against Trump in 2016.
https://www.axios.com/2020/01/24/taylor-swift-politics-miss-americana-donald-trump
Also, from the article
Her publicist also warns her that Trump could personally come after her — to which Swift responds, “F–k that. I don’t care.”
So what? Seriously.
Nikki Haley seems to think she has a shot of getting the Tay-Tay endorsement.
Haley: I don’t know what the obsession is, Taylor Swift is allowed to have a boyfriend, Taylor Swift is a good artist. To have a conspiracy theory of all of this is bizarre.
Is she even vaguely aware of what party she is representing? It’s now the party of insane conspiracy theories, cheering politicians with criminal records, and actual human traffickers.
I’m sure she’s aware. But her goal is to change that, to lessen the hold that wing has over the party. That’s why her donors are funding her.
This. I don’t expect that she’ll bring millions of new voters to the voting booth. But in an election that has a good chance of being decided by less than 100K nationwide, she could make a difference with voters that have a certain mindset. Which voters am I referring to? The young liberal who for some reason thinks that “they’re both the same, so why should I go vote?” If Swift can help some of them realize that type of thinking is flawed, even if it’s only a few thousand in the swing states, that could make the difference.
I was just pointing out that virtually anything she says about voting will increase the likelihood of some MAGAt putting her in his crosshairs.
Fortunately, she seems brave enough to speak her mind anyway.
It’s worth mentioning that the very first song in the ongoing Eras tour is her only heavily political song, and the song for which the documentary referenced in that article Miss Americana was named. Everything she does is carefully crafted, and I don’t think it’s a mistake to infer from this that she doesn’t plan to sit on the sidelines and watch Trump get elected again.
If you want to play amateur Swiftie, try to decode these lyrics. There’s high school imagery, but this is about politics circa 2018/19 (and her speaking out for the first time). Spot the line about Brett Kavanaugh.
(This is a fan made video, she didn’t make a video for this song.)
You know I adore you, I’m crazier for you
Than I was at 16, lost in a film scene
Snip
Moderating,
I removed the lyrics as this violates fair use.
Please remember to only use a few lines.
Sorry about that. Obviously you’re quite correct, it’s a violation to publish a writer’s lyrics without permission. It didn’t occur to me that it would be problem because I think in practice songwriters don’t shut down unofficial transcription of their lyrics, since it promotes interest in getting the music played.
It’s easy to find the full lyrics online if anyone is interested. Many of the clips in the video are from the documentary with the same name Miss Americana, available on Netflix.
Anecdotally, one of my coworkers is very fussed about Taylor and has refused to watch the Superb Owl because of her. When I asked why, she said for “political reasons.” And she has a Doug Mastriano keychain, if that tells you anything ( he was a far-right candidate for PA Governor).
She also likes complaining at length about people’s driving, so more evidence for the theory that MAGA folks just like being stressed and feeling “threatened.”
Taylor Swift is notoriously litigious when it comes to enforcing copyright. She’s been known to go so far as go after Etsy vendors selling crafts with a snippet of her lyrics on them. There’s a streamer I know of who among other things plays music videos on request from viewers, and Taylor is one of only two artists he won’t play, even though he pays an annual license fee to be able to stream videos, because he’s concerned about getting sued by her anyway.
The use of lyrics on merchandise is quite different. But I’m not aware of any artist that objects to their lyrics simply being transcribed and communicated so that people know what they are. In theory they could shut down sites like Genius or demand fees, but I think (in accord with common sense) they have taken the view that allowing people easy access to lyrics increases demand for the music.
There’s a gray area where a lot of fans publish “lyric videos” on youtube that play the song and display the lyrics on screen in real time. Or indeed non-lyric fan videos like the one I linked above for the Miss Americana track. These also do not seem to be shut down. I believe the reason is that Google just identifies the underlying track and redirects the revenue to the original artist. Presumably artists and labels have people monitoring what goes up, but provided they are okay with it artistically and it’s a revenue wash then encouraging fan engagement like this is generally beneficial.
My initial thought to this was “not much”. Lots of celebrities have political and other opinions but I’ve never heard anyone say that’s what moved the needle. Many people have made a decision about Trump. Some singers might be reluctant to alienate fans by delving too deeply into politics. And she promoted someone for a state position a few years ago and her candidate didn’t win.
I’m not sure how close this election will be; probably depends on a handful of states. The GOP didn’t do themselves a favour by encouraging Swift crazy talk. Her fans may have good reason to be concerned about abortion rights and probably she could convince several hundred thousand people to vote who might not ordinarily do so. That could be enough to make a small difference, but if it is in the right regions that difference becomes much magnified. Still, AFAIK she has not forcefully expressed recent love of Biden or the Democrats.
Because the GOP in a sense made an issue of this first, I think few would think differently of her if she did come out strongly with a political opinion. But that does not mean it will happen, and it still might not mean much.
She doesn’t need to specifically endorse a candidate to influence the outcome. All she has to do is encourage young people to vote and that will be a net gain for Democrats. (The technically non-partisan) Rock the Vote and MTV may have actually swung the election to Bill Clinton in 1992.
If she doesn’t do anything “political” before, during or after the game, the right-wingers will crow that they made her back down. Or just start ramping up for her next show.