January 30, 2024

ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: Is Taylor Swift a psyop?

Every now and then, people on the right — who should, perhaps, be expected to be more familiar with the dynamics of business than their friends on the left — discover the existence of something called “marketing.” Yes, there is a phenomenon called “public relations,” which ensures that products and public figures might not be promoted in completely authentic ways. (Have I blown your mind yet? Sheeple.)

So, is Taylor Swift really passionate about football? Perhaps not. Is there an element of career-mindedness in the relationship between Swift and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce? Perhaps. But that doesn’t make it an “op,” That’s how celebrity culture has always worked.

Somehow, Swift-based suspicions grew more elaborate. “Thinking about when Taylor Swift called out the Soros family in 2019 for buying the rights to her music,” Jack Posobiec, senior editor at Human Events tweeted, “And then how she came out a super liberal in 2020.” I’m not sure how Taylor Swift criticizing the Soros family is evidence that she is now cooperating with the Soros family. There is a lot to criticize about George Soros but his name is not some sort of ancient curse that taints anyone who happens to say it.

A minute of Googling illustrated to me that Ms. Swift had been supporting liberal causes like LGBT rights and pro-choice advocacy before then. She became more vocal in 2020, to be sure, but it was 2020. What celebrity didn’t? Now, you could make an interesting argument about how mainstream culture prods celebrities towards progressivism (Swift continues to face criticism in left-leaning outlets for not being an active enough “ally.”) But you don’t have to pull a conspiracy theory out of your ear.

Too late: Vivek Ramaswamy took the baton from Posobiec and ran with it. “I wonder who’s going to win the Super Bowl next month,” he posted: “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 eight months.”

Jim Geraghty goes twenty minutes into the future with “Swift Vets for Truth:”

[T]he claim that Taylor Swift and the NFL and the 2024 presidential election are a “psychological operation” is itself a “psychological operation” designed to get you to pay attention to the likes of Vivek Ramaswamy.

On a related note, this morning, the headline from the good folks over at the Daily Mail boldly declares, “Taylor Swift could sway 2024 election outcome, new poll finds with a FIFTH of voters ‘likely’ to back candidate endorsed by singer. Eighteen percent of voters say they’re ‘more likely’ or ‘significantly more likely’ to vote for a candidate endorsed by Taylor Swift.”

But when you read down to the sixth paragraph: “However, 17 percent said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate backed by Swift — which could bode badly for Democrat Joe Biden.”

So, if 18 percent say they’re more likely to vote for a candidate backed by Swift, and 17 percent say they’re less likely to vote for a candidate backed by Swift . . . how, exactly, is she going to sway the 2024 presidential-election outcome? That 1 percent difference in one poll is supposed to be persuasive evidence that “Taylor Swift could sway [the] 2024 election”? The word “could” is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

Still though, why take chances? Trump Allies Pledge ‘Holy War’ Against Taylor Swift.

Regarding the last link, one of these days, a Rolling Stone story is going to finally be true. But today is not that day. (Probably.)

UPDATE: Achievement unlocked!

Posted at 6:22 pm by Ed Driscoll