Stop what you are doing now because chances are you are not acting out of free will. That's how it is. That Taylor Swift tune you're mindlessly humming while scrolling through Super Bowl ads while checking your email isn't just a harmless earworm, at least according to the MAGA Mediaverse.
It's all part of a nefarious plot to subvert the 2024 election and hand it to Joe Biden.
In a triangulation of paranoia, politics and pop music, right-wing influencers warned this week that superstar Swift and her co-conspirators, the NFL, are part of a widespread plot to ruin Donald Trump's chances of taking back the White House.
This carefully constructed web of deception has been uncovered/fabricated by agents of disinformation, from Fox News to OAN to regional radio shows, many of whom have also spent the last few months convincing their followers that Swift is a Trojan horse for the Democratic Party… and a Pentagon Covert Operative.
Fox News host Jesse Watters suggested last month that Swift could be “a front for a covert political agenda.” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh responded to Watters' claim using the title of a song and lyrics from the singer's hit repertoire: “As for this conspiracy theory, we're going to get it off.”
Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's mother, Donna, celebrate the Chiefs' victory in the AFC Championship game.
(Julio Cortés/Associated Press)
Now Swift recent romance with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, stands as proof that the NFL is engaged in a deep-six operation to sink the Republican Party in November. The football organization will supposedly do so by rigging the upcoming Super Bowl in Kansas City's favor, thus giving Swift the perfect moment: the halftime show! – To announce her support for the Democratic candidate.
Big Pharma has something to do with misconduct too, or is it the Clintons? Or both? It's hard to keep track, but if you were to ask a magic 8 ball, a source as reliable as any on Fox, “It's decidedly so.”
Never mind that it doesn't exactly require “Mission Impossible” coordination to make the above predictions a reality: Swift, along with three-quarters of the entertainment industry, endorsed Biden during the last election cycle and likely will do so again.
The Chiefs won the Super Bowl last season and this year's game marks their fourth appearance in five seasons. However, on Sunday, after the Chiefs' win against the Baltimore Ravens, conservative media personality Mike Crispi took the bold step of “Say it now: KC wins, goes to Super Bowl, Swift appears on the media show time and 'backs' Joe Biden with Kelce in the center of the field. … Everything has been an operation from day one.”
That's “op” as in “psy-op,” a favorite right-wing term for psychological manipulation. Former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy posted similar sentiments about a psyop on X, to which platform owner Elon Musk responded, “Exactly.”
The idea that Swift and Kelce are actors in a covert ploy against Republicans is so simplistic that it seems generous to even label it a conspiracy theory on the same level as, say, Area 51 and the staged moon landing.
However, people have bitten and now I'm writing about it.
But choosing Taylor Swift as the figurehead of this imaginary attack on the MAGA world is a curious about-face given that the billionaire singer was one of the few pop sensations embraced by the right.
The inoffensive, feel-good singer emerged from country music two decades ago and for much of her career was embraced by middle America as a healthy, safe alternative to Beyoncé and other leading ladies who don't look like Miss Swiss cocoa.
So what changed? Almost everything, including the sad truth that everything lends itself to polarizing politicization when issues and policies are no longer the center of a campaign or a party's objectives.
The real problems – from the lack of affordable housing to a possible world war breaking out in the Middle East to the multiple criminal trials of the Republican front-runner – require discernment and serious reflection. And since Trump's Republican Party appears to lack both, he has resorted to another red herring: attacking a powerful woman.
Sports pundits and conservative figures have complained for months that legions of Swifties were suddenly attending Kansas City games and even donning Kelce's “87” jersey. How dare they!
Kelce was already a questionable figure among right-wing sports fans for his role in a campaign promoted by Pfizer that encourages people to get vaccinated against COVID-19 and the flu at the same time. Now she has dragged pop culture—a realm often criticized by conservative pundits as a petri dish of “woke” ideologies—into the hallowed world of sports, barely covering her tracks from apolitical player to undercover leftist operative.
Despite the latter narrative, it was Swift's fame that launched Kelce onto the world stage. His record-breaking Eras tour, and a blockbuster concert film, catapulted her from a ubiquitous musical sensation to a global force. Her boyfriend at the time naturally became part of the phenomenon.
Sometimes a pop star is really just a pop star, and a football player is really just a football player. Even in an election year when fear of psychological operations and pop stardom collide.
