Donald Trump is Partially Right About Taylor Swift

The clickbait, it burns. The hard-working staff here at Drezner’s World would like to apologize for writing this right up front. Something about Trump and Taylor Swift? Hands down, it’s the most pandering, clickbait-y thing I’ve ever drafted. Like everyone else, I knew there would be a tsunami of Taylor takes after the Kansas City Chiefs advanced to the Super Bowl in no small part due to her boyfriend Travis Kelce’s heroics. And my thoughts were very similar to The Ringer’s Ben Solak on this point: If shots of Swift are ruining your viewing experience, I am sorry about that. I would encourage you to retrieve the magic rectangle from your pocket that can show you whatever you want, at any time, on demand, and look at it instead of Swift. I also would enjoy the broadcast more if it didn’t show something I don’t really care about, but I won’t let it twist me up, and I’d encourage you not to let it, either. If Swift is the story of the NFL season for you, that’s also fine. If you’re tuning into a game you don’t care for just to see her every so often, that’s wild commitment, and I don’t understand it in the slightest, but I commend you for it. I think the story of this NFL season is this 49ers juggernaut and the indomitable Chiefs and the gut-wrenching Bills and the flopping Eagles and Jordan Love and C.J. Stroud and Bill Belichick and myriad other things. But to each their own. Drezner’s World is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. So that should have been that. Except that Rolling Stone’s Asawin Suebsaeng and Adam Rawnsley decided to f**k up my afternoon and write the most clickbait-y story ever with the most clickbait-y headline, “Trump Allies Pledge ‘Holy War’ Against Taylor Swift.” [Can’t you just… you know, not engage with the clickbait?—ed. The intersection of pop culture, politics, and the former Toddler in Chief? Nope, sorry. That’s like asking me not to comment on great power politics or the implosion of Ron DeSantis. Some posts are pre-ordained by the zeitgeist.] So, what is Suebsaeng and Rawnsley’s lede? Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift hasn’t even endorsed President Joe Biden for reelection yet. That hasn’t stopped members of MAGAland’s upper crust from plotting to declare — as one source close to Donald Trump calls it — a “holy war” on the pop mega-star, especially if she ends up publicly backing the Democrats in the 2024 election…. While Swift has not yet issued an endorsement in the 2024 race, The New York Times reported Monday that Swift is a key name on Biden aides’ “wish lists of potential surrogates.” A potential Swift appearance at Super Bowl LVIII alongside her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, has already prompted the MAGA right’s culture war pugilists into a conspiracy-fueled froth about how this NFL season has been rigged to boost Biden. Okay, fine. From what I can tell, the literature on celebrity endorsements suggest that they might matter in a primary but less so in a general election. I recall Swift endorsing Democrats in her home state of Tennessee during the 2018 midterms and it not mattering all that much. So is Trump freaked out about the possibility of a Swift endorsement? The most surprising part of this story is that Trump clearly suffers from a lot of egotistical delusions — but the effect of a Swift endorsement leaves hum unperturbed. Behind the scenes, Trump has reacted to the possibility of Biden and Swift teaming up against him this year not with alarm, but with an instant projection of ego. In recent weeks, the former president has told people in his orbit that no amount of A-list celebrity endorsements will save Biden. Trump has also privately claimed that he is “more popular” than Swift is and that he has more committed fans than she does, a person close to Trump and another source with knowledge of the matter tell Rolling Stone. So yeah, Trump’s insecurities are on full display in the above. Is he more popular than Swift? No, of course not. Taylor Swift shows have macroeconomic effects. I hereby triple-dog-dare Trump to make a film of one of his political rallies and see if he can match Swift’s box office. That said, he is probably correct about the Swift’s effect as a celebrity endorser. I bring this up because Trump’s supporters and sycophants, on the other hand, seem to be luxuriating in their insanity: On Monday, Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba shared a post on social media that includes the caption: “Who thinks this country needs a lot more women like Alina Habba, and a lot less like Taylor Swift?” (Habba has represented Trump in the E. Jean Carroll defamation case, where he was ordered to pay $83 million.) Who talks like this? What kind of delusional person believes that Americans want more lawyers who are bad at lawyering and fewer singers who are good at performing? Habba, alas, is not alone in her MAGA delusions. Fox News host Jeanine Pirro — who’s acted as an informal political adviser to Trump, including during his presidency — warned Swift to stay out of 2024: “Don’t get involved. Don’t get involved in politics; we don’t want to see you there,” the Fox host said. “Joe Biden is in [a] hole with young people, he knows it. And if he thinks Taylor can get him out of that hole, he’s gonna go for it.” Former GOP presidential hopeful and current Trump hype man Vivek Ramaswamy took to Twitter following the latest Chiefs’ playoff win to claim that unnamed forces would rig the Super Bowl to give the as-yet nonexistent endorsement from the “artificially culturally propped-up couple” increased visibility. MAGA pundits have spent months fuming about Swift and her boyfriend — already a hated figure for his role as a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine spokesman. During a rant in November about the GOP’s losses across a string of state elections and abortion-related ballot initiatives, Turning Point USA founder and Trump ally Charlie Kirk warned that Swift was “going to come out in the presidential election” and “mobilize her fans,” adding that “all the Swifties want is swift abortion.” Fox News host and Trump buddy Jesse Watters declared Swift a potential “Pentagon psyop” and “a front for a covert political agenda” during a segment earlier this month. As Slate’s Heather Schwedel notes, “The right wing online has done something few groups have ever come close to achieving: In the past few days, MAGA influencers and hangers-on have officially out-crazied Swifties.” I am not sure these MAGA folks realize who they are trying to engage. If there is one thing Taylor Swift is familiar with, it’s dealing with a toxic media environment. I seriously doubt that there is anything the MAGA community can come up with that Swift cannot deflect with a flick of her wrist. Donald Trump might be an insecure narcissist, but at least he understands that Swift’s influence over the election does not matter much at all. His die-hard sycophants, on the other hand, seem determined to portray themselves as misogynistic and anti-social. Or, as my podcasting partner Ana Marie Cox put it, “They did it. They cracked the code on radicalizing white ladies.” I promise my next newsletter will be about international relations. For this one, I blame Noah Shachtman and his irresistible clickbait. Drezner’s World. © 2024 Daniel W. Drezner 160 Packard Ave. Medford, MA 02155