As Taylor Swift has exploded into the NFL scene, many right-wing pundits have been just as swift to obsess over criticizing her, often with spacious logic and ridiculous sensationalism. We are seemingly in a contest to one-up each other on the most outrageous Taylor Swift “hot take”. I argue this is a massive political mistake that reflects very poorly on American conservatives in the court of principles and the court of public opinion
I’m conservative. I don’t like Taylor Swift or the idolization of her by a vast swath of this country. I believe it is ridiculous, and even a bit crazy how one pop-culture phenom has been able to wield this much cultural capital across America. And I believe the right wing’s obsession with flaming her is terrible for the Republican party and the conservative movement more generally. I have three main reasons to justify this claim.
Firstly, the right’s fixation on Swift is only serving to amplify her even further. Not only is she filling more and more airwaves, but the criticism also provokes a redoubling of support from “Swifties” as well as garners people on the left to support her to simply counter the right. Many of the latter group would otherwise not really care about Swift but are rushing to back her to trigger the right.
Secondly, people obsessed with criticizing Swift to this level look like “incels”, which stands for involuntarily celibate. It seems like a bunch of guys are jealous of her fame, fortune, attention, and even the relationship Swift has with NFL star Travis Kelce. The main sentiment that comes across is envy, which inherently comes from a position of weakness or even desperation. It’s not the look the party or movement needs.
Thirdly, many of the criticisms of Swift are based on spurious logic. Ideas that she is a “psyop” or government plant to get Biden re-elected are grounded primarily in resentful skepticism rather than serious points. We lose credibility as the party that is grounded in facts and logic when we peddle theories based on resentment and even conspiracy.
In sum, the conservative criticisms of Taylor Swift play poorly into our stated goal, our ideological position, and the public perception of our movement and values. We are just feeding the beast, bolstering her position while weakening ours, by being fixated on eviscerating her. The left, and Swifties, win when we do this. This is a massive political blunder.