Biden's secret weapon: how singer Taylor Swift can influence the results of the US election

Taylor Swift accepts Video of the Year at the MTV Video Music Awards. September 12, 2023

US President Joe Biden wants to win her support before the 2024 elections, and Donald Trump's voters consider her a "psychological weapon" of the Pentagon.

This would seem absurd if it were not true. And it is about the American singer Taylor Swift.

Even if you haven't heard any of her songs (although you've probably heard at least one - like this one ), you definitely know her name. After all, not many people are named Time Magazine's Person of the Year, especially when the other contenders for the title included Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, a Barbie doll and Charles III.

A person with such popularity and influence can become a significant political factor. Especially when it comes to the presidential elections in the USA, where even a few thousand votes can change the fate of this country and the whole world.

"European Truth" tried to figure out why the singer's name began to appear in discussions about the future vote for the US president - and whether her influence is really so important for Biden and Trump.

What you should know about Taylor Swift

This text is not about the biography of Taylor Swift and not about the phenomenon of her popularity. But to understand why she has such a noticeable influence (and why an article about her appears at all in "European Pravda") is impossible without knowing at least a few basic facts from her biography.

34-year-old Taylor Alison Swift (yes, that's her real name) has been playing music professionally for more than half of her life. During this time, she released 10 albums (six of them sold more than a million copies within a week of their release, and the next one, the eleventh, should be released in April 2024) and won 14 Grammy Awards, including four for Album of the Year. (this is a record; and this is not counting other numerous awards).

Taylor Swift's current world tour, the Eras Tour, which began last year, has already become the highest-grossing tour ever (grossing over $1 billion as of December 2023). In addition, the tour is so popular that European cities compete for the right to host a Taylor Swift concert.

She is the most listened to artist on the biggest streaming music services, Spotify and Apple Music.

After all, Taylor Swift is the first female artist in history to earn over a billion dollars solely from her work (i.e. performances and music sales). She is on the list of the 100 most powerful women in the world and in 2023 appeared on the cover of Time as a person of the year.

She, in fact, achieved all this by herself, while repeatedly becoming the object of scandals and criticism (which, by the way, she often plays on in her songs). In other words, whether we like it or not, Taylor Swift is a very popular and successful contemporary artist and a role model for many.

Given all this, it is not surprising that even the vice-president of the European Commission, Margaritis Schinas, expressed the hope that Taylor Swift will help mobilize young people for the European Parliament elections this June.

"Who did Swift vote for"

Why did Taylor Swift inadvertently become part of a political campaign in the United States? The most obvious answer is its exceptional popularity among Americans.

A March 2023 Morning Consult poll found that 53% of US residents consider themselves fans of the artist, with 16% calling themselves "dedicated fans".

Who would not want to take advantage of the influence of a person whose opinion is important to almost every fifth voter?

Nevertheless, for a long time, Taylor Swift tried to stay away from politics as much as possible. In 2012, she said that she did not want to influence other people, because she herself did not have enough knowledge and experience in life (at that time, the singer was 22 years old).

Much later, in 2020, Swift said that one of the main reasons why she was wary of expressing political views at a more mature age was the scandal with the Dixie Chicks band.

At the beginning of the 21st century, this country band from Texas was one of the most popular in the United States, but in 2003 its lead singer from the London stage criticized the decision of President George W. Bush to invade Iraq. "We are ashamed that the president of the United States was born in Texas," she said at the time.

Against the background of the "patriotic wave" in American culture after the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, such statements could not but cause a scandal. Dixie Chicks fans returned and destroyed CDs with their songs, accused the band of treason for disrespecting the president, artists lost their contracts and were forced to cancel a number of performances.

Of course, over time, the group resumed concert activity and returned to the status of one of the most popular in the United States. But few people would like to repeat this experience - especially in the time of social networks, when hate spreads much faster, explained Swift: "Now it's always like this: one comment - and you're done, you can't do music anymore."

But after the US presidential election in 2016, it became much more difficult for her to remain apolitical. On the day of that election, she posted a photo from the polling station and urged people to vote - but she didn't say who she voted for: Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Then the question "Who did Swift vote for?" got into Google trends.

After all, the 2018 midterm elections for the US Congress forced Taylor Swift to abandon "political radio silence". At the time, 28-year-old Swift publicly supported Democratic candidates Phil Bredesen, who was running for the Senate, and Jim Cooper, who was running for the House of Representatives, from the state of Tennessee, where she lives:

"In the past, I was reluctant to publicly express my political views. Now I have a completely different attitude. I have always cast my vote and will cast my vote based on which candidate will defend and fight for human rights, which I believe in this country deserves everyone."

Swift's support, by the way, did not help Bredesen: he lost to Republican Marsha Blackburn (whom the singer called "Trump in a wig"). And Cooper won, as expected, because he had been elected to the lower house of Congress since 1982.

Nevertheless, Swift's post had a very real result.

In particular, more than 169,000 Americans registered to vote within two days after publication . Five years later, she will repeat the success, encouraging 35,000 young US citizens to register on the website for voters with one post - without supporting specific candidates and not in the midst of elections.

And finally, on the eve of the so-called Super Tuesday, March 5, when as many as 15 states (including Tennessee) elect their delegates to elect a presidential candidate, Taylor Swift urged fans to "vote the people who represent YOU the most."

"We will kick you out at the elections"

Since 2018, Taylor Swift has been more and more candid about her views - not only about politics, but also about social issues. The singer is a supporter of abortion and gender equality, supports LGBT+ (her song You Need to Calm Down became one of the significant events in the community), opposes racism and white supremacy.

In one of the interviews in 2019, Swift already regrets that she did not support Clinton in the last presidential election (and admits that she voted for her), although she claims that there was little she could have done to help her.

The singer will no longer hide her critical attitude towards Donald Trump.

In particular, against the background of Black Lives Matter protests, when the then president of the United States used the controversial phrase: "Violence will begin - shooting will begin ," Swift directly stated : "We will kick you out in the elections in November."

After all, Taylor Swift directly endorsed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the 2020 election. "The change we need most is to elect a president who recognizes that non-white people deserve to feel safe; that women deserve the right to choose what happens to their bodies; and that the LGBTQIA+ community deserves to be recognized and complicity. Everyone deserves a government that takes global health risks seriously and puts the lives of its people first," she said in an interview with Vogue.

And the singer accompanied the link to this interview on Twitter (X) with a photo of a cookie with the inscription "Biden Harris 2020".

Of course, such frankness could not but influence the Republican supporters of the singer - in particular, those who sympathized with Trump.

After Swift publicly endorsed two Democrats in the 2018 election, the then US president said he liked her songs "25% less". And this is not to mention the hundreds of comments in the style of "The end of her career" (as we can see, no).

Of course, it's hard to gauge Taylor Swift's impact specifically on the 2020 election, but at least one study named her as one of the celebrities who changed the course of the vote then.

"Just the way we set it up"

With the 2024 presidential election approaching, when the gap between the two most likely candidates, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, is still slim, even a few tens of thousands of votes could completely change the outcome.

So it is not surprising that at the beginning of the year, the "Taylor Swift effect" was mentioned again.

It all started with an article in The New York Times , which claimed that the Biden campaign, amid the growth of Trump's ratings, is actively looking for a new strategy, in particular to increase the number of voters from among young people. And Taylor Swift's support, according to NYT sources, played an important role here.

Even a post on Instagram, where the singer has (at the time of writing) 282 million followers, could already contribute to the campaign of the current US president. According to the NYT, other options were also discussed - for example, Biden's appearance at one of Swift's concerts as part of her popular Eras Tour.

Separate polls confirm that the hopes of the Biden campaign are not so baseless. Although the majority of Swift's supporters already participate in elections and vote for Democrats, the vast majority of young people are not so involved in politics - and therefore Swift's statement may well provide Biden with an additional electorate.

The reaction of the Trump supporter camp to this was somewhat unexpected, although not original.

It will be recalled that before the 2016 election, the QAnon conspiracy theory began to circulate among Trumpists that the Democrats led by Hillary Clinton were "crushing" pedophilia in pizzerias, and Trump would come and liberate them.

The conspiracy theory - although not so wild - has appeared even now. So here's the gist: Taylor Swift is in cahoots with the Democratic Party of the United States and Biden, has been recruited by the Pentagon as a "psychological information operations" tool to control public opinion, and her current boyfriend, American football player Travis Kelce, is helping to do so. .

If this theory seems absurd to you - well, it is supported by almost one in three voters of the Republican Party and it has already had to be officially refuted by Pentagon speakers more than once (although they tried to treat it with humor, playing famous lines from Swift's songs in their responses).

Bonus – an offshoot of the conspiracy theory: Since Taylor Swift's boyfriend plays American football, the Democrats are also rooting for his team to win the Super Bowl (the annual championship). By the way, this idea was promoted by none other than Vivek Ramaswamy, a former candidate for the presidential nomination from the Republicans.

By the way, Kelsey's team really won the Super Bowl, and Joe Biden couldn't pass up such a coincidence , posting a tweet with the words "Just the way we set it up."

Trump himself during this campaign directly mentioned Taylor Swift only once, recalling that during his presidency he signed a law to renew the music industry, while "Joe Biden did nothing for Taylor and will not do anything."

"There is no way that she would support Dishonest Joe Biden, the worst and most corrupt President in the History of our State, and be disloyal to the man who made so much money for her. By the way, I like her boyfriend Travis, even though he probably a liberal can't stand my spirit either!" - wrote the ex-president of the USA on February 11 in his Truth Social social network.

Meanwhile, Biden, without waiting for the official support of his campaign from Taylor Swift, is trying to take advantage of the moment and even during an interview in the evening show to beat the Trumpist conspiracy theory in his favor .

And Swift herself, calling on Americans to participate in the primaries on March 5, seems to have already discovered the political season of 2024.