5 Taylor Swift as Politician

Many have posited that Taylor Swift should be president, and whether that’s a social media joke or real consideration depends on the context. But the overall question is this: Should celebrities get involved in politics? It’s one that has been asked over the decades, and it seems to depend on the person and who will vote for them. Many argue that because celebrities are in a position of visibility and influence they should be involved in and speak about politics. However, their opinions may not match their followers’ ideas and they may share inaccurate information. Expecting celebrities to speak about politics or everything going on in the media is too much to expect of artists. It isn’t their job, nor do they necessarily have the experience and knowledge to lead well.

While Swift is not running for office, nor does she have plans to at this writing, she did get involved in encouraging people to vote in 2018 because of Senator Marsha Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, whom Swift called “Trump in a wig” (Wilson, 2020). “Swift went on to explain how Blackburn voted against equal pay for women and held that gay couples should not get married. These factors led Swift to the decision to vote for two Democratic senators in the midterm elections” (Driessen, 2022, p. 94). Swift posted on Instagram what she believed, why, who she was voting for, and then she encouraged her supporters to register to vote so they could vote for the candidate that best supported their beliefs. Her fans’ response to her call-to-action was immediate, and Swift inspired some 65,000 voter registrations of Americans ages 18 to 29 only twenty-four hours after her post (Breuninger, 2018).

In another move, Swift posted a short Instagram message on September 18, 2023, encouraging her 272 million followers to register to vote. She said, “I’ve been so lucky to see so many of you guys at my U.S. shows recently. I’ve heard you raise your voices, and I know how powerful they are. Make sure you’re ready to use them in our elections this year!” She included a link to register at vote.org (Sullivan, 2023). Afterwards, vote.org recorded more than 35,000 new registrations (Sullivan, 2023).

Not all celebrity engagement in politics is met with positive results. In March 2003, The Chicks faced vitriolic backlash for their criticism of sitting President George W. Bush (Knopper, 2022). Their very public cancellation served as a warning to other women in country music and the entertainment industry to avoid expressing political opinions, especially those that threaten the status quo or are specific in their reach. The Chicks’s fans complained and stations pulled their songs from the air. “You’d get calls from very angry people every time you would play a … Chicks song — reactionary, violent calls. Threatening to come down and beat you up” (Knopper, 2022). Country music specifically leans conservatively, and artists have to know their fans. Artists also have to make a choice between speaking their minds and keeping the favor of their audience. As a result, fans may “perceive the challenged doxa as a reason to discontinue their fandom” (Driessen, p. 95). Speaking out politically is a risk for celebrities.

Yet many artists of all stripes have chosen to engage in protest, whether it’s through a novel or a song or a painting. Richard Wright famously published Native Son (1940), a protest novel that highlighted the structural and systemic inequalities for Black men in the United States through the story of Bigger Thomas, a character James Baldwin critiqued for being “crude [and] one dimensional” (Kim, 1974, p. 371). That caricature seemed to be the point and part of the protest. John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939) highlighted the plight of migrant farmers and class issues, also registering as a protest novel, which can be about race, gender, immigration, class, education, or identity. Musical artists also engage in protest writing. Some examples include Lana del Rey’s “Looking for America,” Beyoncé’s “Formation,” Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright,” and “Hell You Talmbout” by Janelle Monáe. The words of most of these songs are powerful indictments of racial inequality and injustice, and the music videos add an even more poignant layer to their meanings.

Swift has written her own protest in the song “Miss Americana and The Heartbreak Prince,” released in 2019 on her album Lover. It frames the narrative in high school, but many of the lyrics seem to point to the larger political scene and criticism Swift received for telling her fans to register to vote. One writer for Variety noted that the song “feels like the great protest song this generation has needed: It’s the sound of a friendly superstar deciding she’s mad as hell and can’t take being apolitical anymore” (Willman, 2019). The lyrics point to despair over U.S. politics. She sings, “American glory faded before me / Now I’m feeling hopeless” and “My team is losing, battered and bruising / I see the high fives between the bad guys.” We can read between the lines and see how these words seem to represent tensions between Republicans and Democrats in 2019. She captures the feeling of being deflated by knowing that things aren’t going in a way that’s progressive and good for women and minorities. Further evidence of this occurs in these lines: “the damsels are depressed / Boys will be boys then, where are the wise men?” Swift is known for her feminist activism and outspokenness, and the state of U.S. politics in 2019, at the song’s release, were headed toward restricting women’s medical privacy and reproductive freedom.

In 2022, the Supreme Court (reinvigorated by three Trump appointees) overturned Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed the right to abortion and medical privacy. “For more than 40 years, a passionate band of conservative and mostly Christian activists tried to find ways to undermine the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that guaranteed a constitutional right to abortion” (Dias & Lerer, 2024). They succeeded in 2022, and now birth control is in danger of being banned. “Senate Republicans … blocked action on legislation to codify the right to contraception access nationwide, a bill Democrats brought to the floor to spotlight an issue on which the G.O.P. is at odds with a vast majority of voters” (Karni, 2024). Some 85 percent of Americans believe that women should have access to abortion in some or all circumstances (Narea, 2022), because they seem to understand the nuance of the procedure and how complicated women’s health can be. Women’s basic rights to bodily autonomy are under attack, and Swift knew this in 2019 when she wrote “Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince.” She’s politically savvy and knows what is important to her and her fans. In general, Swift has so far avoided being completely canceled for her political activism, as she has not been overtly specific in most of her critiques. We can read between the lines of her lyrics to see the protest nature of them.

“Only the Young” is also a protest song by Swift, as it tackles the issue of gun violence, which so many young people in the United States face as a threat at school. This song was released in 2020, when many younger people were becoming more vocal about politics and gun safety. The lyrics specifically mention school shootings in the second verse: “you go to class, scared / wondering where the best hiding spot would be.” The rest of the song is mainly about amplifying young voices. Swift sings about how people in power aren’t going to make changes, so the newer generation (or the young) have to make it happen. She is calling young people to action by validating how terrifying today’s world is and also reminding us of how empowering it can be to come together and make change because “only the young / can run.”

She further sings about how “the wrong ones think they’re right,” pointing to the political uproar that gun violence has created and how divided it has made U.S. citizens. We’ve lost sight of focusing on dying children. Swift says, “the game was rigged” and “you did all that you could do,” because nothing about the politics in gun control is in the favor of children. Most politicians work against children in terms of doing what will actually keep them safe in school. This song isn’t made to fix the problem or to immediately get politicians to fix things. The song instead calls young people to action to lift their voices together and work as a team to run against the powers that won’t protect them. This message echoes her social media posts about the importance of registering to vote: “You were outnumbered, this time” is a phrase from the song that reminds us that future elections may change the tides. Further, Democrat Eric Swallwell, a California representative, used “Only the Young” in a campaign ad (Janfaza, 2020). He saw value in appealing to a younger audience in his re-election campaign.

Swift’s song “Eyes Open” might also be considered a protest anthem. This song was written for The Hunger Games movie, and it is about how kids play war games when they are young. It highlights how the world is cruel and everyone is keeping score, which fits themes of The Hunger Games perfectly. The song can also apply to the world we live in, as it is often unkind, and people seem to be waiting for others to fail or for something they can laugh at. The lyrics point to the critical nature of society and how people tear each other down; there is a need to “keep your eyes open” for the next predator. The song compares the world we live in to The Hunger Games, which is likely the metaphor behind the novels and movie series. The country is divided and everyone seems to be at each other’s throats. We need to be careful how we treat each other and embrace civility, or things could turn even uglier, like in The Hunger Games.

Conspiracy theories have popped up surrounding Swift as working to help President Joe Biden win reelection (Paz, 2024). Whether or not Swift speaks out ahead of the 2024 presidential election remains to be seen as of this writing, but we know her influence is powerful and far-reaching. One fan said, “I think she could, potentially, absolutely change my mind politically, because she is a strong woman who is a role model to my 24-year-old daughter and who is unafraid to speak her mind to old, misogynistic, males who can’t find the ability to respect a woman, any woman. It is time we prepare the next generation of women for leadership. The far right are scared to death of Taylor, who has an opportunity to move the needle, to politically mobilise [sic] particularly young women and men, and I think she should” (Otte, 2024). This is the reason so many politicians are afraid of her influence, because they know it works.

References

Breuninger, K. (2018, October 19). Voter registrations skyrocket after Taylor Swift’s get-out-the-vote push. CNBC. Retrieved March 31, 2024, from https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/09/voter-registrations-skyrocket-after-taylor-swift-instagram-post.html

Dias, E. and Lerer, L. (28 May 2024). “The Untold Story of the Network That Took Down Roe v. Wade.” The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/28/magazine/roe-v-wade-christian-network.html

Driessen, S. (2022). Look what you made them do: understanding fans’ affective responses to Taylor Swift’s political coming-out. Celebrity Studies, 13(1), 93-96.

Janfaza, R. (30 October 2020). “Taylor Swift lends music to ad targeted at young voters in final stretch of the 2020 campaign.” CNN.com. https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/30/politics/taylor-swift-young-voters-2020/index.html

Karni, A. (5 June 2024). “G.O.P. Blocks Contraception Bill in Senate as Democrats Seek Political Edge.” The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/05/us/politics/contraception-bill-senate-democrats.html

Kim, K. (1974). Wright, the Protest Novel, and Baldwin’s Faith. CLA Journal, 17(3), 387-396.

Knopper, S. (14 June 2022). “An Oral History of The Chicks’ Seismic 2003 Controversy From the Industry Execs Who Lived It.” Billboard.com. https://www.billboard.com/music/country/chicks-radio-banned-george-bush-oral-history-1235087442/

Narea, N. (24 June 2022). “The end of Roe is only the beginning for Republicans.” Vox.com. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/6/24/23182270/roe-republicans-supreme-court-ban

Otte, J. (6 February 2024). ‘She could absolutely change my mind’: Readers on Taylor Swift’s political influence.” TheGuardian.com. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/feb/06/taylor-swift-political-voting-election-influence

Paz, C. (27 February 2024). “Do 1 in 5 Americans really believe Taylor Swift is in cahoots with Biden?” Vox.com. https://www.vox.com/politics/24085154/taylor-swift-poll-conspiracy-biden-democrat-travis-kelce-super-bowl

Sullivan, B. (22 September 2023). “A Taylor Swift Instagram post helped drive a surge in voter registration.” National Public Radio. Retrieved March 31, 2024, from https://www.npr.org/2023/09/22/1201183160/taylor-swift-instagram-voter-registration

Swift, T. (2012). Eyes Open. Republic Records.

Swift, T. (2019). Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince. Lover.

Swift, T. (2020). Only the Young. Republic Records.

Willman, C. (28 August 2019). “Taylor Swift’s ‘Miss Americana’ May Be the Great Protest Song of Our Time.” Variety.com. https://variety.com/2019/music/opinion/taylor-swift-miss-americana-heartbreak-prince-opinion-1203317552/

Wilson, Lana. 2020. Miss Americana. United States: Netflix.