https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-will-not-win-a-war-against-the-swifties-2024-1
Swift's US adult fan base is larger than the 2020 presidential vote, is unafraid to "go low," and has a long history of sending death threats.
It's amazing how dumb this entire situation is. To my knowledge she hasn't even publicly endorsed a candidate or political party, right? Just suggested her fans register to vote?
Republicans understand that demographics are against them, and their only chance is to whip their base into a froth while simultaneously making it harder for Others to vote.
Ding ding ding
Just like it is every election season. Republicans rely on the electoral vote, propaganda, and systematic diseducation (idk if that’s even a word, case in point?) to ensure victories over the populace
"Education" is from Latin "educ" which means "lead out". The reverse would be to lead in, which is "ducere in". So if you want to make a new but old-fashioned word, I suggest "ducereination" or because the "e-i"" syllables are uncomfortable to say and would have likely been dropped over time, "ducerination". The "c" might be pronounced as an "s" or as a "k" depending on how the word would have evolved since ancient times, but I prefer a "k" sound (which I think is the wrong one according to Google) so it sounds like the "c" in "education".
Note that I don't know Latin.
I don't know a goddamn thing about Latin grammar, but it looks like you could follow the etymology of "education" more closely. The "educ" part is itself derived from "ex ducere", so we could probably have "inducation"
Y'all. Did you have your coffees this morning?
There's already an organically evolved etymologically rich word for the "passing of closed thinking", that harkens back to "leading in" or Inducing...
Indoctrination.
Yeah, but the right only agree that indoctrination exists when it's colleges indoctrinating people into free-thought which they call being woke. Say that word to them and they'll be like "rubber, glue, you" because that's about as many syllables as the average right-winger can muster, and about as intelligent a complete thought as I expect from them as well.
I guarantee you they’ll feel the same way if you say ducerination or inducation. Words they don’t understand are inherently an attack, just like woke, which originally meant someone or something that was championing the rights of people in modern times
If you go with educere, you probably want to use inducere, which accidentally is the root of actual words
Misinformation: Untrue or misleading information. Anyone can fall victim to it. Even the smartest among us can be misinformed.
Disinformation: Intentionally untrue or misleading information. This is information that is targeted towards people who are most likely to fall victim to it: Suckers
If you're watching a show/video and the advertisements are mostly bullshit things like supplements, (legal) drugs, and/or weight loss products the show/video you're watching is made for suckers. The folks selling these things know their marks.
See I didn’t like how that one fit, and it’s not that they’re outright feeding bad information (some are, sure) but that they withhold that info (I.e. banning books, taking whole curriculums straight up out (black history, us military history as related to global behavior in and out of war), etc
Yes. That is all she did. Got them to register to vote. She didn't even hint at who they should vote for. That might change now, and not the way Republicans want.
Honestly, it's such an incredible own goal. By aligning themselves in opposition to her, Republicans are begging for her fans to vote against them.
Correct. They've tacitly acknowledged for quite a while that discouraging their enemies from voting is a big part of their strategy, though, and I don't think anyone involved thinks the Taylor Swift fans are also Trump fans.
Honestly, if someone tries to tell you voting won't change anything, just point to how hard they try to rig the systems that drive it and how much they freak out about any indication that their enemies are planning to vote in large numbers.
It's been going on ever since black people got the right to vote. It's been suppress the vote ever since. Used to be let the radicals do their thing away from the party, now it's imbedded in Fox and gop itself.
just point to how hard they try to rig the systems that drive it a
My city: 80% white, 20% Asian, and rich. Voting is super easy.
City next to mine: nearly 100% POC. Every election multihour long waits to vote.
Yes, I have tried to help but I can't do much besides pass water bottles out and give out voter registration forms. They won't let me be an election worker unless I live there.
Registering to vote helps Democrats more than Republicans, because first time voters and younger voters are more likely to vote Democrat. Republicans do better when less people vote.
Registering to vote helps Democrats more than Republicans, because
first time voters and younger voters are more likely to vote Democratmany more people want to vote for Democrats.
Though your original version is also correct.
Yes, absolutely. If we made voting mandatory, made Election Day a national holiday, and actually managed to get our turnout over 90%, the Democrats would landslide every election and the Republicans know it.
An awful lot of Republican policy makes sense when you view them as a party with a shrinking base. They’re trying to eek out what they can before shifting over to a new base.
Rubio, Cruz, and De Santis have been trying to build Hispanic bases, though none of them are really charismatic enough to pull it off.
Who would think that 3 personally repulsive people from the Let's Kill Immigrants and Deport Their Families Party would have trouble making inroads with Latino voters? It's a real mystery!
You'd be surprised how much of the Latino community are folks like the descendants of the Cuban bourgeoisie who fled Cuba when the communists took over, devout Catholics, people who jumped through all the hoops to immigrate legally and are really salty about the ones who took shortcuts, etc.
The Latino vote has started trending to the right, so they're not wrong for trying.
Dems need to do more to secure their vote.
Almost like Dems need to actually do something for minorities instead of taking their vote for granted.
the democratic party is controlled opposition. their job is to prevent left wing policies even at the cost of republicans winning
their ideology is literally and metaphorically dying off and the only way they can retain power is by destroying democracy. everything they do is to make sure people can't vote them out, up to and including a fascist coup
Either that or run on a platform people actually want to vote for, but yeah the destroying democracy thing is probably easier.
Here she is speaking about Republicans in a 2020 documentary. I would say it’s a bit more than asking people to register.
Edit to add: She comes across so genuinely in this clip, I really love it. Listen to her speak and then think of any time you’ve ever heard Trump speak. I can understand why they feel threatened.
That may as well have been a direct attack against the GOP. Their whole motus operandi is suppressing the vote and voter apathy, keep people away from the polls and sick of the whole process. They don't really need to run a better campaign than their opponent, just make their opponents' supporters so sick of all the noise and both-sidesing everything, they just sit out the whole thing because there's no difference between anybody, right?
It’s amazing how dumb this entire situation is. To my knowledge she hasn’t even publicly endorsed a candidate or political party, right? Just suggested her fans register to vote?
Is it really amazing anymore? Bud Light sent one specially printed can to a trans influencer last year and they lost their shit for months. (You know everything they did, I'm sure, so I'm not going to catalogue it here.)
Dumb? Yes.
Ridiculous? Yes.
Conservatives behaving in a way that shows us yet again just what kind of people they are? Yes.
Amazing? No.
Elections have become entertainment. Same with the house and senate. Everybody wants to be famous.
"Donald Trump and his far-right 'holy war' against Taylor Swift could cost him the next presidential election."
News from a completely normal and not broken at all timeline. Imagine reading that sentence to someone 10 years ago.
10 years ago was still 2 years left in the final Obama administration. Add on just a bit more to really drive those 2014 people crazy:
“After an unsuccessful violent insurrection to stay in the White House after being voted out, Donald Trump and his far-right ‘holy war’ against Taylor Swift could cost him the next presidential election.”
We're past Idiocracy. President Camacho listened to the smartest person in the room. Trump thinks he is the smartest person in the room.
Trump knows he's not the smartest person in the room. Trump wants to claim to be the smartest person in the room, and enjoys watching nobody correct him. That makes him feel like the most powerful person in the room. He doesn't care who the smartest is, as long as he gets to claim it and all the credit for everything smarter people do near him.
Nitpick: He's gone on record as saying he doesn't hire people who he thinks is smarter than he is.
That's part of the kink. He says that so that smart people who want to work for him will tell him they think he is smarter than they are. It's a power move. Like the handshake thing.
After I got out of a relationship with a malignant narcissist, I realized that everything they do and say is a power move. They live in a world without objective reality. They cannot tell the truth because they function for a delusion. While you are thinking that you're having a conversation sharing ideas, they're observing you up and down to measure your strengths, weaknesses, social power, and threat to their social power. They listen intently to create a character they will present to you so that you enmesh with them. They run little secret experiments to learn how you react to things. Once they've figured you out, you're going to have a bad time. The sad thing is that underlying all this, is that they feel deeply insecure. They confuse envy for love. The more of an asshole a malignant narcissist is, the more they're telling the world they're insecure because the more they want people to envy them, which means the more they need love in their delusional world. Trump is extraordinarily insecure.
I think they'd be confused about why a real estate celebrity is going after a 1 year old girl but yeah not too far off
Watching Kimmel's monologue from yesterday-
The same people who believe Joe Biden has dementia and needs Kamala Harris to feed him butterscotch tapioca every night also believe that he has somehow planned and executed a diabolicalically brilliant scheme to fix the NFL playoffs so the biggest pop star in the world can pop up on the jumbotron during the Superbowl in between a Kia and a Tostitos commercial to hypnotize her 11-year-old fans into voting for Joe Biden.
You know what? It's kinda nice that it may come down to mainstream culture to bring this poison down. It just highlights how different our culture is from our politics. I'm not sure I have point.
It would not be crazy if that was the top of the list, that should be a deciding factor, which is what will make it crazy when instead the things that push people over the edge are TayTay and her friend Mary Jane.
And the only reason Taylor Swift got involved is because the crazies started saying she was, with no evidence, until she felt pressured to speak out
They're not trying to win the popularity contest. They're trying to win the "do what we say or maybe one of our violent followers will try to kill you" contest. That's what Hannity means by "think twice."
They abandoned the pretense of nonviolence and freedom of speech for their enemies quite a while ago.
Having watched Fox News from time to time I am amazed that this kind of thing hasn't yet started happening more often.
You know what's telling me the real truth? The TV. You know who's a horrifying enemy who can't be trusted? My dad.
(Only some parts of the TV; the others are all horrible dangerous lies)
I guarantee you Taylor Swift has some of the best security in the world, so I'm guessing that doesn't worry her much.
They could still bomb one of her concerts, or drive a car into fans waiting in line, or some other type of stochastic terrorism. Like a lot terrorism, it's not necessary to do enough to actually endanger a real high percentage of people, just enough to make anyone who won't toe the line a little fearful about their safety because of it. A little bit's enough.
Yeah, maybe so. I hadn't really realized it before you said this, but historically the violence that helps usher in a fascist takeover is either police violence or big, public, mob-style events -- not this sneaking around planting pipe bombs nonsense. I think you may well be right that stochastic terrorism ultimately inspires more resistance then obedience.
The only analogs I can even think of where a successful fascist takeover was accompanied by terrorism in secret, are the Reichstag fire and the false-flags from Putin's early days -- and both of those inspired a strong reaction against the party that, supposedly, was the one that had perpetrated them.
although getting a lot of people who are apolitical but have progressive values to pay attention by bombing their favorite pop star isn't going to have a favorable outcome for the bombers
Maybe, but I don't see how that would end up helping Republicans, so if that does happen, it will be some lone crazy. That's always a risk.
After 8 years of whatever Democrats claim they're doing, Donald Trump may have finally encountered opponents who are interested in fighting back.
I really, really want the history books to say that Taylor Swift was responsible for Trump losing by a landslide.
It's oddly fitting for this cursed timeline
You're right, it fits all too well. I'm not currently really a Taylor Swift fan but I would buy every album if she did that
You would prefer [strawman]?
If you're going to argue with me, argue with me, not the fictional version of me you've constructed.
Donald Trump is by definition a demagogue and proto-fascist. Given the opportunity, and using the document the GOP drafted entitled "Project 2025", we can see that a 2nd Trump administration would dismantle the system of checks and balances that provide equality across the 3 branches of government in favor of a unilateral (authoritarian) executive branch. So it's not a strawman, it's what the GOP has announced they'll do in 2025 should Trump retake the WH.
Then maybe Democrats should actually fight against it, like I said, instead of making a huge deal about half-assed efforts.
None of that means I want Republicans to win or accomplish their goals. Now point to something else Republicans want and baselessly accuse me of wanting it too because I don't buy your apologia for Democrats' deliberate uselessness.
Out of the two of these people only one is actually a billionaire :)
That’s gotta chap his orange ass
My friends dad who had spent his entire life as a staunch republican like Reagan style came to her and said "who do you want me to vote for, you are going to be here I wont".
I hope this perspective shift happens with all boomers.
spent his entire life as a staunch republican like Reagan style
TBF his perspective hasn't changed that much. It's his party that has abandoned him.
Ray-gun was a Trump precursor. It was Bush Sr. that took a step back from the brink and went back to just being an awful jackass.
Yup. All of the problems in the US are basically a game of "6 degrees from Reagan"
Reminds me of my grandfather who was one of those "Voted for Eisenhower 'cause Lincoln won the war" types according to my dad. He voted straight Republican in every election until 2004.
See, the Bush campaign started handing out Purple Heart Band Aids as part of the swiftboating of John Kerry. My grandfather, who had earned a Purple Heart and delivered one to his dead friend's parents, didn't appreciate the joke, and voted Democrat for the rest of his life.
OMG, you have a point here. Imagine if Taylor started wearing maga gear. The swifties could claim it!
After weeks of Republican media pundits and a former presidential candidate vilifying her, going as far as saying she's a Defense Department psy-op asset
Of course. Everyone is an agent of darkness. The right has this problem. They can’t say „We fight to make your lives miserable and we will fuck you and the whole nation over. It will be a complete clusterfuck”. Because that would be honest. So they have to make up enemies.
it seems all but certain Trump will jump into the fray soon after Rolling Stone reported one of his confidants predicted a "holy war" against the pop sensation.
“Holy war” sounds way cooler than what it really is. If you just could see how pathetic you really are, Donnie. And your followers are somehow even worse.
If you didn't hear the opening riffs to Megadeth's Rust in Peace, you're not metal enough for this comment.
If Trump loses, I hope they have Taylor Swift play at Biden's Inauguration. I don't even like Taylor Swift's music, but it'd be a nice slap in the face to the GOP.
Actually, one tactic the Biden campaign could use to get out Swifties to vote for him is to pre-emptively get Taylor Swift to agree before the election to a concert at his inauguration. "Hey, if we win, guess who you can come see for free in concert?"
I can hear my mom yelling about it now. Funny how she was mostly ignorant about here existence until Fox News started complaining about her and now she hates her guts. Always liked watching the super bowl until this mess and now she's "maybe I don't bother".
But if I poke her about it she turns into "I am not just parroting them. You need to stop reading CNN and all those brainwashed sources."
It's so close to realizing, but won't cross the line. I have read about 2 articles from CNN in my entire life. The entire news industry hates maga now. It's pretty much just FN, Newsmax, and the absolute far end of the spectrum of hate preachers and Alex Jones that say anything close to what you want to hear, as far as I can see.
Yeah if the entire world can agree on something, but my preferred group is the holdout, I think I would re-examine my view. It's just mind boggling that just one huge mainstream network says stuff that all the others disagree with, and that's the one you are just so sure it's right about everything.
I feel this... They think that, just because the only way they know how to consume "news" is through trashy 24 hour news channels, that you must be doing the same, but with "liberal" sources.
Just more projection.
You should try to sit down with her and watch, "The Brainwashing of my Dad" documentary. See if anything resonates with her at all.
Alternatively remind her that the RNC had Clint Eastwood speak at the convention, talking to an empty chair strangely...
She is stuck on that side. If she knows some kind of news or information is not sanctioned by Fox News she automatically either avoids listening to it in the first place, or discounts it immediately. Even on just local news (and this is a very conservative area, at least this half of the state) if they say something about gay people, or just mention a gay event and if they don't immediately say something negative about it, she just rolls her eyes.
Even with a TV show she likes, if gay characters do a gay thing (omg 2 dudes kissing!) she will literally make the noise... Umm what is the word for it... Retching, I think? Whatever the barf noise is called. She will literally make that noise and look away from the screen.
There is nothing rational about this kind of behavior, you can't win this argument. The chess board is already on the floor here.
So I don't know anything about that documentary, but if she has any reason to think it's not sponsored by Fox News, it's literally just fiction at best and "Communist Marxist propaganda" at worst.
Yeah that's sad but I can completely understand. Religions have been abusing this for eons and now it's being used directly for a political ideology. There comes a point where reason doesn't even matter.
Fans who caused seismic activity in Seattle versus septuagenarian overly impressed with himself is going to be the best fight.
Not to mention her fans broke Live Nation. A website supposedly robust enough to handle ticket sales virtually every major live event every day in the entire nation. And they broke it so badly that congress got involved.
Yeah but I'm sure she was paying those people more than Trump was to show up at her event, right? What, she didn't pay them anything unless they were working the event?
Well, it's not hard to attract people to a free concert. Huh? It wasn't free? More people were willing to pay how much to see her than were willing to be paid by Trump to see him?
The difference between Swift and Trump is that Taylor understands she needs to give back to her fans, in music and performances. Trump just sees his fans as providing something for him, their money in donations and ego boosts.
I avoid pop culture wherever possible so I am almost entirely ignorant of Swift’s musical catalog. That said, the attention the republicans have been giving her lately has me interested enough to start listening to her music to see what the big deal is. I have found quite a few songs I enjoy and Apple Music has been suggesting more and more of her stuff that I find myself not skipping.
So, the GOP war on Swift has added at least one more person to her fanbase 🤣
I feel the same about Taylor Swift. It’s not really my genre of music, but I like pretty much everything she does and can’t think of any song I actively dislike. My daughter’s into her, so it’s nice I can listen to music with her and legitimately enjoy it.
Same. I don't listen to her, but my kids love her. She's cool and aspirational. She's a great role model.
She's popular because she puts out catchy pop songs. You missed out on like 13 years of bangers.
It's not my kind of music, but someone the WGA and SAG/AFTRA gave their blessings to show her concert movie during their strike because she said, "okay, I'll give you whatever you're asking for" is okay in my book.
Plus getting her fans to register to vote is just a good act.
I didn’t think it was but as I’ve started listening, I’m finding a lot that I actually enjoy. It started with “You Need to Calm Down”, my wife was playing it in the car and I dug the music (has a good beat, is interesting vocally, etc.). Then I listened to the lyrics and was a bit taken aback because of her apolitical reputation.
She’s got much more of an edge than I expected so Ive got a lot to explore :).
I've heard a few of her songs out of curiosity, but I'm just not into modern pop music. She obviously has a lot of talent, she's just not musically for me.
I still fail to see anything resembling logic in the GOP's sudden war against Taylor Swift. I don't follow Taylor Swift at all, but to my knowledge has never publicly endorsed a candidate or even taken a side on a political issue. She is a pop singer currently enjoying outsized popularity, but it's mostly about catering to preteen girls, and showing up at NFL games acting as if she's just the world's richest starstruck fan.
Her base, or at least the ones old enough to vote, aren't interested in her politics. They're interested in her music. They're interested in her fashion. They're interested in watching her fawn all over Travis Kelce like she's a 12 year old girl. There was no overlap between Swifties and the political left.
But if the GOP wants to put that ball in play, there will be. They are currently trying to frame it as you can either be a Swiftie or MAGA. And if the GOP thinks that Swifties are going to abandon her for Donald fucking Trump, they're going to have a bad time. And given how tight the race is in some of the swing states Trump needs to carry if he has a shot at winning, there is a very real possibility that he could end up losing races in states he may have otherwise won because he pissed off enough Swifties to swing the election. (Remember that some of these states were decided by barely 10,000 votes. I will guarantee you there is not a state in the country that doesn't have at least that many Swifties, probably several times over.)
Taylor Swift's fan base aren't cans of Bud Light. Taylor Swift doesn't have corporate shareholders to answer to. Taylor Swift isn't going to back down out of fear of lost sales. Any Swifties that are motivated enough to go to the polls based off of this stupid culture war I will guarantee will vote in lockstep for Biden. Not even for policy reasons, but just as their way of telling the GOP to go fuck themselves.
They’re worried she will convince a fair amount of younger folks to register to vote. It will make it harder for them to cheat, so they have to invent crazy conspiracy theories about her instead of admitting their policies are just actual shit.
Just to be clear Taylor avoided commenting on politics until 2018. At that point she endorsed some Democrat candidates in TN. Since then, when asked, she had made it clear that she will never support DJT or the GOP in general. The GOP absolutely put this ball in play, because The View were the "reporters" that drug it out of her. You're correct that she seems to avoid politics like the plague, and with good reasons.
See I didn't even know that she did that much. I remember seeing one random clip from an interview at her house or something where she mentioned her position on abortion and she definitely came off as being left-leaning, but beyond that I've never heard her make a political statement. But again, it's not like I follow Taylor Swift. She could be Biden's campaign manager for all I know....
I think this is silly and her influence is blown way out of proportion.
But Taylor Swift has endorsed candidates in the past.
Thank you for the information. Not that it changes much of my opinion, but I like to be informed, and I like to be told when the information I'm going on isn't correct.
They're mostly worried about this: https://www.npr.org/2023/09/22/1201183160/taylor-swift-instagram-voter-registration
When Taylor Swift speaks, her fans listen.
On Tuesday morning, the singer posted a short message on Instagram encouraging her 272 million followers to register to vote. Afterward, the website she directed her fans to — the nonpartisan nonprofit Vote.org — recorded more than 35,000 registrations, according to the organization.
"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," she wrote on her Instagram Stories. "Make sure you're ready to use them in our elections this year!" Her post included a link to register at Vote.org.
The 35,252 new registrations on National Voter Registration Day were the most since 2020, the organization said, and a 23% jump over last year. The number of 18-year-olds registered was more than double 2022.
They know what's coming. They can't stop it.
I mean, check all the numbers around the country. Obviously numbers are going to increase closer to election season, especially another very controversial one.
Let's just hope Swift isnt the big moving force, since the candidates she endorsed in Tenessee in 2018 lost while she was getting the same type of news stories
Meh, Tennessee is Tennessee. Can't expect much from there. I suspect they simply would've lost by wider margins. The key question is how her generalized drive for voter turnout influences youth turnout in hotly-contested swing-states. When youth turn out, Democrats win. 2022 midterms proved that.
The thing about an angry ideolog is everything is at play. There is nothing they feel they can't weight in on nothing that isn't part of the unseen all powerful enemy.
Like I told my eldest once "it is very unfortunate but you are going to meet people in life who are going to punish you for the crime of existing and them noting it".
I was always pretty skeptical about the impact Taylor Swift had on the 2018 election. There were a few other factors from 2016-2020 that definitely increased political involvement and compare 2014 to 2018 Senate voting numbers in any state. They all dramatically increased.
Also, Bredesen(the person Taylor endorsed) ended up losing.
I still fail to see anything resembling logic in the GOP
You could have just ended the comment there...
It's 2024 and Swifties are scarier than Anonymous; Maybe it's looking glass-ception and we need to go through more of them.
Kanye has no business being anywhere near an elected office unless someone gets him back on his meds.
There's no mental illness that makes you say Nazi shit, I think he might just be an asshole
I'm so sick and tired too of him saying that he's bipolar. He's 1000% self diagnosed and it does a disservice to mental health professionals and people who suffer from bipolar disorder.
Yes, self diagnosed but somehow got a doctor to medicate him for bi polar disorder, and suddenly started going off the rails when he went off his meds.
Of course there is. Do you think that schizophrenic people actually believe all the crazy bullshit they say during an episode?
The schizophrenia sufferers I've worked with seemed not to have a definite or enduring sense of what they believed, but none of them said Nazi shit. No, that was the old guy with FAS who was raised by an actual nazi.
But, they can be influenced by the people around them, and dude was hanging out with Donald Trump for a bit there.
I'm not a Kanye supporter by any means. I don't think I've ever intentionally listened to his music, but I do know he's severely mentally ill and needs to be on antipsychotics.
That's what I thought about George W. Bush once.
Since that time I've learned that I lack imagination.
For the purpose of this discussion, let's take her lack of political experience off the table entirely.
I'm not a fan of her music by any stretch of the imagination, but she's got to one of the hardest working people in the industry with some of the best people working for her. In other words, she's everything Trump pretends to be, but for real.
She is LEGITIMATELY massively successful and became so while intentionally staying out of politics. She's a real version of everything the MAGA goons pretended made Trump a qualified candidate: an outsider who has their own money and is therefore immune to lobbying and/or corruption.
So by MAGA's own metric, she's ABSOLUTELY qualified for the position.
You and several billion others would weep with joy while we all did so. Hell, if that's how we save the species? Mmf. 🤌🏼✨ Poetry.
