Five things meltdown over Taylor Swift tell us about MAGA & the 2024 election season

So who had it on their Bingo card that the biggest MAGA outrage of early 2024 would be the Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce romance? The pop star, whose tour last year was a major economic driver for the cities lucky enough to host it, and the football player seem more like a Hollywood story than a Beltway story.

But somehow the MAGA world decided that it needed to target Swift, one of the most popular figures in American culture. Kelce has gotten some ancillary flak, in part because of his promotion of Pfizer’s COVID vaccine, but most of the fury has been focused on Swift.

Related: Donald Trump gripes he has more fans than Taylor Swift as GOP panics over her massive influence

Trump dialed up the drama by reportedly declaring a “holy war” against the pop superstar.

Swift has been targeted by Republicans before for her support for LGBTQ+ rights. When she voiced her support for the Equality Act in 2019, conservative commentators complained that Swift shouldn’t have any opinions beyond music.

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That’s nothing compared to what’s happening now. Now MAGA is in full meltdown, ranging from simply telling Swift to shut up to ramping up a range of conspiracy theories. Here are five key takeaways from the attacks on Swift and what it reveals about the 2024 campaign.

The MAGA demographic is old. Yes, this isn’t exactly news, but it’s a reminder that the MAGA world isn’t connected to modern America. Even when individuals aren’t old, they behave as if they come from a bygone era. The commentary from the right is so disconnected from the experience of most Americans that it’s like time travel.

It’s pretty insulting to watch a bunch of out-of-it talking heads lecture a powerful woman about why she needs to stay in her place, which is out of politics. “Don’t get involved in politics!” Fox News Host Jeanine Pirro counseled Swift. “We don’t want to see you there!”

Then there is Fox News’ Greg Kelly, who said her fans worshipped her like an idol, “and you’re not supposed to do that. In fact, if you look it up in the Bible, it’s a sin!” 

Thanks, Gramps.

Trump World is jealous. Let’s face it. Trump hates Swift as much for being more successful and popular than he is as much as for the possibility that she’ll endorse Joe Biden again. Trump privately groused that he should have been on the cover of TIME magazine as Person of the Year last year instead of Swift. Of course, you have to be of a certain vintage to care that much about the honor.

Meanwhile, what does MAGA have to offer in the way of celebrities? Folks whose fame dates back to the Reagan era or earlier, who are D-list names at best, or who are renowned for their mental health struggles.

The right is afraid of Swift and Swifties. The attacks on Swift wouldn’t have been as numerous if the right wasn’t genuinely scared of her power. The coordinated and unrelenting campaign against Swift is a sign that conservatives recognize that she can sway votes.

Swift isn’t particularly political – her endorsement of Biden in 2020 was relatively low-key – but when she urged her followers to register to vote last September on National Voter Registration Day, Vote.org recorded more than 35,000 new registrations. The number of 18-year-olds was double the number who registered in 2022.

That’s a worrisome sign for Republicans since young voters are much more likely to vote Democratic, even without Swift telling them to do so. Imagine what happens if she actually makes an endorsement.

MAGA World has no self-awareness. Take a step back. A young white woman shows up at a football game to cheer on her boyfriend, a winning NFL player. Television shows her for just 25 seconds throughout the three-hour broadcast. As a result, the woman is described as a Pentagon “psychological operation” to help re-elect President Joe Biden and and her romance is described as “artificially culturally propped up” to rig the Super Bowl.

This kind of nonsense is the bread and butter of the MAGA universe. But as an introduction to it for Swifties, it’s got to be eye-opening, and not in a good way. The conspiracies are so out of whack with reality that they invite an immediate backlash. It’s a reminder that the MAGA World lives in its own bubble, which means it never has to reflect on what it looks like to the rest of the world. Which in this case is both silly and repugnant.

The Trump camp has written off women and young voters. Between his sexual assault record (which voters were just reminded of) and his Supreme Court nominations (which led to Roe v. Wade being overturned), Trump has found himself struggling with women voters and younger voters. Taking on Taylor Swift is just going to make things that much worse.

“Waging a war on Taylor Swift is certainly not a way to win over the young voters and women that they’ve been hemorrhaging because of their stance on so many issues and the people, the abusive men that they’ve elevated into positions of power,” Kaivan Shroff, press secretary for the Gen-Z progressive group Dream for America, told The Hill.

In fact, women voters already favor Biden by a six-point margin in a recent poll. Young voters aren’t wild about Biden but they are much more likely to support him than Trump.

So what’s the upside of attacking Swift? In fact, there isn’t any. If anything, it just tells Swift that if you’re already being slammed for endorsing Biden before you even do, why not go ahead and endorse him anyway? Fox News hosts must have such a wild sense of their own power that they can strike fear into Swift.

They might be reminded that Swift pulled about 70,000 people at each of her concerts last summer, with thousands more standing outside the venue just to be nearby. By contrast, Trump rallies feature empty seats. No wonder MAGA World is worried.

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