00:03:07.220There is nothing she doesn't touch. So just a few days ago on Fox News primetime, Jesse Waters publicly aired a segment in which he proliferated a conspiracy theory that like Taylor Swift is an agent of the Pentagon or something like I want to I want to start here.
00:03:30.080Taylor Swift's the biggest star in the world. Sorry, Gutfeld. She's been blanketed across the sports media entertainment atmosphere. The New York Times just speculated she's a lesbian. And last year's tour broke Ticketmaster. I mean, I like her music. She's all right. But I mean, have you ever wondered why or how she blew up like this?
00:03:48.100well around four years ago the pentagon psychological operations unit floated turning
00:03:55.020taylor swift into an asset what kind of asset a psyop for combating online misinformation
00:04:01.820you know the jesse waters thing like feels like an even farther extrapolation of something that
00:04:08.540came out a couple months ago when so you know taylor swift was named times person of the year
00:04:13.340It was a big hoopla. Everybody was talking about it. And one of the things that came out of that was that certain conspiracy theorists and other folks on the Internet and the right leaning space started saying that Taylor Swift was basically a psyop for the coming election, that like she had been sort of given a pedestal in order to swing votes in one way or the other, which are people thinking that like somebody infiltrated time and made them pick her person of the year?
00:04:42.220You know, like, how did it get from that to, like, she's going to swing the next election?
00:04:47.000So the idea being spread on the most watched cable news channel in the United States is that Taylor Swift is, like, a de facto.
00:05:00.900And the thing with the water segment was, like, yeah, then, okay, now it's about the Pentagon, which, like, otherwise it was just more of a, like, election season kind of a thing.
00:05:08.880So, like, it's clearly gone in a lot of different directions.
00:05:11.800I wanted to start there because I think the fact that whether we like it or not, these genuinely important political commentators are talking about Taylor Swift in this way is indicative of her role in politics today, which is certainly not something she signed up for.
00:05:30.520right and we're gonna get into what that means but like as as you the listener know taylor swift
00:05:36.760is one of the most famous and influential people on earth yeah i would say at this point she was
00:05:43.500times 2023 person of the year she had a historic run on the eras tour is it still going on yeah i
00:05:50.900think it it's now going to other places but okay yeah well the the eras tour made her a billionaire
00:05:56.480which is also something we're gonna get into because i have complicated feelings about taylor
00:06:01.900swift i think part of the reason the eras tour is ongoing is because it was so economically
00:06:07.300stimulating in local economies across the globe that governments started begging taylor swift to
00:06:13.280come perform at their cities so that their um municipalities would get an economic boost and
00:06:20.220they were offering her like honorary gifts for doing so which is just like that's an unimaginable1.00
00:06:25.820amount of power to have. Right. Yeah. To know that you could almost essentially bring jobs to a0.87
00:06:30.880city, you know, like the restaurants get a boost, hotels get a boost, like just because you showed
00:06:36.140up. Taylor Swift is an industry. Yeah. She is the most streamed woman on Spotify. She has over a
00:06:44.180hundred monthly, a hundred, a hundred monthly listeners. Good for her. She has over, she has
00:06:49.400over a hundred million monthly listeners on Spotify. But you know, the thing with Taylor
00:06:54.000Swift is people will list her achievements. And I think in this moment, we have to understand her
00:06:59.140power and influence as so much greater than the sum of her achievements. Like she has such an
00:07:03.540undeniably tight grip on culture, not just pop culture, that everybody is forced to pay attention
00:07:10.400regardless of whether or not they listen to her music. What's interesting, I think, to me about
00:07:14.800Taylor Swift, well, a couple things, a lot of things, but a couple that matter to this conversation
00:07:19.360right now is that she's an artist who you know now in her 30s was still like one of those first
00:07:25.020artists to also get the internet you know she was on tumblr she like interacted with her fans there
00:07:30.800very early on and that sort of mindset and that sort of awareness of her persona has carried
00:07:37.240through throughout even though she never needs to post on any social media ever again even though
00:07:42.580she does but you know because of that and because that has gained her this influence she's become
00:07:48.060one of those celebrities that everybody politically wants a piece of because if she0.87
00:07:52.780says boo about you at all in one way or another, that does have huge impacts.0.68
00:07:59.560Yeah. And we're going to get into the timeline of Taylor Swift's public involvement in politics,
00:08:05.140which is pretty brief. She does a kind of trail of breadcrumbs, mostly liberal breadcrumbs.
00:08:13.060But something that you reported on was this kind of left-wing, right-wing tug-of-war over Taylor Swift's endorsement.0.85
00:08:23.000She's become so powerful and influential, like you said, that she can endorse someone or criticize someone in politics, and it has legitimate sway over elections.
00:08:35.100People are going to question why I'm making an episode about the politics and the political power of Taylor Swift.
00:08:43.060And fair enough. That's a fair question. But, you know, the answer is that Taylor Swift is like, at least in the United States, she's like a part of the political totem pole, whether you or I want her to be. I don't know. It reminds me a lot of like the way that like 10 years ago, sometimes people would talk about the Kardashians and Taylor Swift is more influential than any of the Kardashians have ever been.
00:09:05.000Yeah. But I remember when the Kardashians were ascending to cultural ubiquity and I used to get in arguments with my mom. She'd be like, I don't want to talk about them. And I'm like, mom, I, you know, personally, I've never stand the Kardashians, but at some point to ignore their profound effect on culture and the way that we live and the way that we consume, it becomes ignorant to an extent.
00:09:30.520And just because, and I think there is a real gloss of misogyny in all of this that like we view any women, but particularly women who put a lot of effort into like, in the case of the Kardashians, like their look, we view it as like inherently frivolous, but at some point their impact on culture and politics, those things are worth having conversations about.
00:09:55.660Do you think, not to throw a question back at you, but like, do you think we'd have influencers in the way that we have them today had we not had the Kardashians?
00:10:05.340I mean, for a lot of those early years, it was like the trends were often set or I wouldn't say they were set by Kylie Jenner because oftentimes the trends that she like, quote unquote, set were actually set by black women.
00:14:07.720If you imagine if Taylor Swift was just like, I'm not releasing another album, unless x
00:14:13.860million people registered a voter, you know, like, unless x happens, or x person gets elected,
00:14:19.360or whatever. I don't think you could deny that like that would have some impact. It may not
00:14:23.600necessarily have the impact that she calls for, but it's still a lot more influence than like you
00:14:28.840say, an MSNBC segment maybe would reach. The California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom
00:14:34.600recently said that her influence on the 2024 presidential election would be quote,
00:14:40.500profoundly powerful. I really quickly want to just take a minute to give a huge shout out
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00:15:55.520blueland.com slash fruity. Again, that's blueland.com slash fruity. Now back to the show.
00:16:02.400so i want to get into the timeline of taylor swift's public political involvement and spoiler
00:16:12.720like it's not that long of a timeline but the reverberations everything she does are so large0.81
00:16:19.380before 2018 taylor swift was basically a political yeah and as you wrote on wired she
00:16:27.960was embraced at that point by the far right. I didn't realize she was like embraced by
00:16:32.660like neo-Nazis. Yeah. Yeah. And like, I think in the last 10, if not 20 years,
00:16:39.480the sort of ways that political organizations or, you know, people of certain political beliefs
00:16:46.320operate in very similar ways to fandoms, right? You know, like you have like online discourse
00:16:51.800about this thing. You like have your people that you know from your Facebook group or whatever.
00:16:56.060And there was a sort of segment, I think Vice did a great piece about it at the time, looking at the fact that some people in these corners were, you know, sort of embracing Taylor Swift, or at least like expressing a sort of fandom, like, you know, she's one of ours, because at the time, she hadn't said anything. And so it could be like, well, you know, she probably agrees with us.
00:17:14.040How much of that was related to the fact that she was coming from country music?
00:17:18.080I mean, I think probably a large part of it, right?0.99
00:24:13.660I don't know how he reached it, but that's what he said.
00:24:16.160Two years later, she releases the Miss Americana documentary on Netflix, which was a documentary about her and her career up until that point.
00:24:24.320And there was a scene in Miss Americana where you see she's arguing with her dad over whether or not to make that Instagram post.
00:24:33.480So I want to play it and we'll talk about it.
00:24:36.820We've not got involved with politics or religion.
00:24:41.400And also, back in the presidential election, I was in such a horrendous place that I wasn't going to pop my head out of the sand for anything.
00:25:57.820She votes against fair pay for women.0.71
00:26:01.020She votes against the reauthorization of the of the Violence Against Women Act, which is just basically protecting us from domestic abuse and stalking, stalking.
00:26:09.860She votes. She thinks that that if you're a gay couple or even if you look like a gay couple, you should be allowed to be kicked out of a restaurant.
00:26:17.060It's really basic human rights, and it's right and wrong at this point.1.00
00:26:21.600And I can't see another commercial and see her disguising these policies behind the words Tennessee Christian values.
00:26:32.660Those aren't Tennessee Christian values.
00:26:41.440I need you to just, Dad, I need you to forgive me for doing it because I'm doing it.
00:26:47.060that clip has gone viral many times over and people have had a lot to say about it people
00:26:53.800on the left people on the right i think it's very interesting because like and we've seen this with
00:26:57.740a lot of celebrity either biopics or documentaries where like you know they're always done with the
00:27:04.900support of the artist in the camp so like in some ways you know that it is them putting out what
00:27:11.580they want the world to see of themselves and their persona. And so like, you know, I do watch
00:27:17.140that clip with a little bit of skepticism, but not cynicism, I think. I don't know that it was
00:27:21.600like staged per se. I don't think it was staged per se. But like, it was a choice that she wanted
00:27:26.300it to be part of the documentary that she didn't say, turn off the cameras, I need to have a private
00:27:31.100conversation with my family about this right now. And I think that she wanted to show the struggle,
00:27:37.960which I think is really I think is authentic, like the struggle that she had around putting
00:27:41.900out that message and what it could mean for her career. And so I've always kind of just thought
00:27:48.220it was a I was gonna say it was tailored. And then I realized how funny that sounded.
00:27:52.940But, you know, like it was, you know, like it was part of the entire packaging of herself that was
00:27:59.100happening around the time that Miss Americana was released. But at the same time, I don't think that
00:28:04.300is in any way disingenuous or you know like it's not authentic like i think that it was something
00:28:09.860that she wanted out there and kind of wanted on the record well and it calls into question because
00:28:14.180like she hasn't spoken up about politics many times yeah since then in a lot of ways this was
00:28:20.400kind of a flash in the pan as far as her participating in political discourse and so it
00:28:25.620to me it just begs the question i don't know what you think about this but it's like
00:28:28.720how much does she or doesn't she want politics to be like part of her image i think she has
00:28:35.940gotten to a point and i think that this probably just comes with maturity and age and reaching a
00:28:40.480point where it's like you're a little more set like if taylor swift stopped working tomorrow
00:28:44.380she'd be fine you know like she kind of should say yeah you know like and not even just financially
00:28:49.060but like she's done enough of a body of work i would think that like her legacy is secure as i
00:28:54.380say or something and so i think that like with that maturity kind of has come a realization to
00:28:59.020your point earlier that like she's going to be in the conversation even if she doesn't want to be
00:29:03.800and so she does have to have said something on a few of the things that matter to her but i do
00:29:11.200think that something like that clip that you just played for miss americana or some of the other
00:29:16.160sort of like what you were saying earlier like bread comes like i made cookies for biden you
00:29:20.600You know, like those kind of things she puts out there so that she can put them out there and then like stop getting questions about that.
00:29:27.120You know, like she can be like, I spoke about this.
00:29:29.860It doesn't mean that every interviewer asks her about certain things like, where do you stand on queer marriage?
00:29:35.980You know, like because she's said it, but there's always going to be a new issue.
00:29:39.460So there's probably always going to be something to ask her.
00:29:41.460But I feel like she laid she was laying some groundwork so that she doesn't have to find a new way to deflect the same question over and over and over again.
00:29:48.860in 2020 she she did the biden cookies yeah she posted a picture on instagram where she's holding
00:29:55.460she's like kind of smirking and wearing overalls and she's holding a plate of uh cookies that have
00:30:02.220the biden harris 2020 logo on them and that was her way of endorsing biden and harris which like
00:30:08.240you know that's nice and endorsements and endorsements yes yes yes that's the thing is
00:30:13.620like right it's just sort of like she didn't then go out and do a stump speech or you know like she
00:30:18.140didn't like right show up and play guitar at a at a rally or something and that's basically like
00:30:23.220it i mean she's had like a couple tweets she she tweeted i think when uh roe versus wade was
00:30:29.100overturned she she tweeted some like sassy things at trump at one point like where oh oh it was um
00:30:36.520actually after the death of george floyd she went to twitter and she was like how dare you0.74
00:30:41.200instigate violence and and racism and you know we're gonna vote you out which you know she was
00:30:47.080right so she's like but that's basically it so she has been i mean she's been pretty elusive and
00:30:52.880like i i already see the comments where people are saying like she's a pop star she's not a
00:30:57.640politician right she's you know an entertainment celebrity like she doesn't have to do all these0.91
00:31:03.480things and like on one hand i agree i'm aware that this is not what she signed up for but at what0.98
00:31:09.180point with like this specific amalgamation of like power and money and fame and influence
00:31:15.560does the celebrity and the political figure converge when you are in that position like
00:31:21.580we were talking about where even your silence is a stance how much does it seem like you need to
00:31:27.360say something anyway if she came out now and said x y or z about the 2024 election it probably
00:31:34.020wouldn't be that different from what she said before so it's not like she's sticking her neck
00:31:38.480out any further you know so it's sort of a i feel like maybe she's just waiting i'm look i live and
00:31:43.860breathe the internet yeah and specifically political internet and people are like constantly
00:31:49.200firing away about how taylor swift should be doing and saying more right and is there a merit
00:31:55.720in that critique is there merit to critiquing somebody for not speaking up more i mean but not
00:32:02.440okay i just want to say like not just somebody though right just if you are at that level yeah
00:32:07.860people people will like fight amongst themselves in like friend groups about like what instagram
00:32:12.560story, did you or did you not post about the latest thing that happened? This is a little
00:32:16.340different. Yes, I think it's worthy of critique. But also, I don't know that it's necessary that
00:32:21.260everybody has to say like everybody of her stature has to say something. I think that she also
00:32:27.720probably will leave her alone. That or just because depending on which way 2024 goes, you
00:32:36.520know, it might be the same sort of thing as the midterms in 2018, where, you know, there is just
00:32:41.280such a pull to do so that she will feel so inclined i don't know do you think there's merit
00:32:45.780or is there is it more complicated i think there is merit i think and and i'm gonna probably get
00:32:53.020heat for that but you know it is what it is you get heat for everything anyway i watch people stick
00:32:58.320their necks out quite a bit more who have so much more to lose yeah um and who are so much more
00:33:04.900marginalized i mean taylor swift is a billionaire this is only the fourth time today that i've
00:33:10.480mention that but like i don't think we should like baby billionaires right and i've seen people
00:33:17.040frame taylor swift's often political silence in the context of the dixie chicks now known as just0.69
00:33:23.240the chicks um and so the chicks were i mean you probably know this but the chicks were they are
00:33:29.760um an amazing female country group that in the early 2000s at a show they did in london they
00:33:37.040spoke out against then president bush's plan to take america to war in iraq they were like one of
00:33:43.420the first like musical acts to be like truly canceled because they spoke out against war
00:33:47.460yeah there were people destroying their records in the streets um they were you know it wasn't
00:33:53.000streaming services then it was radio and people conservative activists and like kind of like
00:33:57.480patriot american activists were calling the radio stations to have their music pulled from the
00:34:02.220airways and they went from like one of the biggest country acts in the country and in the world their
00:34:07.460career took an enormous hit yeah from it like enormous enormous enormous hit taylor swift
00:34:12.700having come from the country genre and that story about the chicks yeah is part of the story of that0.99
00:34:20.140genre people have framed her silence in the context of of that of like well she could lose everything
00:34:25.560right and i don't think she could taylor swift is bigger than the chicks have ever been even at0.99
00:34:30.780their height yeah taylor swift is a billionaire which none of the chicks have ever even approached0.66
00:34:36.020like yeah yeah there's this whole like well she could lose everything and i don't think there's0.95
00:34:41.960a world in which taylor swift is at risk of no no not being extraordinarily wealthy and to that
00:34:47.960point i wonder do you think that rather than saying something it would be better if she gave
00:34:51.880like 100 million dollars to whatever you know campaign or issue or whatever she felt it's a
00:34:58.060good question but i think there aren't a lot of billionaires but there are relatively there are
00:35:02.340quite a few billionaires and the thing that taylor swift has which a lot of those mostly like white0.77
00:35:07.780businessmen that nobody knows the names of the thing that she has is no influence the reason why1.00
00:35:12.200i mentioned at the beginning about how she boosted voter registrations by like a thousand percent in
00:35:17.300the hour that she posted that instagram story or something is because the amount of people that
00:35:20.640she's registering to vote which by the way statistically when young people vote they vote
00:35:24.720democrat and those are the people who she's getting to sign up and when you look at the
00:35:28.800amount of votes that elections are actually won by yeah she has the potential to have legitimate0.99
00:35:34.960sway over these things right again whether we want her to or not is secondary to the fact that she1.00
00:35:40.460does right back to that back to that point you were making about the the usa today story i think1.00
00:35:45.660it was usa today where it was just like yeah she could sway this election does anything else matter
00:35:49.920If she says no more music or no more tour until I get however many people to vote or1.00
00:35:55.080however many people to sign up or whatever, that would probably have undeniable impact.
00:35:58.880People are going to say that I'm a hater or whatever.
00:36:01.100And I'm just not like, I don't know how to say it.
00:36:17.040i think being a billionaire warrants scrutiny which i wanted to ask you how you feel about
00:36:20.900that because i mean like i said about like the daily podcast which is a political podcast and
00:36:25.380it didn't mention the fact that she's a billionaire i don't know if there's like a
00:36:28.440a little communist voice inside of me where it's like like right like it's always just telling you
00:36:33.420like yeah like can we talk about this person without talking about her wealth right and like
00:36:39.060jet travel because even when we think about some of the biggest artists yeah lady gaga ariana grande
00:36:45.320Beyonce I think Beyonce might approach being a billionaire but for the large part like a lot of
00:36:51.060these very very famous people they don't have nearly the amount of wealth that Taylor Swift has
00:36:54.700especially after the Ares tour and it's like I don't know it's like the elephant in the room
00:36:58.880guys yeah because under capitalism how much money you have is how much sort of sway and you know say
00:37:03.620you have and things so yeah it's it's hard to like we can't divorce them in the same way that
00:37:07.820we can't divorce the idea of fandom and the general space that people take up in our in public
00:37:14.680life from their money from you know their output in this case it's musical output and and tours
00:37:21.980and performances and stuff but they're inextricably linked whether taylor swift wants them to be or
00:37:27.220not i think over time she started to confront that to your point yes like having scrutiny over that
00:37:33.480it's just part of having the conversation about celebrity and how we treat it i think if taylor
00:37:37.820swift had her way she wouldn't come within 10 miles of any of these conversations i think
00:37:42.420unfortunately for her and perhaps unfortunately for everyone these that that that can't be the
00:37:49.120case you can't reach a certain level in public life without knowing that your very existence
00:37:54.000is it's an olden but a gooden at this point you know that the personal is political like she can't
00:37:59.780be in the public eye without her very existence being some kind of political act you know like1.00
00:38:06.400it's a fortunate part i think of being a female artist her existence is going to be politicized0.99
00:38:11.400whether she wants to or not so she might as well do something with it and look i mean i don't think0.94
00:38:17.580celebrities are like going to save it like i think whether like democracy in the united states sinks
00:38:23.880or swims which we're gonna find out like i don't think taylor swift is necessarily at the helm of
00:38:29.340that i don't know i i know people are gonna be like well what about you know x y or z who could
00:38:34.040be doing something i'm aware a lot of people are participating in the direction of this country
00:38:37.500And I don't think Taylor Swift is like the end all be all. But, you know, again, I just I think when someone amasses this level of wealth and power and fame, I'm becoming a broken record. But I think that to the point where they become where a global industry forms around the brand that is their person, we should be cognizant of their outsized role in, you know, the cultural and political vacuum, no matter how much they would like to not be part of that conversation.
00:39:04.200and um and and we'll see i don't think that we will go throughout 2024 without something
00:39:11.080without an endorsement right but i don't even know if it'll be an endorsement so much as just
00:39:14.940a like i think there'll be more like get out the vote or you know something that's like even if it's
00:39:20.000as mealy-mouthed as we've never had a more important election in our lives etc etc which
00:39:24.120doesn't really like which we say every four years right yeah every four years is the most important
00:39:29.040election of our lives. I feel like that will happen, but I think it'll depend on how it kind
00:39:34.140of comes down in those last months before November. I wish I had the Taylor Swift crystal ball, but I
00:39:39.440don't. We all wish we had the Taylor Swift crystal ball. And until then, it's going to be a bunch of
00:39:46.600left-wing and right-wing political commentators vying for Taylor Swift. Yeah. Which is what it's
00:39:52.080always been, what it will continue to be until she makes her stance known. Angela, thank you so much
00:39:57.740for being here today thank you so much for having me for joining me in my i would say tepid swifty
00:40:02.740dumb i'm a tepid swifty i'm i'm i'm a swifty in music and um i'm a cynical swifty in politics
00:40:09.540i feel like i'm going to have this conversation a lot and so i'm glad to i'm glad to have had it0.98
00:40:15.500with you first where can people find you support your work look for my writing on wired.com uh you
00:40:21.760can find me on i still want to say twitter but it's x now no i have a rule against saying x on
00:40:28.400this podcast we don't say x you can find me on social media media at water slicer which is my
00:40:33.060ever fun name just slightly tweaked it from a nickname that i had many years ago uh-huh i wish
00:40:38.080i had a fun last name i mean i do have bernstein which i've you know my entire life people have
00:40:42.640been like oh the bears the bears the bears no it's spelled differently but you have water cutter i
00:40:46.340think that's kind of badass i've come to embrace it it was when i was a kid it was like how do you
00:40:51.180cut water but you know as i you know i always used to say well you know i was there when they
00:40:57.400parted the red sea i don't know like none of it's somebody respelling a german name
00:41:03.180and it just came out like that so like there's no like real great precedent for it yeah moses
00:41:09.340cut water yeah i want to thank you so much for joining us today on a bit fruity i i'm curious
00:41:16.500what all of your thoughts are on the political fervor of taylor swift so if you're watching on
00:41:21.700youtube leave a comment and um again if you want more so actually if you want more taylor swift
00:41:27.320discourse by the time this goes up on patreon i will have done a kind of deep dive thorough analysis
00:41:33.820of another piece the new york times did recently um which was a large speculation about taylor
00:41:41.640of sexuality which was wild and so yeah over on patreon we we have a discussion of the ethics of
00:41:49.680publishing that piece the the evidence within the piece of whether or not taylor swift is queer which
00:41:56.180i just don't think really deserved 5 000 words in new york times personally yeah we put it in
00:42:00.840the context of conversations about queer baiting and um and you know her overall cultural influence
00:42:06.700and what is and what isn't our business.