Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce and a MAGA Meltdown

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 167 points – Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce and a MAGA Meltdown
nytimes.com

The fulminations surrounding the world’s biggest pop icon — and girlfriend of Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce — reached the stratosphere after Kansas City made it to the Super Bowl.

For football fans eager to see a new team in the Super Bowl, the conference championship games on Sunday that sent the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers back to the main event of American sports culture were sorely disappointing.

But one thing is new: Taylor Swift. And she is driving the movement behind Donald Trump bonkers.

The fulminations surrounding the world’s biggest pop icon — and girlfriend of Travis Kelce, the Chiefs’ star tight end — reached the stratosphere after Kansas City made it to the Super Bowl for the fourth time in five years, and the first time since Ms. Swift joined the team’s entourage.

The conspiracy theories coming out of the Make America Great Again contingent were already legion: that Ms. Swift is a secret agent of the Pentagon; that she is bolstering her fan base in preparation for her endorsement of President Biden’s re-election; or that she and Mr. Kelce are a contrived couple, assembled to boost the N.F.L. or Covid vaccines or Democrats or whatever.

“I wonder who’s going to win the Super Bowl next month,” Vivek Ramaswamy, the conspiratorial presidential candidate, turned Trump surrogate, pondered on social media on Monday. “And I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall.”

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Taylor Swift is encouraging young people to vote which MAGA hates. This is what this is about.

AND NEVER SAYS WHICH SIDE

Not even that hard either...

But regardless of if this makes her push her fans more to vote or not, the swifties view this as an attack on Taylor.

And you don't fuck with Tay Tay. Her fans are about to set something crazy like 99% voter turnout even if she never mentions the election personally.

By all means #GOP, please pick a fight with one of the most well-liked & popular entertainers in the world.

Pick a young one that will be around for a while with youngish fans that will also be around for a while.

I'm sure that is a winning strategy.

I am beginning to become a T Swizzle fan. And I have loved metal my whole life.

I'm a metalhead as well, but you can't deny that her songs are catchy. The MAGA crew just needs to shake it off.

A young woman with money, power, and fame, who is unafraid to speak her mind. NO WONDER they hate her.

Who also commands a fuckin sea of people who (in their minds) are everything MAGA is against (which seems to be almost everything at this point).

Hey Vivek, how much have you bet on the Chiefs to win? You know, since it will be rigged. And why aren't you suggesting your fans also bet on the Chiefs?

In a way, you have to feel sorry for them. Back in Reagan's time, you could make an honest case for the need to maintain constant vigilance against the powerful and ruthless Soviet bear. Now they are reduced to attacking singers and woke green candies.

Crazy talk.

Crazy Bart Simpson "They are all against you Bart, they all must die."

Maybe people are against you because your ideas and policies are not popular. People don't like them. No conspiracy needed.

Any patriotic American would love it if more people participated in our democracy. Republicans don't want the young people to vote. They want to rule us from a minority.

And I don't watch the sports ball, but I know it is not "rigged". Who'd watch a sport that is rigged? And how would they possibly rig it.

Crazy talk.

Both sides are not the same. Trump is running for dictator. Vote out these crazy Republicans.

Who'd watch a sport that is rigged?

Well, plenty of people watch pro wrestling, so this is not the best argument...

Exactly. The NFL is the one of the most popular programs on all of tv, and they’re not looking to jeopardize it. Amazon alone pays the NFL a whopping $1 billion per year for the privilege of streaming the crummy Thursday night time slot.

It was a huge scandal in 2015 when the New England Patriots was accused of intentionally underinflating their footballs to make it slightly easier to catch, leading to a $1 million fine, a four game suspension for Tom Brady, and losing two draft selections. All that over a slightly flat football. The idea that they’d intentionally rig an entire match and risk losing their massive media cash cow is, well, stupid.

Hold up, is there actually a percentage of your population that believes the sentiment above RE: conspiracy?
If that's the case. My god I've got grave concerns for America.

There's a large percentage of our population who believes a magic sky daddy will forgive them for any action they take, as long as they don't blaspheme. Of course they believe in ridiculous conspiracies based on faith alone, they've been primed to think this way ever since they were a child.

Of course, blasphemy is whatever they define it as, so...

About 30% of the population here are like this, yes. And the cool thing is that it's been spreading to other countries. For instance, QAnon spread to Germany. They thought Trump was going to come save them from Merkel.

Don’t forget all the Canadians talking about their first amendment rights

I have a neighbour displaying a confederate army flag in their front window. Fox News should be considered psychological warfare.

I heard of a Canadian trying to exercise their fifth amendment right. Really unfortunate to try in a place without such a right.

They are a bunch of jealous simps that think she should be with them breeding the next "master race". Conservative political ideology is just a race to the bottom of ethics, morals, justice, society, everything.

The fucking ghouls HATE the fact that everyone who's young and hip hate them all and love TS.

Now I'm conflicted. I want the 49ers to win for the Purdy story and to not have the Chiefs be champions yet again. Now I want the Chiefs to win to piss off the right wing crazies.