It’s not terribly difficult to convince MAGAs to believe outlandish things. Trump supporters have variously believed that Hillary Clinton ran a sex trafficking ring at a Washington pizza restaurant, that the 2020 election was stolen by Italian satellites, that horse paste is a better COVID-19 preventative than FDA-approved vaccines, and that Donald Trump was right when he said he “can do anything” he wants.
Some of them even think that JFK Jr. is still alive and currently looks like a magician at a bachelorette party no one invited him to. (That one’s a doozy, but it pales in comparison to the truly barmy conspiracy theory that RFK Jr. is still alive.)
Yet there appear to be limits even to Trump supporters’ credulity, and according to a recent informal survey conducted by NBC News, they’re simply not buying the idea that pop sensation Taylor Swift’s relationship with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce is part of a sinister psyop engineered to reelect Joe Biden.
Whether it’s the right-wing influencer and Trump supporter Laura Loomer (who alleged a Democratic “Taylor Swift election interference psyop” on X), the far-right social media account “End Wokeness” (which wrote on X: “What’s happening with Taylor Swift is not organic and natural. It’s an op.”) or even Fox News host Jesse Waters (who claimed Swift was a “front for a covert political agenda”), the theory has become pervasive in right-wing circles.
MAGA influencers seem to believe, or at least claim to believe, that Swift and her boyfriend are Democratic puppets and that NFL games were rigged to get Kelce, perhaps with Swift in tow, to the Super Bowl this weekend.
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But for Trump voters — even some of whom believe that Trump won the 2020 presidential election and that Jan. 6 was an inside job — this Swift theory is a bridge too far.
Ah, yes, I can almost hear them now: “What?! You think the NFL colluded with the deep state to ensure that Taylor Swift dated a pro-vax football player? And then they rigged the playoffs so his team would win the Super Bowl and they could both stand on the winners’ stage and endorse Joe Biden? Have you lost your ever-loving mind?! … Say, is this your horse paste or mine?”
To be fair, this is among the more absurd conspiracy theories MAGA influencers have floated—and it is encouraging to discover that ordinary Trump voters actually have some limits. But it surely says something about the current political climate that anyone thought this would fly. Republican pundits and elected officials may have zero respect for rank-and-file MAGAs’ intelligence, but they now appear to be laboring under the misapprehension that they’re potatoes.
Ah, but they’re not potatoes—and this time they can prove it! NBC News reached out to numerous Trump supporters to gauge their interest in leaping off the deep end in their magical MAGA underpants, and most were at the very least reluctant.
“To be honest and blunt, I think that’s crazy. It’s absolutely crazy,” responded Nic Heimsoth, a Trump supporter from Kansas City, Missouri, when asked about the conspiracy theory.
Well, of course he’s going to say that. He’s probably a Chiefs fan. And he’s just one guy.
But, alas, Nic wasn’t alone.
“The Democrats will use fair means and foul to win, but that’s nonsense,” said Cynthia Yockey, a two-time Trump voter who’s fixing to do the dirty deed again in November. “Democrats’ record of hoaxes is pretty long. It’s been a steady stream of manipulations, so it becomes easy to start to use that filter to see everything. I would love for Republicans to chill so that we start working with the real hoaxes.”
Ah, yes, the real hoaxes. Like that Biden is the current president, when we all know that Trump actually is. Except when something goes wrong. Then it’s Biden. But that’s just common sense.
But while the respondents may or may not think Trump is secretly running the government from a Mar-a-Lago pool cabana (which would explain why he had all those top secret documents piled next to the loo), they’re definitely not buying the Swift stuff.
“I don’t buy into it, and I don’t think a lot of my conservative friends do, either,” said Craig Gingrich of Cedar Falls, Iowa.
“I do think that the Democratic Party may take the opportunity to try to get Taylor to endorse them, but I don’t think there was a scheme,” said Tyler Linnebur of Littleton, Colorado.
Oh, Tyler, you naif. This has George Soros’ fingerprints all over it. He somehow convinced two young, wildly successful and attractive people to be attracted to each other. Probably something he slipped into their COVID vaccines.
Of course, some Trump supporters who remain skeptical of the conspiracy theory are nevertheless reluctant to dismiss it entirely.
Evan Deal of Algona, Iowa, said he doesn’t necessarily believe there’s a “big conspiracy” to get Swift and Kelce to boost Biden’s campaign, but he does think it’s possible Pfizer is behind their relationship. After all, Kelce has appeared in Pfizer ads and thinks everyone should get their shots. “It kind of makes sense that they’d want the Chiefs to go to the Super Bowl for the publicity,” Deal said.
Meanwhile, even Trump supporters who are inclined to believe patently absurd things—like that Trump was a good president—are skeptical of the Swift psyop theory.
Owen Laufenberg, a 19-year-old Trump fan from Wisconsin, told NBC News that he doesn’t think the relationship is a propaganda ploy, but he does find it weird that TV networks occasionally train their cameras on the biggest pop star in the universe in between sideline shots of the trailing team’s placekicker launching balls into that net thing.
“It’s kind of actually crazy how she’s, like, running the NFL right now. It’s insane,” said Laufenberg. Asked what he meant by that, Laufenberg elaborated: “It seems like we see more of Taylor Swift than actually the football game. It’s just suspicious how that is happening all the time.”
The New York Times would like a word, Owen.
[D]issonance between how many times Ms. Swift is shown versus how many times people seem to think she was shown has continued. The reality is Ms. Swift typically being onscreen for less than 25 seconds over the course of broadcasts that run longer than three hours, with her name rarely being mentioned.
Meanwhile, actual GOP politicians have also weighed in, because that’s precisely how silly this country is right now.
“Taylor Swift is allowed to have a boyfriend,” said GOP presidential hopeful Nikki Haley. “Taylor Swift is a good artist. I’ve taken my daughter to Taylor Swift concerts before. To have a conspiracy theory of all of this is bizarre.”
No wonder Haley’s losing. If only she had Vivek Ramaswamy’s rare insight and courage.
Of course, the Biden-Harris campaign is quite keen to secure Swift’s endorsement, because why wouldn’t they be? It would be a real coup that the GOP could never hope to match—since Republicans only do failed coups.
The biggest and most influential endorsement target is Ms. Swift, 34, the pop sensation and N.F.L. enthusiast, who can move millions of supporters with an Instagram post or a mid-concert aside. She endorsed Mr. Biden in 2020 and, last year, a single Instagram post of hers led to 35,000 new voter registrations. Fund-raising appeals from Ms. Swift could be worth millions of dollars for Mr. Biden.
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, a top Biden surrogate, all but begged Ms. Swift to become more involved in Mr. Biden’s campaign when he spoke to reporters after a Republican primary debate in September.
“Taylor Swift stands tall and unique,” he said. “What she was able to accomplish just in getting young people activated to consider that they have a voice and that they should have a choice in the next election, I think, is profoundly powerful.”
Diabolical! Of course, it will only work if the Chiefs win the Super Bowl, because Taylor Swift is entirely defined by her six-month-old relationship with a dude she met for the first time last summer.
Luckily for us, the outcome is already determined. Soros told me himself at the last Illuminati meeting. We got this. Don’t you worry about a thing.
Check out Aldous J. Pennyfarthing’s four-volume Trump-trashing compendium, including the finale, Goodbye, Asshat: 101 Farewell Letters to Donald Trump, at this link.
