While Donald Trump raged (multiple times) about rally turnout and whether immigrants were eating the pets of good people in Springfield, Ohio, Kamala Harris gazed upon her opponent in Tuesday night’s presidential debate with a mixture of contempt, pity and incredulity that recalled the Taylor Swift song “The Smallest Man in History,” a sobering analysis of a man whose years of deception are finally exposed.
Perhaps Swift learned something of herself: Shortly after the debate ended, the pop superstar endorsed Harris with her community of more than 283 million followers.
“Like many of you, I watched tonight’s debate,” she wrote, noting her commitment to “watch and read everything” she can about the presidential candidates’ “policies and plans for this country.” She added that she was voting for Harris because “she is fighting for rights and causes that I believe need warriors to defend.”
It was probably inevitable that Swift would endorse Harris.
In 2018, after staying out of politics for years, she told fans she’d be voting for Democrat Phil Bredesen over Republican Marsha Blackburn in Tennessee’s U.S. Senate race. Then in 2020, she voiced her support for Joe Biden’s campaign against then-President Trump, posting a photo of herself holding a tray of Biden-Harris cookies and telling V Magazine, “I believe America has a chance to begin the healing process that it so desperately needs.”
But given Swift’s popularity has risen dramatically over the past four years, this feels a bit off.
Her smash-hit Eras tour, smash-hit re-recordings of her earlier work, a record-breaking fourth Album of the Year Grammy win and a whirlwind romance with NFL player Travis Kelce have all combined to make Swift arguably the most famous person in the world, with a vast and loyal following filled with the young voters that politicians covet.
Indeed, Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, hailed the value of Swift’s endorsement. Minutes after Swift’s Instagram post, the campaign’s official merch store was selling Harris and Waltz friendship bracelets, replicating the ones Swift fans eagerly swap at Eras tour shows. When told live on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that Swift had enclosed one with him on Tuesday night, Waltz grinned as if he’d won the lottery.
But what makes Swift’s endorsement stand out isn’t just the scale of her success, but also the tone she used.
Swift signed the memo “childfree cat lady,” referring to controversial comments made by Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, about women who don’t have children — the kind of sardonic boast she had never previously uttered in her rare appearances to discuss politics.
But that attitude is consistent with Swift’s latest album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” and particularly songs like “But Daddy I Love Him,” which seem to mock the rabid supporters of her fanbase who disapproved of her rumored relationship with Matty Healy of the 1975 before she hooked up with Kelsey because of his offensive jokes.
“God save the most judgmental creeps who say they want the best for me, but who talk to themselves,” she sings, “who act out their hypocritical monologues that I’ll never see.”
“But Daddy I Love Him,” a song about pushing past the limits of what people expect from her — and actually smashing those limits — came to mind before the debate, when Swift was photographed embracing a friend at the U.S. Open in New York, after renewed fan outrage related to Mahomes’ apparent support for Trump. (A flowchart might help sort out all these alliances and rivalries.)
Essentially, Swift’s immense fame seems to give her a sense of indifference to criticism from social media trolls, fans who think they know what’s best for her, and Republican-leaning Swifties whom she has seemed hesitant to alienate in the past with her more progressive views.
Interestingly, this sense of invincibility is the very trait Trump has brought upon himself in Swift’s potentially damaging endorsement of Harris.
Swift explained on Instagram that she decided to publicly support Harris after President Trump recently released a fake AI image suggesting that she endorsed former President Harris.
“It really brought home my fears about AI and the dangers of spreading misinformation,” she wrote. “It has led me to the conclusion that, as a voter, I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election.”
In other words, Trump’s confidence that he can use a fake image of Swift with impunity (a confidence based on everything else he’s done with impunity over the past few years) has put him directly against the one person whose bravado is arguably even more dashing than Trump.
If you haven’t already, take a moment to consider the fact that Swift’s support post featured a photo of herself (holding a cat) rather than a photo of Harris.
This is as much about her belief in Harris’ political project as it is about Swift’s control over a threatened personal narrative, much like what she does throughout “The Suffering Poets.”
Do you think Trump would have listened before associating with the wrong A-lister?
