Republicans, White Nationalists Fume Over Taylor Swift’s Senate Endorsement

Update 6:32 PM: President Trump has announced that he likes Taylor Swift’s music “about 25 percent less now, OK?” (He added that the pop star “doesn’t know anything about” Blackburn.)

Original post below.

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Taylor Swift — who started her career in country music three years after the Dixie Chicks were driven off airwaves for taking a stand against the Iraq invasion — has always been careful not to talk politics. Until now, that is. In an Instagram post on Sunday, Swift disclosed that she would be voting in Tennessee in November for two Democrats: former governor-turned-Senate hopeful Phil Bredesen and Rep. Jim Cooper, whose district includes Nashville.

“In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now,” Swift wrote. “I always have and always will cast my vote based on which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights I believe we all deserve in this country. I believe in the fight for LGBTQ rights, and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is WRONG. I believe that the systemic racism we still see in this country towards people of color is terrifying, sickening and prevalent.”

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I’m writing this post about the upcoming midterm elections on November 6th, in which I’ll be voting in the state of Tennessee. In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now. I always have and always will cast my vote based on which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights I believe we all deserve in this country. I believe in the fight for LGBTQ rights, and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is WRONG. I believe that the systemic racism we still see in this country towards people of color is terrifying, sickening and prevalent. I cannot vote for someone who will not be willing to fight for dignity for ALL Americans, no matter their skin color, gender or who they love. Running for Senate in the state of Tennessee is a woman named Marsha Blackburn. As much as I have in the past and would like to continue voting for women in office, I cannot support Marsha Blackburn. Her voting record in Congress appalls and terrifies me. She voted against equal pay for women. She voted against the Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which attempts to protect women from domestic violence, stalking, and date rape. She believes businesses have a right to refuse service to gay couples. She also believes they should not have the right to marry. These are not MY Tennessee values. I will be voting for Phil Bredesen for Senate and Jim Cooper for House of Representatives. Please, please educate yourself on the candidates running in your state and vote based on who most closely represents your values. For a lot of us, we may never find a candidate or party with whom we agree 100% on every issue, but we have to vote anyway. So many intelligent, thoughtful, self-possessed people have turned 18 in the past two years and now have the right and privilege to make their vote count. But first you need to register, which is quick and easy to do. October 9th is the LAST DAY to register to vote in the state of TN. Go to vote.org and you can find all the info. Happy Voting! 🗳😃🌈

A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift) on Oct 7, 2018 at 4:33pm PDT

But Swift didn’t just throw her weight behind Bredesen, she savaged his opponent, Marsha Blackburn, calling the Trump-endorsed congresswoman out for her votes against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act and her support of homophobic policies. “She believes businesses have a right to refuse service to gay couples. She also believes they should not have the right to marry. These are not MY Tennessee values,” Swift wrote.

High-profile Republicans — and anonymous white nationalists online — were bereft.

The National Republican Senate Committee put out a statement Monday declaring “multimillionaire pop star Taylor Swift came down from her ivory tower to tell hardworking Tennesseans to vote for Phil Bredesen.”

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee tweeted dismissively, “So @taylorswift13 has every right to be political but it won’t impact election unless we allow 13 yr old girls to vote. Still with #MarshaBlackburn.”

And conservative personality Candace Owens volunteered to campaign for Blackburn in Tennessee, writing that Swift was using “black people and minorities as pawns to brainwash people into doing their bidding.”

Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, a conservative group best known for wearing adult diapers to protest liberal policies on college campuses, suggested on Fox News Monday morning that Swift didn’t believe what she wrote. “I don’t want to accuse her of this, but I don’t think she’s the only one who wrote that post on Instagram,” Kirk said. “She probably got some very bad information.”

On the website 4chan, where a community of White nationalists have embraced Swift as an “Aryan queen” whose political silence was a tacit admission of racist sympathies, several users floated similar theories. “That looks so ghost written. Ever notice how every celebrity seems to be reciting the same exact script and even use the same wording,” one user wrote. Another added: “All PR nonsense, she just doesn’t want to be labeled a white nationalist. Probably got paid to say all this.”

Users were nonetheless stricken by the development. “OUR GIRL no more,” one posted. “They took her from us and turned her into one of their brain dead zombies,” another wrote.

Swift’s endorsement is not without commercial risk. According to an analysis by the New York Times, she is most popular in rural areas in the West and Midwest that tend to vote conservative, like Utah, Montana and Nevada, and only modestly popular in Tennessee. Maybe an endorsement of Nevada candidate Jacky Rosen is next?