Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce and a MAGA meltdown

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

On the other hand, Taylor Swift still has two weeks to drive the movement behind Donald J. Trump crazy.

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

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

“I wonder who will 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 will be a big presidential endorsement this fall from an artificial culturally supported couple.”

Pro-Trump broadcaster Mike Crispi on Sunday began claiming that the National Football League has been “rigged” to spread “Democratic propaganda”: ​​“Call it now: KC wins, goes to Super Bowl, Swift comes out during halftime show and 'endorses' Joe Biden with Kelce at center field.”

Ms. Swift's other opponents among Trump's biggest fans include one of his lawyers, Alina Habba, one of his biggest conspiracy theorists, Jack Posobiec, and other MAGA stars like Laura Loomer and Charlie Kirk, who heads a pro- Trump Youth Organization. , Turning Point USA

The right has been furious with Ms. Swift since September, when she urged her fans on Instagram to register to vote, and the online outfit Vote.org reported a 35,000 registration increase in response. Ms. Swift had embarked on a world tour that made her a billionaire. California Governor Gavin Newsom praised her as “deeply powerful.” And then Time Magazine named its Person of the Year in December, kicking off a new round of MAGA outrage.

The NFL's fan base is vast and diverse, but it also includes a deeply conservative element that cheered star quarterback Aaron Rodgers' one-man crusade against Covid vaccines and derided Black players who knelt during the national anthem. The league has long battled accusations of misogyny, from the Washington Commanders' front offices to multiple cases of sexual and domestic violence and abuse.

For some, the Swift-Kelce storyline has dealt a blow to traditional gender norms, with a wealthy, powerful woman elevating a successful footballer to a new level of fame.

Some of the quarterbacking on Monday morning was downright silly, including the speculation that Ms. Swift is after Mr. Kelce for his money. (Her net worth exceeds $1 billiona different universe than the merely wealthy status of the athlete.)

Other accusations seem to be motivated by fear and based on some truth, or at least her command over her 279 million Instagram followers: that she has enormous influence and has supported Democrats in the past. For much of her extensive music career, Ms. Swift avoided politics, but in 2018 she endorsed two Democrats in Tennessee, where she owns two homes: former Gov. Phil Bredesen, who ran for Senate against then-Rep. Marsha Blackburn, and Jim Cooper, a member of the House who has since retired.

“I have always cast, and always will cast, my vote based on which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights that I believe we all deserve in this country,” she wrote on social media. “I believe in the fight for LGBTQ rights, and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is WRONG.”

She added: “I believe the systemic racism we continue to see in this country against people of color is terrifying, sickening and widespread.”

The alarm bells were loud enough to sound Mr Trump to loudly support Ms Blackburn: “I'm sure Taylor Swift doesn't know anything about her,” he said at the time, knowing all too well how influential Ms. Swift could be. “Let's just say I like Taylor's music about 25 percent less now, okay?”

He probably liked her even less in 2020 when she criticized his response to the pandemic subsequently endorsed Mr. Biden.

While her early pop music may have primarily attracted teens and preteens, those fans have reached voting age, and her music has become more sophisticated with the albums “Evermore” and “Folklore,” in keeping with her millennial roots and the tastes of her fans.

Much of the Swift paranoia lurks on the MAGA edges, with people like Ms. Loomer, the Florida conspiracy theorist who declared in December that “2024 will be MAGA versus Swifties,” and Mr. Kirk, who declared in November that Ms. Swift would “come out” for the presidential election after Democrats delivered another strong performance in an election that showcased the issue of abortion-motivated voters going to the polls.

“All the Swifties want is a quick abortion,” he said.

Then Swift bashing hit Fox News in mid-January. Host Jesse Watters suggested the superstar was a Department of Defense asset engaged in psychological warfare. He linked Ms. Swift's political voice and her friend Pfizer's support to the remarkable success of her Eras tour, which boosted local economies and landed her on the cover of Time.

“Did you ever wonder why or how she blew up like that?” Mr. Watters wondered on the air. “Well, about four years ago, the Pentagon's psychological operations unit came up with the idea of ​​making Taylor Swift an asset at a NATO meeting.”

Andrea Hailey, the CEO of Vote.org, took full advantage of the criticism of Fox News, saying the organization's partnership with Ms. Swift “helps all Americans make their voices heard at the ballot box,” adding that the star ” not a psy-op or a Pentagon asset.”

But her performance on the field with Mr. Kelce in Baltimore after the Chiefs defeated the Ravens on Sunday was complete with a kiss and a hugappears to have sent conservatives into a state of apoplexy that may only intensify ahead of Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas on February 11.

The feelings are so strong that Fox News published a segment on Sunday complaining that Ms. Swift's private jet is “belching out tons of CO2 emissions,” showing a sudden awareness of the main cause of global warming .

Mr. Ramaswamy said his suspicion about the Super Bowl was deadly serious.

“What your kind of people call 'conspiracy theories' I simply call an amalgam of collective incentives hiding in plain sight,” he said.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre further fueled speculation by invoking the Hatch Act, which bans political actions by public officials, in refusing to answer whether Mr. Biden would appear with Ms. Swift .

“I'll just leave it at that,” she said on Monday. “I won't comment on the president's schedule at all from here as it pertains to the 2024 elections.”

The Trump campaign, which initially planned to ignore the frenzy, sent Karoline Leavitt, a campaign spokeswoman, to allay concerns about a possible Biden endorsement.

“I don't think this endorsement will save him from the disaster” of his record, she said.