Americans Must Not Allow MAGA to Swift Boat Taylor

If We Allow the Destruction of this Couple, Democracy Could be Next

Right wing delirium over pop legend Taylor Swift’s relationship with football star Travis Kelce, has completed the Republican Party’s transition into a sanitarium. It’s a full-fledged funny farm where whackos compete with weirdos to see who can gin up the most outlandish Q-Anon conspiracy theories to please Emperor Orange.

In their twisted tale, MAGA luminaries claim, without evidence, that Swift and Kelce are a fake couple, craftily matched by the Deep State, to maximize the impact of their presumed future Joe Biden endorsement. Their unhinged attacks on Swift and Kelce have probably increased the likelihood of such an endorsement, as MAGA’s insanity has unequivocally shown this bizarre movement is uniquely unfit to govern.

Trump sycophant Mike Crispi appears to have first circulated the fantastical fable, declaring that the National Football League is “rigged” to spread “Democrat propaganda”. He wrote on social media, “Calling it now: KC wins, goes to Super Bowl, Swift comes out at the halftime show and ‘endorses’ Joe Biden with Kelce at midfield.”

Both Kelce and Swift are American citizens and if they chose to make a Big Splash endorsement it is their right to do so. If Republicans don’t like it, they can move to Moscow, where it increasingly appears they’d be more compatible with Putin’s authoritarian, essentially one-party system.

Sadly, the crackpot conspiracy was picked up, next, by annoying presidential dropout Vivek Ramaswamy, who wrote, “I wonder who’s going to win the Super Bowl next month? And I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall.”

This might be the fateful moment where the right-wing rabbit hole cratered into a gigantic rabbit tunnel. It’s a dark and deranged conservative cave, where the infectious brain worms of FOX News and talk radio hollow out what remains lucid in these diseased and deteriorating minds.

Conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat remarked that the Swift/Kelce madness showed “outright paranoia” and was an example of “the silliest possible conspiracy theory.” Yet, millions of formerly rational people take these fairytales quite seriously. It’s becoming difficult to sustain our democracy when at least one-third of voters are imbibing on the imbecilic and hallucinating on Trump hagiography.

Today’s average MAGA cult member is lost in a maze of madness, where he or she is conditioned to look for hidden meanings behind every rock. When skipping down this path of pathology, nothing can be taken at face value and nefarious conspiracies lurk below the surface.

They see the Deep State in politics as frequently as one sees Deep-Dish Pizza in Chicago. In their convoluted minds, they are Tiresias, the mythic seer of Thebes—except they only share his blindness without his gift of prophecy.

We can’t laugh off the insanity because it’s destroying our democracy. MAGA Republicans have not accepted the results of the 2020 presidential elections. They are congregating at the Texas/Mexico border now to stage a potentially armed conflict with federal agents, based on an open border conspiracy.

Just today, Justin Mohn, a 32-year-old Pennsylvania man, was arrested after allegedly beheading his father. On YouTube, he displayed his dad’s decapitated head while spewing right-wing MAGA conspiracy theories. MSNBC reports:

Mohn says his father was a federal employee for 20 years and refers to him as a traitor, calling for the death of all federal officials and attacking President Joe Biden's administration, the Black Lives Matter movement, the LGBTQ community and antifa activists.

These extremists are even trying to protect right wing domestic terrorists. The Idaho Senate voted Thursday 27-8 to advance a bill that defines “domestic terrorism” as requiring the involvement of foreign groups. MSNBC reported, “if there’s no foreign involvement, then there can be no domestic terrorism.”

We were told that MAGA Republicans oppose “sanctuary cities”, but I guess they are in favor of sanctuary states for domestic terrorists, violent white supremacists and armed traitors who pose as patriots.

Taylor Swift is a national treasure who exudes light, so we must not allow MAGA goons to use their bitterness and hate to eclipse her. Republicans want to Swift Boat Taylor and we must never let them. While she is a brilliant artist and businesswoman fully capable of defending herself, we must assist as allies, not passive accomplices, with our silence enabling the Right’s toxic slime machine.

We allowed the original swift boat victim, former Senator John Kerry, to be tarred as a coward, when, in reality, he was a war hero. Liberal reticence aided and abetted the destruction of Hillary Clinton, allowing the right wing to unfairly recast her as shifty and dishonest – while they cynically supported Trump, a habitual liar, tax and draft dodger, as well as a sexual abuser. How many Democrats repeated Republican lies and fretted about her emails, which helped sink her campaign and got Trump elected?

Republicans used the same filthy process to tar Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff, dragging down their reputations by distorting their honorable records. We simply cannot allow the MAGA Machine to destroy and devour our leaders and must take a stand now to protect Swift and Kelce from the vitriol and violent threats they are enduring.

We should follow the lead of Democratic California governor, Gavin Newsom, who lauded Swift as “profoundly powerful.” In a confusing world where young voters don’t know who they can count on, they fully trust Swift. She is a self-made billionaire who has amassed an astounding 279 million loyal Instagram followers, enough to elevate Biden over Trump in a close race. In September, she asked her fans on Instagram to register to vote, and Vote.org reported a quick surge of 35,000 registrations.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen too many Democrats and liberals on social media this week taking the right’s bait and smugly demeaning this couple, writing that they don’t want to post or hear about them. Many of these folks, pretending to be too deep to embrace Swift, have clearly never read her profound lyrics or heard her sophisticated musical arrangements. Instead, they inadvertently join the right in essentially dismissing her as a crooning bimbo, and Kelce as a jock himbo.  

They conveniently forget that Kelce kneeled during the national anthem in support of Black Lives Matter, when it was unpopular for a white player to support his black teammate’s calls to stop police abuse. The New York Times additionally points out:

The love story that linked her world with the N.F.L. has proved incendiary. Mr. Kelce’s advertisements promoting Pfizer’s Covid vaccine and Bud Light — already a target of outrage from the right over a social media promotion with a transgender influencer, Dylan Mulvaney — added fuel to that raging fire.

As for Swift, on social media she posted:

“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 L.G.B.T.Q. rights, and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is WRONG.”

She added, “I believe that the systemic racism we still see in this country towards people of color is terrifying, sickening and prevalent.”

Of course, misogyny is central to the attacks on this beautiful, talented couple. The woman-hating right despises the optics of a burly man’s man football star respecting the career of his more famous and infinitely wealthier wife. This is blasphemy to a primitive movement that uses women as props to push their oppressive agenda but strips their rights the moment they amass power.

We must actively use social media or speak out in public to defend Kelce and Swift. This is not another shallow Hollywood gossip tale consigned to Page 6. It is the story of a famous, socially conscious couple working to do what’s right, and having to fend off fascists who are politicizing their relationship and trying to destroy them. If we allow the right wing to sully, slime and ultimately tear down our champions, don’t be surprised if our democracy isn’t far behind.