It seems that the Republican party has run out of ways to attack credible Democratic politicians. How do we know? The right-wing propaganda army has started taking cheap shots at pop culture figures who happen to be Democrats. Its most recent and noteworthy target is none other than the 2023 Time Magazine Person of the Year, Taylor Swift.
To say it’s been a good year for the pop star would be an understatement. She took home the prestigious award that puts her in the company of world leaders such as Volodymyr Zelenskyy (2022), Joe Biden and Kamala Harris (2020) and Barack Obama (2008). Granted, the award has also been given to Elon Musk and Donald Trump but that doesn’t take away from Swift’s accomplishment. In addition, her Eras Tour made history this year, taking in over $1 billion while Swift herself joined the billionaires club. In fact, demand for her tickets was so strong that her tour started driving economic growth on its own.
Between tour dates and beginning a well-publicized relationship with NFL star Travis Kelce, Swift even found time to make an important political contribution. That doesn’t refer to any campaign donations. In late September 2023, the singer posted a short message to her Instagram account, urging her millions of fans to make sure they were registered to vote. Swift also dropped a link to Vote.org who reported a surge in voter registrations by roughly 1,226% in just the first hour following the post. “Our site was averaging 13,000 users every 30 minutes – a number that Taylor Swift would be proud of,” stated organization CEO Andrea Hailey.
As Swift’s career and her status as an outspoken Democrat have expanded this year, though, so have the Republican Party’s attacks on her. A recent report from nonpartisan watchdog group Media Matters for America shows a consistent trend of conservative outlets and pundits levying attacks against her, ranging from Fox News and OAN to fringe alt-right outlets such as The Gateway Pundit and PragerU. Pundits including Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk made snide comments dripping with misogyny, criticizing Swift’s body and marital status. A list from Mediaite shows a list of the tweets from right-wingers attacking the pop star but there are many more examples.
These attacks are not at all surprising. Noted feminist author Jude Ellison Sady Doyle reported in 2018 that misogyny had become “central to the Republican mission” and that it expanded far beyond Trump. Several years later, that is even more true, as evidenced by the GOP’s attacks on its own female members. This makes it all too clear that the party is threatened by Swift, seeing her as a powerful ally for the Democratic Party. As The Nation reports:
“More unmarried women voting poses a particular threat to the GOP. In 2020, a whopping 63 percent of single women voted for Biden over Trump. This is bad news for the Republican Party, since the number of married people is declining. The share of households headed by married couples declined from 55 percent in 1990 to 46 percent in 2020.”
For a party that can’t win without female voters, the GOP isn’t doing much to appeal to them. Its attacks on Swift certainly aren’t a good campaign strategy. The artist is far more than just a musician; she’s a businesswoman who has built a billion-dollar brand and been dubbed the feminist icon of her generation. Billboard has ranked Swift as the 5th most powerful woman in the world and given her impact on getting people to register to vote, that seems to be an appropriate characterization.
Swift is the ultimate influencer and in the age of influencer marketing, any group or organization would be lucky to have her on its side. The Democratic party should be glad that it can count her among its supporters. It makes sense that the GOP would be afraid of the talented and outspoken artist and everything she stands for. But if they want the voters they need to win elections, they would be well advised to cease their attacks on one of the world’s most popular women, who hasn’t actually done anything except write and perform catchy songs, boost entire cities’ economies and shine a light on important civic issues.