Two stories are capturing the Nation’s attention as we approach Super Bowl LVIII, featuring the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers: Taylor Swift and the game itself!
Included in the wall-to-wall Taylor Swift coverage are: her romance with Kansas City Chief tight end Travis Kelce; her game time fashion; bets on how often CBS (the network televising the Super Bowl) will pan to Swift in the suites; and, whether, as failed presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and other right wing conspiracy theorists have has speculated, the game will be fixed in favor of Kansas City so that Swift’s anticipated support of President Joe Biden’s reelection campaign will be seen as a championship endorsement.
[In late November, I posted a story about Swift’s growing political influence and whether she would endorse Biden again (https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/11/27/2208250/-CAN-TAYLOR-SWIFT-HELP-SAVE-JOE-BIDEN-s-ASS). Earlier this week, The New York Times ran a story headlined “Inside Biden’s Anti-Trump Battle Plan (and Where Taylor Swift Fits In” (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/29/us/politics/biden-trump-election-taylor-swift.html).]
The story of THE GAME ITSELF is probably of less interest to the many millions of Taylor Swift fans, and right-wing conspiracy theorists!
How might a former presidential candidate, who made waves early on but then sank like a stone, do to regain media attention? If you’re Vivek Ramaswamy you just might pivot to conspiracy theorizing about the Super Bowl. In the wake of the Kansas City Chiefs’ 17-10 victory over the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC Championship game this past Sunday, Ramaswamy “made a Super Bowl prediction,” daily dot’s Katherine Huggins reported.
Ramaswamy wasn’t dissecting the games x’s and o’s re the game or picking an MVP. Rather he focused on Taylor Swift and her boyfriend, Kansas City Chief tight end Travis Kelce. According to Huggins, Ramaswamy theorized “that the Chiefs would win the Super Bowl to set up ‘a major presidential endorsement … from an artificially propped-up couple.’”
The day after the NFL conference championship games, Ramaswamy 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 cultural propped up couple this fall. Just some wild speculation over here, let’s see how it ages over the next 8 months.”
“Ramaswamy was responding to a post from Jack Posobiec, the far-right conspiracy theorist, who shared a version of the theory during an interview with Roseanne Barr, the famous actress who in recent years has descended into the far-right online fever swamp,” CNN Business reported (https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/30/media/taylor-swift-super-bowl-right-wing-conspiracy/index.html). “Posobiec said he believes the Democratic Party and other powers are ‘gearing up for an operation to use Taylor Swift in the election against’ Donald Trump. Barr agreed, saying that Swift is ‘definitely somebody who has consented to speak the way the establishment wants to be spoken of’ and that using her influence will be how they ‘try to get on top of the next election.’”
“’Taylor Swift is an op,’ Benny Johnson, a right-wing media personality who boasts millions of followers across different social media platforms, wrote on X. ‘It’s all fake. You’re being played,’” CNN Business pointed out.
The CNN Business story goes on to quote, Laura Loomer, a self-described Islamophobe who has been embraced and promoted by Trump: “The Democrats’ Taylor Swift election interference psyop is happening in the open. …It’s not a coincidence that current and former Biden admin officials are propping up Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. They are going to use Taylor Swift as the poster child for their pro-abortion GOTV Campaign.”
Kelce, as the San Francisco Chronicle’s Scott Ostler recently wrote, “was one of the few white NFL players who joined the kneel-down protests,” initiated by former 49er quarterback Colin Kaepernick. Kelce “is an active BLM supporter, and has spoken publicly in support of social justice.”
“The individuals and outlets spreading conspiracy theories about Taylor Swift sound ridiculous because they are exactly that,” states Jared Holt, who studies extremism and disinformation for Strategic Dialogue, a non-profit think tank. “But they are also among the leading sources of information for modern conservatives, and they have the financial backing of Republican elites to spread exactly this kind of nonsense.”
“To me,” Holt added, “it’s a sign of just how far gone and unconcerned with reality conservative media is today, and it makes you wonder what they’re actually trying to accomplish here.”
As many have reported, Swift and Kelce have become regular targets of the right. Swift because she backed Joe Biden in 2020, and has encouraged her fans to register to vote, and Kelce in part due to his promotion of COVID-19 vaccines. With less than two weeks to go before the Super Bowl, expect more conspiracy nuts to come out of the woodwork with Taylor Swift in their crosshairs.
Warning to MAGAites: Do not mess with Swifties!