“I feel like us US Swifties should mass organize and help campaign for Kamala Harris and spread how horrendous Project 2025 would be to help get people’s butts down to the polls in November,” the 22-year-old posted to his 70,000 followers. He added a sobbing emoji. “Like if we don’t want democracy to end we really need to move and push blue votes.”Fourteen thousand likes later, the coalition Swifties4Kamala was born. Dozens of people signed up to help and run accounts on X, Instagram and TikTok, as well as strategize activities and communications. Within three weeks, Swifties4Kamala amassed more than 180,000 followers across its social media platforms...Long dismissed as unserious, in part because it has long been thought of as the domain of women and young people, fandom is now a potent political force in the 2024 elections – an election in which young women and LGBTQ+ people are expected to vote, rally and otherwise participate in politics at historic levels...Memorably, the first fandom to seize on Harris’s candidacy was not the Swifties, but the Angels, fans of the singer Charli xcx. Hours after Biden dropped out and endorsed Harris, Charli xcx tweeted: “kamala IS brat,” a reference to her album Brat and its brash party-girl aesthetic. The internet was immediately awash with green-tinted supercuts of Harris – the Brat album’s signature color – while CNN reporters tried to decode the meaning of “brat” for less online audiences at home...In 2022, after Swift urged her millions of Instagram followers to vote, Vote.org recorded more than 35,000 voter registrations. Ticketmaster’s botched rollout of the Eras tour led to a 2023 Senate hearing. Swift’s endorsement is one of the coveted prizes in the 2024 election; although she has not said anything about this year, the odds are not looking good for Donald Trump and JD Vance. Not only did Swift endorse Democrats in 2018 and 2020, but she is also probably the world’s most famous “childless cat lady”...
Image cropped for size from the original at The Guardian (credit Allen J Schaben/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images)
The future of America rests with authoritarians on one side and airheads on the other. For every thousand Swifties I doubt there's even one American interested in the political sobriety offered by a Chris Hedges: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGPa_omV9WI&t=1647s
ReplyDelete?? are you suggesting the Swifties are airheads? That's a rather harsh judgement.
DeleteI’d like to see any evidence that Harris and Walz are “airheads”.
Deletethere sure is some flavour of irony to it when under an article on how fandom has been maligned as unserious because it consists of people thought of as unserious, despite evidence to the contrary, is a comment dismissing it as unserious and thinking that a substantial enough insight to share.
Deleteraphael
I think it's airheaded to have this much enthusiasm for a candidate that doesn't have positions.
DeleteTaylor Swift is the perfect example of a superficial, mega-celebrity billionaire. Her business acumen is outstanding–or she has some top notch handlers who’ve built her empire. But on an artistic level, Swift is mediocre at best. This is not the first time the masses have been swept along on a fad. In fact, serial manias seem to be the norm in human history.
DeleteWhen Swift is not extracting profound insights from her latest breakup and performing what I believe to be trite musical numbers, she visits her mega-estates (estimated value 150 million)–globetrotting on her private jet. She puts her toe in the waters of charity and politics, but not in any way that could possibly alienate any of the fans that bankroll her empire.
So we have hurricane relief-type charity and a pro-choice position and a Biden endorsement. If this sort of thing sounds cutting-edge or courageous, I suggest there might be a lack of perspective. In fact, I think Swift is popular in large part because she offers no serious challenge of any kind. Hence, the “airhead” claim, which I would extend to Swift herself.
ironhorse would do well to at least read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamala_Harris_2024_presidential_campaign#Platform – call her light on batshit if you want, but ‘doesn’t have positions’ is simply incorrect. the accusation is especially rich given how notoriously devoid of actual political positions the trump campaign is, focusing largly on pure id and empty demagoguery.
Deletecrowboy: so, bottom line ‘her work & public persona doesn’t tickle me sufficiently, therefore she is not sufficiently intellectual, and that rubs off on her fandom organising towards a political end.’
plus some fluff on conceding that she is nevertheless successful, as has been the case for many others before her. (true, zero bearing)
plus a somewhat non-sequitur standard by which her social activism must reach a degree where it could alienate fans to qualify as ‘cutting-edge or courageous’ that has zero bearing on the matter at hand. first, i don’t get the need for ‘offering … challenge’ – her positions are internally consistent (pro-LGBT, pro-equality, pro-gun control, anti-police brutality, anti-abortion bans – ‘radical left’ in US terms, so mildly left of centre) her charity is aligned with her stated values and definitely goes beyond ‘hurricane relief-type’ (just from wiki: GLAAD, tennessee equality project, BLM, NAACP legal defense fund). there is a very consistent and explicit position there, both in what she supports as well as what she speaks out against, like it or not.
but what the article is really about is not her, it’s her fans organising by themselves to further their shared values, using their shared ways of communication. even if she was an airhead, how does that diminish her fans’ participation in the political process? which comparable spontaneously formed drive does qualify for being not airheaded? the ‘win with black women’ or ‘white dudes for harris’ the article also mentions? maybe ‘mastodon for harris’ is enough, because its social platform skews more heavily tech-savvy and/or academically accomplished?
no, the point here is that fandom (not just swift’s!) has historically been dismissed because it is made up of predominantly women and predominantly young people. the assumption is that it’s crazy girls screeching about something i don’t understand, there can’t be anything of substance there. meanwhile, this group of people started self-organising to further a coherent, shared set of values. and your counterargument was … because taylor swift’s position is fairly milquetoast pro human rights and you don’t like her music, she and her fans are airheads and to be dismissed?
raphael
"what the article is really about is not her, it’s her fans organising by themselves to further their shared values, using their shared ways of communication"
DeleteI want to emphasize Raphael's point above. People should read the linked article before passing judgment.
I don't think I'm ignoring the thrust of the article. I'm suggesting that the "shared values" are super-safe and hence popular. Seeing Taylor Swift as a thought leader--which I think is implied in her role as a catalyst for this "organizing"--is evidence of a steep decline in the political life of America.
DeleteYes, Swift donated to BLM. I get it. But here again this is all in line with a very safe approach to the issues of the day. It's like saying Swift stands against racism. This is not a bold stance. 99% of Americans are opposed to racism. Racism has been increasingly uncool since about 1954. This may come as a news flash to those who've been educated to see racism as THE cutting edge issue of our time. (I'm sure this sounds nuts given the degree to which race and gender identity have displaced any real understanding of economic identity and broad-based economic justice. That it sounds nuts is evidence of the problem.)
So what are these cutting edge issues that top-pop-celebrities avoid like the plague? 1) Endless resource wars feeding the military industrial complex, keeping us at the edge of nuclear Armageddon. 2) The immanent meltdown of the biosphere. 3) A billion people experiencing life threatening poverty, including the million Americans who live on the streets and the many millions who can't afford rent. 4) Wealth inequality unseen in America in a hundred years. 5) 30 billion animals living short, torturous lives in a draconian food system. 6) Many other issues, to include a decline in American life expectancy, measurable increases in existential angst, etc. Much of this mayhem is a direct result of the kind of morally vacuous,capitalist values that made Swift a billionaire. She's at the same trough.
If we put Taylor Swift's positions and LIFESTYLE in the context of this array of unpopular issues (that is, unpopular to any meaningful degree) we have to ask why anyone with any moral courage would coalesce around such an individual. (Oprah mania 2.0.) It seems to me that people with moral courage would be more inclined to be repulsed by Taylor Swift. And without mortal courage, how can there be any political insight?
Criwboy has some intense and serious criticism of Taylor Swift, with a mention of Oprah thrown in, but won’t criticize Trump.
DeleteWhy is that?
Anonymous person, you could ask Crowboy directly instead of asking other readers about Crowboy. That would be more polite.
Deletei still believe you’re reading this motif of taylor swift as a thought leader too strongly into the article. i didn’t get that from it at all.
Deleteand yeah, i agree, her stance isn’t anything special. i called it ‘fairly milquetoast pro human rights’, remember? if there’s anything about it it’s that she’s vocal *despite* every single point being in opposition to the american right wing, and thus potentially alienating. (let’s not forget that before she was vocal, the alt-right was lionising her as an ‘aryan goddess’, the lynchpin of an upcoming race war she’d incite once it was safe to unveil her ‘true leanings.’ i wish i was kidding.)
that’s where i disagree with you: there’s no trumpism without explicit racism, and ~1/3 of your electorate is happy to vote for him. certainly not despite it, because there’s not much else there (see above: id & empty demagoguery). it’s everything but ‘increasingly uncool,’ it’s a selling point. and so is calling open season on queer people. these aren’t wrongly focused on issues, they’re issues that real people are being terrorised with right now. rather than insisting on economics as the one true skeleton key to all problems and stopping to focus on race and gender, i’d rather suggest to employ intersectionalism. (tbh, that’s also what i’m seeing far more than a sole focus on race & gender to the exclusion of economy & class. at least in the leftist circles i’m exposed to.)
are any of your issues wrong? absolutely not, and i agree with the vast majority (several are increasingly common public discourse, though). but the political landscape in the US isn’t healthy. you don’t have 5+ mainstream parties all in agreement on basic human rights issues, only differing in their approach to the problems of the day. you have 2 parties and one of them is in strict opposition to every one of the broad and unexciting values swift espouses. your acute political situation isn’t one of nuance, it’s one of save it or it’s dead.
but back to the article:
despite the predominant notion of what the swift fandom is like (overly enthusiastic about music we’re both not into, overrunning cities for concerts, buying merch en masse, exclusively interested in their idol, and so on…), parts of it started organising for harris. if swift herself has any part in that, then in how her conduct was an initial step towards a group dynamic in which these fans felt like that’s a thing they can do and it would be appreciated. i don’t think that qualifies as being a thought leader, or any special role. the article certainly doesn’t attempt to do so. neither does it absolve her of criticism.
the point is that a potentially large group and its enthusiasm directs itself towards getting people to vote against the candidate who would make everything much worse. nothing more, nothing less.
is that a replacement for deep engagement with political matters? no, and i don’t think anyone said so. the article didn’t. who knows for how many of these swifties this is the first step, though. for now, some people get ballots in because they’re part of that fandom. and i don’t see how that’s more or less airheaded than some white dudes doing so because of white dudes for harris, or anyone else because someone spoke to them in a way that resonated.
this isn’t ‘either … or’, it’s ‘and’. would it be nice if every citizen had the education, means, and interest to deeply and intelligently work on forming a political consciousness? sure. for one, trumpism wouldn’t be a problem, and taylor swift would have to pay a hell of a lot more taxes too. but this is reality, in which too many people have been left behind, disillusioned, and have to pick their battles. i don’t have it in me to say ‘oh, you’re coming to help because you like that rich woman’s music? bah, humbug.’
raphael
@ raphael:
DeleteTo reach the conclusion that "there's no trumpism without explicit racism" you'd have to define racism differently than I do. I think this kind of claim about "Trumpism" is so rarely challenged on the left that it passes as an incontestable truth. To hear any response to this claim you'd have venture into the land of conservative thought and opinion (as I often do). There you'll find solid arguments challenging the Trump=Racism equation. I won't make those arguments here. Rather, I point this out because it's a premise that I, as a leftist, do not accept as valid. (Nor am I likely to agree with your definition of racism.)
All that aside, am I saying I like Donald Trump, respect Donald Trump, would vote for Donald Trump? No. But on the other hand, I do not see him as a democracy ending monster. I think he would be worse than Harris on some issues (the rich get richer faster, burn baby burn, Israel gets a bright green light as opposed to a less-bright green light etc.) and better on others (the worst excesses of socially toxic identity ideology might be curbed).
But across the board we're faced with a choice between two candidates who will not challenge the status quo in any meaningful way. Our wars will continue (on the subject of Ukraine, Vance is the sanest of the lot), the wealth gap will widen and the health of the ecosystems of the world will continue to precipitously decline.
So what's all this have to do with Taylor Swift? When I say the future of our democracy is in the hands of authoritarians and airheads, with Swifties being an example of airheads, I'm not opposing a cure for the worst in Trumpism. What I am saying is that the sort of person who gets swept away by Swift is probably not the brightest bulb in the shed and that a flock of sheep flocking to Harris should probably not be seen as anything but another mania of the sort that's symptomatic of decline, rather than an ingredient in any political elixir.
In 2016, we had a shot at something good and decent: voting-in a Bernie Sanders administration and a Bernie Sanders congress. With all I know about Harris (I live in California and voted for her in multiple elections, state and federal), there is no degree of evil in Trump that will cause me to suspend disbelief and join in slack-jawed attendance at the Kamala Harris Magic Show.
Happy to discuss this further when the honeymoon is over.
I don't know what your obsession with being polite to crowboy is. He has the veneer of being polite or "civil" over some serious bigotry. That doesn't justify being polite back in return. Shouldn't tone police people who don't want to deal with him directly. He has a long history in the comments of this blog of being a "polite" total jerk.
ReplyDeleteI am not obsessed with being polite to Crowboy. Since you have chosen to post anonymously without a screen name, I have no idea how long you have been a reader here, but old-timers know that I insist on courtesy to others who post, and I ruthlessly delete ad hominem attacks, sometimes issuing permabans. I happen to disagree with much (perhaps most) of what Crowboy writes, but he does so in a civil manner and his viewpoints are similar to tens of thousands of others in this country.
DeleteIf I say it's my belief that a race and gender identity ideology driven myopia has made working class solidarity (to include people of all colors, etc.) impossible in America (at the cost of achieving more economic justice for millions of people, again of all colors), this is cause for "cancellation." Shaming, etc. The more I explain this class-based orientation, regardless of how politely, the more valid it becomes to use terminology like "total jerk." Terminology I've never used on this blog. "Anonymous" is the sort of person I fear on the left. The sort of person who makes conservatism sound inviting, at least to the extent it doesn't insist on absolute adherence to group think.
Delete"Tens of thousands" is probably about right for the number of "class reductionists" in the US. I rarely meet one.
raphael, you are correct.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't about what Swift says or does.
It's a bunch of people who like Swift's music also have something else in common, Harris and Walz.
I'm sure a lot of the fans like dogs, or pizza, not caring if Swift does or not.
xoxoxoBruce
There is also "Deadheads for Kamala" - Grateful Dead fans for Kamala.
Deleteperforming what I believe to be trite musical numbers, she visits her mega-estates (estimated value 150 million)–globetrotting on her private jet. She puts her toe in the waters of charity and politics, but not in any way that could possibly alienate any of the fans that bankroll her empire.
ReplyDeleteSeriously. I am not nearly Swiftie, but you can google objective facts against your argument here - please do not rely on me.
Your judgement of her song quality does not negate video footage from her documentary where she talks politics at length. You are under no obligation to watch it, but she put it out there. It also does not negate the lawsuit for sexual assault she won. You are under no obligation to know about this lawsuit, but she started it and won it. It also does not negate how she rerecorded all her albums to get ownership back. You are under no obligation to know this, but unlike Prince and George Michael, who just whined about record companies, she's taking ownership back. It also does not negate the rather large donations she does nearly everywhere she stops on her tours. You are under no obligation etc.
In fact, I believe she has even written a song about you. It's called Shake it off. You're gonna have to work hard to make me believe you've never heard it. It's annoyingly catchy. Again, you are under no obligation to understand what she's singing about, but she very much does sing about you. Even though you haven't broken up with her!
She is under no obligation to inform you personally of her politics that she shows through her acts, just as you are not under any obligation to take notice of what she does. She does what she does, and her actions speak quite loudly. Even to someone like me who has very little interest in her. It's not hard to know these things.
To dismiss these actions feigning ignorance is a form of misogyny.
Crowboy, I've missed you.