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It’s easy to imagine music icon Taylor Swift watching the presidential debate last night, hearing Donald Trump talk about immigrants eating cats, muttering look what you made me do to herself, and then picking up her laptop to compose the Instagram post in which she endorsed Kamala Harris.
Now, everything has changed.
That post, according to government officials, has already resulted in a flood of visits to a federal voter registration site. In the 24 hours since Swift’s endorsement 337,000 of her followers visited vote.gov using the unique URL she provided.
Neither the endorsement nor Swifties lining up to register is likely sitting well with Trump, and we bet he thinks about her.
Then again, this development must not have been a surprise for him and his campaign.
On Wednesday morning, the former president went on Fox News and noted that Swift always seems to endorse liberals.
In other words, he knew she was trouble all along.
Trump also predicted that Swift would likely “pay the price” for backing Harris, and it stands to reason that this made his handlers cringe.
After the former president’s defeat in the debate, the last thing they need is for there to be any kind of bad blood between Trump and an army of young voters, many of them women. These are demographics the Republican candidate has struggled with, and he can’t afford to become an anti-hero to Swift’s American girl. That is why the campaign wants to avoid having sparks fly between the two, e.g., if Trump were to take to social media and attack the singer.
Therefore, it seems likely that his handlers told the former president that he needs to calm down and shake it off.
Swift’s decision to speak now is at least partially a crisis of Trump’s own making.
In her Instagram endorsement, the singer noted that the former president’s use of an AI-generated image made her realize that she had to make her intentions known.
“I’m voting for Kamala Harris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them,” Swift wrote. “I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos.”
She also praised vice presidential nominee Tim Walz as someone “who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.”
While Swift undoubtedly holds significant sway over her fans (8 percent of Americans said her endorsement would make them more likely to vote for her chosen candidate, which is a lot in a tight election), she does not demand the same blind loyalty as the former president does.
“I’ve done my research, and I’ve made my choice,” she wrote. “Your research is all yours to do, and the choice is yours to make.”
In other words, don’t blame her if Swifties everywhere end up voting for Harris. The singer just told them to get educated, take a stance and not sit this election out.
Does Swift’s endorsement mean that it is over now for Trump? Hardly, but it is a significant development, regardless of whether you think celebrity endorsements should matter.
That is certainly how most Americans feel. A majority of them believe that her support for the Democratic ticket will have a positive impact on the Harris campaign.
In the end, if she does move the needle in favor of the vice president, then, to Swift, that is probably better than revenge for Trump falsely implying that she is backing him.
*In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
