Dan Drezner, the iconoclastic international relations professor who, among other things, wrote a very serious and thoughtful book about how his field would assess a zombie apocalypse, is a Swift fan. For him, having a Swift concert is a “prestige competition” like the space race or hosting a major sporting event like the Olympics or the World Cup. There is “the soft power benefit of signaling to other countries that Taylor Swift is cool with performing there.”
Theorizing then goes off the rails. If Swift’s stamp of approval is one thing in international relations, it is quite another for some in the fever swamps of U.S. politics. You’d think that a blonde popstar falling for the hunky pro football player of a flyover state is the quintessential conservative trope: classic gender roles and the idealized social order.
Yet the far right sees this romance as part of a plot to help Joe Biden win the 2024 presidential election. They reason like this:
Swift is dating Travis Kelce, record-setting tight end for the Super Bowl-bound Kansas City Chiefs. Kelce is a free-spirited iconoclast who has done public service announcements that encouraged people to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Combine that record with Swift’s support for Democratic candidates in her home state of Tennessee and Donald Trump’s backers are convinced that the NFL is in the tank for the Chiefs.
A right-wing radio host explained that “The NFL is totally RIGGED for the Kansas City Chiefs, Taylor Swift, Mr. Pfizer (Travis Kelce). … Calling it now: KC wins, goes to Super Bowl, Swift comes out at the halftime show and ‘endorses’ Joe Biden with Kelce at midfield.”
