Photo by Wade Sullivan

Baylee Parsons

I hate Taylor Swift.

Now that I have your attention, I’d like to preface this piece with two things: one, it’s true – I really don’t like Taylor Swift, but also, two, I have no problem with who Taylor Swift endorsed in the 2024 general election. I have a problem with why I think she really did it.

As I watched the vice presidential debate, I heard Tim Walz say in his closing remarks, “I’m as surprised as anybody of this coalition Kamala Harris has built: from Bernie Sanders to Dick Cheney to Taylor Swift,” and I thought to myself, “One of these things is not like the other,” as Swift would say.

After the presidential debate on Sept. 10, the singer swiftly went to Instagram to let her 283 million followers know she will be casting her vote for the Harris-Walz ticket in this year’s election. While others raced to share this post to their own account, I found myself pondering all the reasons this post was problematic.

In the post, Swift said she was informed of former President Donald Trump sharing an artificial intelligence-generated image of herself supporting his campaign. While Trump sharing this image was, of course, problematic in itself, I will not get into this; if I started on the issues with Trump’s social media habits, this would likely turn into an in-depth book rather than a relatively short article.

As for the image Swift was referring to in her post, I had not seen it shared a single time across any social media platform. In fact, I had to Google this specific image, and what I found was an image that was a clearly AI-generated meme.

On the other hand, in the days before this post, a clearly non-AI-generated image that I had seen frequently circulating on social media was of Swift hugging Brittany Mahomes, the wife of the Kansas City Chiefs’ quarterback Patrick Mahomes and known Trump supporter.

I saw several posts on X, for instance, questioning why Swift would support someone like Brittany Mahomes, such as user loverbaybeee’s post stating, “Taylor Swift hugging Brittany Mahomes, a sexual assault apologist who is a proud Trump supporter, who Trump literally shouted out on his social media platform the other day, Miss Americana? ‘Activism?’” This post has over 758,000 views on X.

After seeing the photo of the infamous hug so many times in the days prior to the debate, Swift’s endorsement screamed, “I have to cover up my tracks, so no one thinks Brittany is actually my friend,” to me. 

If this is truly what led Swift to publicizing her endorsement, all I can say is this all feels “so high school,” to reference Swift again. I have plenty of friends whom I don’t entirely agree with politically. What ever happened to co-existing? 

Personally, I don’t understand the need for anyone to share who they’re voting for. While I’m not saying it’s a good idea to keep your political ideology entirely to yourself and to not stand up for what you believe in, I’m saying that if I don’t need to know who my neighbor is voting for, I certainly don’t need to know who a billionaire is voting for – after all, everyone’s vote counts, regardless of socioeconomic status.

I’m also very averse to celebrities interfering in politics in general. These people have the power to blindly sway thousands of voters when it is imperative for every voter to do their own research. While Swift’s post says the research is for her fans to conduct and the choice is theirs, the influence she has on her fans cannot be ignored, and some may see her as all-knowing. I’m a strong proponent of forming your own opinion, so I encourage everyone to research all parties, including Green and Libertarian, on the ballot and use their personal judgment before casting their vote in November.

If you have gotten this far and are upset with me for my opinions on Swift, just know that is okay, and we can absolutely still be friends. I don’t plan on releasing an Instagram post any time soon to let the world know I’m not really friends with you.

Baylee Parsons can be contacted at [email protected].