In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now. | | | | Speak now: Taylor Swift in Houston, Texas, on Feb. 4, 2017.
(Kevin Mazur/Getty Images) | | | | | | “In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now.”
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| | rantnrave:// Notes on TAYLOR SWIFT, the 27-year-old singer-songwriter who, for the first time in her life, has decided to tell the world who she's voting for: As an American, as a pop star, as a woman, as a millennial, as a social media over-sharer, she's under no obligation to tell you anything about her politics if she doesn't want to. She's also under no obligation *not* to tell you about her politics. She, like most of us, is free to do whatever she pleases, to share exactly what she wants to share, to sing anything she wants to sing, to vote for anyone she wants to vote for, to keep the curtains in the voting booth closed tight or to INSTAGRAM her ballot. She was judged for years for not speaking up about electoral politics, and now she's being judged for speaking up. And we continue to wonder why some people choose to stay indoors with their cats. By not directly jumping into the political fray for years and, presumably, by being white, she managed to become some kind of neo-Nazi hero, and maybe at some point she should have said something like, "Um, no," but she chose instead to not engage, to not feed the trolls. (Some pop-culture cynics suggested she had ulterior motives for her silence, but, um, no.) She spoke up in an anodyne way about the Women's March, a little more forcefully about the March for Our Lives gun-control movement, and a lot more forcefully about sexual assault. She's a sexual assault victim herself and there was no doubting the power of her voice in that arena (actually there was some doubting, because people are cruel). She reportedly was the most popular "Who is [blank] voting for" GOOGLE search in November 2016, and now, two years later, she has given all those searchers an answer—in a midterm election. "Why now?" is the new most popular question on the internet (and "Taylor Swift, Welcome to the Resistance" is the new most popular headline). It's hard not to notice that she decided to speak out only days after accused sexual abuser BRETT KAVANAUGH was sworn in to the Supreme Court, and that she specifically called out Tennessee Senate candidate MARSHA BLACKBURN's vote against the Violence Against Women Act in deciding to endorse her opponent, GOV. PHIL BREDESEN. Swift laid out other issues, too: discrimination, racism, human rights. Her Instagram post was cogent and clear. From the right, there were complaints that this successful, self-made 27-year-old American should shut up—from some of the same commentators, of course, who welcome KANYE WEST's much less coherent political ramblings—and more than one suggestion that Swift probably didn't write her own post. As a female songwriter, Swift has heard that last complaint before, as has every female songwriter in history except, I don't know, maybe CAROLE KING. Elsewhere, there's the theory that Taylor is capitalizing on an opportunity to win a round in her long-running battle with Kanye—who's reportedly visiting PRESIDENT TRUMP on Thursday—and I heard at least one suggestion that Swift is trying to get on the good side of GRAMMY voters but, um, the 10 Grammys she already owns, including Album of the Year from the last one that was eligible, suggests she probably doesn’t have to go into politics to get their attention. And while endorsing Democrats may be easy for an artist based in New York or LA, it's always been more complicated for Nashville artists. It obviously can be done, but there are career concerns that someone like KATY PERRY will never have to think about. I have no idea if Taylor Swift thought about them two years ago or if she's thinking about them now. I only know what you know—that she thought she finally had to say something in 2018, and she did. And as with her music, I'm less interested in the calculation behind the words than I am with the words themselves. | | | - Matty Karas, curator |
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