How insane is today’s right-wing ecosystem? Here’s one way to think about it.
Remember when all of American conservatism was screaming for Colin Kaepernick’s head on a pike simply for having the audacity to say that it’s bad when cops shoot unarmed Black people over and over and over again? That was a very disgusting and brain-dead cultural fight. But—and this is the lowest possible bar—it was actually about something that really existed in the universe. On one side, you had a high-profile professional athlete using his position to advocate for human rights and social justice; on the other, a bunch of doughy, white middle-manager types were demanding respect for a game where billionaires hire teams of millionaires to give one another irreparable brain damage. What I’m saying is: there was a there there—a genuine issue of real import that deserved a public response.
Cut to now. Instead of bad-faith peckerwoods trying to shut down a protest over something that really matters, there’s…well, whatever this is:
Behold, two of today’s brightest bulbs in Republican politics casually predicting that Taylor Swift’s boyfriend is going to beat the San Francisco 49ers at next month’s Super Bowl because George Soros wants Joe Biden to win re-election. I think. Maybe? It’s honestly hard to unpack, which I suppose is to be expected given Posobiec’s earlier work in the “this DC pizza parlor is actually a pedophile sex dungeon” milieu.
I don’t particularly like Taylor Swift’s music, or her whole ~ thing ~ for the most part. I don’t dislike it, really. It’s just not for me. But I do respect the fact that after almost two decades of existing in the public eye, she has become one of the most potent cultural forces on the planet, a billionaire whose influence outpaces just about any other celebrity of her generation (and a good number of politicians, CEOs, and religious figures to boot). And I sure as hell appreciate her ability to make some of the worst people on Earth go Oppenheimer in their underpants because she simply exists and is successful at what she does.
Really, that’s what this is: absolutely nothing at all. Is a pop star dating a pro athlete really such a novel proposition that it’s worth going full reverse vampire? Of course not. Which is what makes the fact that conservatives are now actively rooting for San Francisco—a city they objectively hate—simply because its sports team doesn’t employ Travis Kelce so galactically lame and depressing. Where once their major beef with football was that they wanted a safe space against reminders that racism exists and is bad, now they just want to be safe from…what, exactly? An A-list celebrity and her tight end boyfriend? That’s not a controversy, that’s a cry for help.
It’s an admission that they have so little in the way of actual things to complain about that this is they best they can muster. It’s embarrassing. I’m embarrassed for them.
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Honestly, if someone were to kneel for the national anthem now, in 2024, I bet the same goobers gnashing their teeth over Taylor Swift would probably just let it slide—not because they don’t care, but because at this point, the entirety of the conservative grievance enterprise is too overstimulated and under-equipped to articulate exactly what it is they’re so mad about. That’s why they’ve settled on Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. It’s safe. It’s low stakes. It’s a tablula rasa with no real vision, or issue to examine or justify. They can rant and rage and fume without having to reflect on what it is they’re so worked up about. It’s perfect for a group of people whose lives have been spent on a rapidly melting ice floe of things to be angry about. At a certain point there’s nothing left to stand on, so they’re plopped into the water, forced to tread in place because they don’t know really how to do anything else.
They’re angry because Taylor IS successful and doesn’t need men’s approval to BE successful.
But not mentioned here is that when Taylor Tweeted out a link to get registered to vote last year, that link got 35,000 new voters. THAT’S why they have to claim she’s a psyop, to tell MAGA not to let Taylor influence their daughters. Because otherwise girls might think they could use their vote to think for themselves, or something.
If Taylor really was an op…they’d just have her run for potus. Far easier to get her elected than shoving Joe’s wheezing corpse creaking and moaning over the finish line again.
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