Photo via the Los Angeles Times
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Taylor Swift is one of the most culturally influential people in the world. Just this past month, she won her fourth Album of the Year Grammy, breaking the record for most Album of the Year awards in Grammy history with a total of four.
One of the things that Swift prides herself on is her political activism. In her 2020 documentary, Miss Americana—a Netflix exclusive production—she publicly shows the relationship she’s had with politics over her whole career.
When she first began making music, she was told not to wade into politics, particularly by her father. Beginning her career as a country musician, she was especially wary because, at the time, the genre was (and still is) stereotypically full of Republican artists. Further, Swift always kept what happened to The Chicks in 2003 in the back of her mind: After speaking out against President Bush’s invasion of Iraq, the band was essentially blacklisted from country music. Thousands of people began expressing their own disapproval by burning their CDs and boycotting their music.
But as Swift aged, she overcame the fear of something similar happening to her and became more outspoken about her political beliefs. In 2018, she made her first public political statement announcing that she was a Democrat. This proved to be a controversial decision within her team, as evidenced by her documentary.
Swift’s aforementioned statement was directed against Marsha Blackburn, the Republican Senator of Tennessee, whom Swift criticizes for her anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and misogynistic voting record. She also went on to endorse two Democratic candidates for Tennessee seats in Congress and encouraged voter registration amongst her fans.
As a result of this single post, over 166,000 new voters registered in the following days—a number that the country had never seen before. This happened when Swift had only 112 million followers on Instagram. Today, she has over twice that, with her account currently totaling 281 million followers at the time of this article being written.
Swift has clearly proved in the past that she’s aware of her political influence, but has she used it consistently to this day? Well, she’s spoken out about Trump and continues to promote voter registration, but that’s about it.
This is one of the main areas of criticism she’s received from her fans: she’s not outspoken enough.
There have been countless Swifties who, despite adoring the artist, are disheartened by Swift’s silence on Israel’s purported genocide of Palestine. One X user said, “i love taylor swift’s music so much and i always have, it’s been a huge part of my life for so long but i WILL always hold her accountable. she arguably has the biggest platform in the world as the biggest celebrity and her silence on palestine speaks volumes to me,” and many others share the same sentiment.
If Swift were to use her political influence to advocate for a free Palestine, it’s possible that thousands of people would be urged to look into the issue more and observe the horrors that are taking place.
I truly wish Taylor Swift would speak out against the Israeli desecration of Palestine that has continued for over half a century. But I don’t think it’s likely. Her silence on issues that are not even controversial amongst her fanbase has proven that Swift will not take the risk to use her platform and speak out for Palestine. Not to mention, the artist has never publicly acknowledged foreign policy debates, furthering the unlikelihood of her commenting on this one.
Taylor Swift has generally limited her political statements to supporting voter registration and anti-Trump candidates. And, although she has supported Democratic policies in the past, I’m sorry to say that, with politicians on both sides of the aisle continuing to support Israel as Gaza is being destroyed, Swift will most likely remain silent.
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This article was edited by Renee Agostini and Nicole Kilada.
