Wildly stupid

The right-wing Super Bowl conspiracy about Taylor Swift is wildly stupid

SFGATE columnist Drew Magary explains the ludicrous reason you keep seeing people call Taylor Swift a 'psy-op'

By Drew Magary

Now that a rematch of the 2020 presidential election is all but ensured, you and I are about to be flooded with an ocean of incoherent, desperate messaging from the MAGA crowd to will Donald Trump back across the finish line.

With outlets like the New York Times still horny for a competitive race (and for all the Trump clicks they mistakenly believe are still out there to be had), and without a thriving Twitter to serve as the nexus of all things covfefe for the disgraced former president, these attacks will prove somehow even more poorly coordinated than the Jan. 6 insurrection.

To wit:

That woman on all of those magazine covers is Taylor Swift, the biggest pop star in the world and homecoming date for Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce. The man attacking her is Benny Johnson, a disgraced fabulist who worked at BuzzFeed before pivoting into a career as a freelance MAGA cyber-soldier. Johnson is hardly alone in picking up this story and running (into a ditch) with it. Trump’s former Secretary of Ethnic Cleansing, Stephen Miller, is warning everyone that 2023’s transformation into the Year of Taytay was “not organic.” Former Fox News pull toy Megyn Kelly ominously noted that Swift’s new beau shills both for trans-friendly beer and life-saving vaccines. Outkick founder Clay Travis, who’ll latch on to any take that will get him dragged to the moon and back, pulled the Yoko Ono card. 

From there, all of your favorite 2016 online trading cards took up the cause. Remember Jack Posobiec, and Laura Loomer, and Tomi Lahren? They’re all BACK and ready to connect the dots for you, the sheeple. And guess what, this thing goes all the way to the TOP: to Joe Biden, to George Soros, and even to the aliens observing us from their spaceship outside of Galaxy Z12.  

Now, you might be wondering why the right has chosen an attack on Taylor Swift as their opening salvo for Trump’s prospective Second Reich. You might also be wondering, to a much lesser degree, if any of their accusations are even remotely true. Well, I’m here to help. Here now is a handy FAQ to guide you through Tayghazi.

Q: Why is Swift on all of those magazine covers?

A: Because she is very popular.

Q: Is she so popular that she could swing the presidential election to Joe Biden?

A: Yes, IF you believe OAN host and Michael Bay film extra Alison Steinberg, who used a video clip of Swift being mentioned in passing by a government official in 2019 as proof that the singer/songwriter is part of a psy-op campaign by the Pentagon to rally younger voters to the side of 81-year-old President Joe Biden. She ropes not just the NFL into the plot, but all professional sports as well:

“Major league sports in and of itself is nothing but a psy-op. Get kids plugged into the cycle of going to public indoctrination camps, playing sports for their school, and going to games. Many end up devoting their entire childhood to competing in various sports only to be cut from the team, at which point they become brainwashed into supporting professional teams because they know their dreams of becoming a pro athlete will probably never happen.”

Now, all of that is true. It also happens to be NORMAL. Calling this “public indoctrination” is like saying that going to the market to buy some apples is a demented form of re-education. These people cannot abide a world where tolerance, education and basic human compassion are viewed as GOOD things. This is just the woke-zis cunningly forcing their agenda into our daily lives ... your CHILDREN’S lives. Chilling!

Why would Swift, an extremely mildly outspoken Democrat over the past few years, agree to be part of this sort of thing? Well, as Steinberg explains, it’s because, “George Soros and the Carlyle Group own Taylor Swift and her music.”

Q: Who is George Soros?

A: A billionaire and Democratic Party megadonor who the right wing decided, many years ago, served as a perfect stand-in for “the Jews.”

Q: Is George Soros Jewish?

A: Yes.

Q: Does that matter?

A: Not in the slightest.

Q: Does he own Taylor Swift?

A: No because, pending Trump’s reelection, slavery remains illegal in the United States.

Q: Does he own her music?

A: Kinda. This is as accurate as Steinberg gets, or ever will get in her life. Many years ago, music executive Scooter Braun, most famous for overseeing the meteoric rise of Justin Bieber (before Bieber, and many other artists, fired him), bought the rights to all Swift’s master recordings. He was partially funded in the effort by private equity firm the Carlyle Group, which has ties to the Soros family.

Now, if you live under a rock — as most Trump voters do — you may not be aware that Swift was EXTREMELY displeased with Braun snatching up her catalog, so much so that she is in the process of re-recording and re-releasing several of her albums with a “(Taylor’s Version)” disclaimer, to let fans know that their money is going to the RIGHT billionaire and not to the wrong one. The point here is that Swift would be just as excited to work directly with Soros as she would be to get back together with John Mayer.

Q: [singing] Ever, ever, ever … get back together?

A: I see what you’re trying to do. Please do not exacerbate the pun situation with this story. Both Trump and Biden surrogates have already made so many plays on words with this woman’s discography that I no longer know what comedy is anymore. They got a blank space, baby … and they’re writing HER name. Hey where are you going?

Q: How does Travis Kelce fit into all of this?

A: Glad you asked, because this is where I once had a conspiracy theory of my own. Prior to the season, the Chiefs tight end publicly said he tried to give Swift his phone number when he attended her concert last summer. HEY PRESTO! Suddenly they were dating, and I’m so used to every celebrity news story being a brand stunt that I assumed this relationship was staged to the benefit of all parties.

Swift got free airtime on NFL games just as her “Eras Tour” documentary was hitting theaters and her version of “1989” was dropping. The NFL got to convert Swifties into newly minted fans. And Kelce, a 6-foot-5, 250-pound man who has played wingman to stud QB Patrick Mahomes throughout the Chiefs’ title runs, got his own fat spotlight, plus the chance to paint himself as the bashful schoolboy whose crush finally talked to him. Everyone wins! It felt so scripted that I even bet my Defector colleague Diana Moskovitz five bucks that these two would split the second they’d milked the cow for all it was worth.

Q: Did you win the bet?

A; No, because Tay and Trav are still together. Swift attended almost every Chiefs game during the season, cheered her ass off in the luxury box and then openly kissed her man on the field after Kansas City won the AFC title game last Sunday afternoon. Swift finally gets to play cheerleader to the star pass receiver, just like she once dreamed. One might argue this is the greatest underdog story in American history. 

So, I’m convinced. They’re doing it. I paid Diana the five bucks.

Q: OK, but how does the NFL fit into all this?

A: That’s just what former presidential candidate and future least-selling author Vivek Ramaswamy would like to know.

If you go by Ramaswamy’s line of thinking, which is always a difficult task, the notoriously woke NFL is going to rig the Super Bowl in favor of the Chiefs so that Biden will get an even larger bump in the polls thanks to the Swift effect, and so that Pfizer spokesman Kelce will have an even larger platform to promote getting COVID-19 vaccine shots. These shots, as we all know, are ALSO a psy-op, orchestrated by the Freemasons to plant a secret microchip inside your brain and make all of your kids trans.

Q: You kid, but isn’t there real value in the Biden campaign using Swift as a surrogate?

A: Yes. You’ve met Democrats. They’ve never met a celebrity endorsement they didn’t like, so of course Biden wouldn’t mind having Taylor Swift on his side, as she was in 2020. He does not require the Pentagon to coordinate this effort.

Q: Where does Trump himself stand on all of this?

A: According to Rolling Stone, Trump is mostly pissed that someone other than himself is getting attention. In Trump’s world view, this is the greatest sin that any person (or nation-state) can commit. From Adam Rawnsley and Asawin Suebsaeng:

“Trump has also privately claimed that he is ‘more popular’ than Swift and that he has more committed fans than she does, a person close to Trump and another source with knowledge of the matter tell Rolling Stone. Last month, the source close to Trump adds, the ex-president commented to some confidants that it ‘obviously’ made no sense that he was not named Time magazine’s 2023 Person of the Year — an honor that went to none other than Swift in December.”

As you can see, all of the pieces fit.

Q: Will the Super Bowl be rigged?

A: No.

Q: Will any of this matter?

A: No. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but we’re about to get an even more incoherent campaign effort from Trump on his third go-round. The reach of social media has steadily eroded, the resources within TRADITIONAL media are being slashed and burned, longtime GOP bullhorn Fox News has become an enemy of Trump ever since they were the first outlet to call Arizona in Biden’s favor in 2020 and Trump himself is washed. As a result, you and I will only get more half-assed conspiracy theories like this one as the campaign season drags on. Once the Super Bowl is over, the mob will train its sights on Caitlin Clark, and then on “Barbie” (again), and then on Shohei Ohtani and then again on Tayvis once the NFL season starts back up in September. None of it will be consistent, none of it will be true and none of it will help.

So if you’re still concerned about Trump leading Biden in the polls and establishing a dictatorship if he makes it back into office, take this current story as heartwarming evidence that they are anything but inevitable. Taylor Swift, the NFL and Joe Biden, all trying to bring down America within? With what, some light PDA? Is that seriously all you’ve got?  These people don’t know what the f—k they’re doing.