Apparently, a meeting was held recently in the Republican Hall of Mirrors and the Committee for Demographic Destruction and Batshit Memes decided that now, early 2024, was the time to unleash a new set of conspiracy theories on the world and spook would-be voters away from "them." You know... Liberals.
I'm not sure I can exactly cite it from memory and I don't want to occupy any more brain cells on this type of rhetoric than needed to write this piece but the story goes something like this... A pop-star who sold out 146 stadium shows and grossed over $1 billion dollars purposely chose to date a professional athlete playing in a league that has rigged its season to ensure that athlete's team makes it to the Super Bowl so the celebrity power couple can magnify their media profile precisely as the pop star endorses Joe Biden for re-election and brings about the zombie liberal apocalypse and... ...worst of all... ...attracts more media attention away from Donald Trump. There may be some sort of additional hidden plot involving the CIA or NSA or intelligence department within the Department of Defense.
Attempting to leverage pop culture within the political sphere virtually NEVER goes well for politicians, for multiple reasons. First, politicians are virtually one hundred percent non-hip in any area of culture, be it music, movies, television or social media. Any attempt to fake hipness only magnifies the un-hipness of the candidate and worsens the "hip gap" they wanted to narrow. Second, any attempt by politicians to glom onto any sense of unity or identity provided by an artist or their work actually triggers RESENTMENT from fans of that artist or work because the politician is intruding on sacred territory inside that fan's head. The territory occupied by good memories linked with super glue to that artist or song. And now some schlub politician is trying to insert themselves into that space by playing the song at campaign rallies that become memes on the internet.
How many Fleetwood Mac fans have had fond memories of 1977, Trans Ams, CB radios and earth shoes linked to "Don't Stop" crowded out by images of fat, middle-aged Democrats dancing to the song at Clinton campaign rallies and Democratic conventions? How many Springsteen fans have had memories of epic, sweaty three hour live shows of The Boss singing "Born in the USA" obliterated by scenes of clueless Republicans pumping their fist in the air at Reagan campaign rallies where Republican operatives played the song as a jingoistic pro-America anthem because they were too clueless to understand the lyrics? Fans DO NOT like having their favorite cultural memories tainted by seeing them dragged into politics. By either side.
In the case of Donald Trump versus Taylor Swift, there are two equally likely explanations for why Republicans would choose this pre-emptive cultural strike. The first likely explanation is that the Republican Party truly is this dumb, strategically speaking. The economic and political justification for this conclusion will be covered shortly. The second likely explanation is due to the unique psychopathy of Donald Trump and his black-hole sized demand for all attention in all spheres of public thought. Regardless of the exact mix of drivers behind this new "war," its very existence reflects a behavior exhibited by ALL authoritarian regimes -- an instinctive, visceral fear of pop culture as a threat to power.
It is this pattern of authoritarian paranoia about pop culture that makes this new Trump Versus Taylor war worthy of serious analysis. The choice by Republicans to launch this particular cultural war further highlights how poorly Republicans are reading the political landscape and why, if they cannot read relatively simple dynamics like this, they certainly cannot be expected to handle the complexities of dealing with Russia, China, North Korea and Iran.
The first step in understanding the stupidity of this new Republican tactic involves analyzing a crucial aspect of the current American political climate.
The Key Dynamic in American Politics
THE biggest force to affect the outcome of the 2024 election is not the status of abortion rights, immigration policy, the risks of widening wars in Ukraine and the mid east, nor the economy. The biggest force in the 2024 election will be APATHY on the part of eighteen to thirty year old voters. Either the presence of apathy or its absence.
Voters in that age group have never seen a functional American government. They have never seen two political parties define problems in terms of existing laws, economics, science and basic math or propose solutions that act directly on the problems they encounter every day. This 18-30 generation of voters lived their entire childhood in fear of being massacred in their own school room by psychopaths armed with automatic weapons and saw their parents do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT IT.This generation of 18-30 year old voters for the most part sees ZERO DISTINCTION between Democrats and Republicans. They don't care about positions the parties claim to profess, they care about what they have actually ACCOMPLISHED and, from their perspective, virtually nothing has been accomplished regarding the issues they care about.
If one presumes that kids follow their parents' political affiliation -- purely from indoctrination or laziness rather than a rational, independent analysis and decision -- then Republicans account for the smallest bloc of this generation. The current national split of voters across affiliations is 41% independent, 31% Democrat and 25% Republican. If a whopping 41% of this bloc of voters is independent but might be triggered into voting by a particularly stupid attack on something they care DEEPLY about, that could easily swing the election not only from Trump to Biden but from Republicans in general across every swing district in the country.
It's not that Taylor Swift is that important in national politics. She has zero impact on ANY critical issue facing the country. But it is precisely because of that dynamic that this Republican tactic is so potentially disastrous for Republicans. The 18-30 generation may be apathetic but they're not stupid. Right now, they can see a political party SCREAMING that unchecked immigration will be the end of America. But they also see right now THAT SAME PARTY publicly stating it will not support a bill to REFORM immigration because they want the issue in an election more than they want the solution at work in the country. The 18-30 bloc looks at those two facts and sees more of the same paralysis and chaos that made them sitting ducks for automatic weapons in school. They will reach the correct conclusion. That party is disconnected from reality.
And now THAT SAME PARTY is pushing a conspiracy theory about the single most successful artist of their generation, because she might be for the other guy? At a minimum, those apathetic 18-30 voters don't have to know a thing about Democratic proposals to be turned off from voting Republican. If Democrats properly craft a message explaining how the party has attempted to balance a variety of efforts across issues important to 18-30s, the Republicans will not only LOSE votes from this bloc but Democrats can GAIN votes, expanding a potential margin of victory out of the single biggest bloc up for grabs. What might some of those issues be?
- student debt write-downs in cases of diploma mill frauds, etc.
- broadband subsidies for the poor to ensure access for kids
- broadband buildouts in rural America, to eliminate the technology gulf that worsens rural economies
- continued protection of guaranteed minimum healthcare coverage
- continued defense of abortion rights where not thwarted by Republican super-majorities
- continued defense of contraception rights
- continued defense of LGBTQ rights
- billions in funding to revamp the electric grid to support a greener future
An Economic He Versus She
Okay, so Republicans raised the topic. Donald Trump cannot stand to surrender one inch of news copy to anyone else and seems to be insisting on a comparison between himself and Taylor Swift. Ummmm, Donald? The news is not good... It's interesting to compare the lifetime economic impact of Trump and Swift.
In one corner, we have a real estate developer who was estimated to have a net worth of $1 million as an eight year old and $100 million as of 1978 and could have had a net worth of roughly $6 billion dollars had he simply invested the $100 million in an index fund and played golf for the next forty years. Instead, his net worth is estimated to be only about $2.2 billion but no one really knows the true figure. From a star power perspective, Trump earned roughly $427 million in royalties during his 2004-2015 stint on The Apprentice. That's impressive. $427 million over eleven years of work. Hold that thought. We also know Trump has generated significant economic activity in the legal sector throughout his entire career, triggering literally thousands of lawsuits, resulting in at least $50 million in legal bills in 2023 alone. While the extent of WORK in the legal realm generated by Trump over his career is vast, it is impossible to predict the actual economic impact of that work because it is impossible to know how much of that legal work Trump actually paid for. Trump has a lifelong reputation for stiffing his own lawyers.
In the opposite corner, we have Taylor Swift, a thirty five year old songwriter, musician, recording artist and live performer who has written, recorded and released ten albums over eighteen years that have sold over two hundred million copies. Swift is currently nearing the end of a two year world tour that has already grossed $1.1 billion dollars. It's estimated Swift nets an astonishing 85% of the ticket and merchandise revenue at each show. Ponder those numbers. She's netting 85% of $1.1 billion dollars or $935 million only 10 months into a 19 month tour. Makes $427 million over eleven years for the Apprentice not so impressive. Her personal net worth is also approximately $1.1 billion dollars, one hundred percent of which was earned from precisely three things -- a guitar, a piano and her brain. Swift has used her economic clout within the music industry to trigger significant changes in streaming media licensing schemes that have proven to be grossly unfair to artists. When she left her original music label in 2018, her new label contract included terms (and teeth) to incent her new label UMG to avoid auctioning off its share in Spotify in ways that might further facility exploitation of content for streaming services at the expense of artists. Her contract stipulated that if UMG sold any portion of its shares in Spotify, all proceeds had to be distributed equally to all UMG artists. At that time, UMG held 3.5% of Spotify's shares and they were worth nearly $1 billion dollars. More recently, Swift's music along with other major artists has been removed from Tik Tok after UMG and Tik Tok could not come to new terms to renew a licensing contract. UMG and its artists, including Swift, are concerned about the long term protection of intellectual property and Tik Tok's perceived failure to adopt policies aimed at protecting those rights.
Authoritarians and Pop Culture
What IS it about authoritarians that makes them so fearful and resentful about pop culture and pop figures? It sounds like a ridiculous, pseudo-psychology topic but it's worth serious analysis. The types of music, movies, literature and art that "click" in popular culture and become big has always been impossible to predict. But new genres and new starts in those genres inevitably appear - and are inevitably scoffed at by prior generations, who of course adore the genres and stars of THEIR generation and many of the generations before them whose status evolved into "classic." But present day culture is nearly universally FEARED by leaders of authoritarian regimes. The Soviet Union tried to convince its citizens that Western culture was decadent and completely unnecessary for a modern, efficient communist utopia. But WHY? Why the FEAR?
By definition, authoritarian regimes have five dynamics at work in parallel at all times:
- efforts to control all economic activity to deliver a minimum set of promises to the masses while funneling a disproportionate share of wealth to the leader and the cronies required to allow him to remain in power
- widespread, continuing failures to deliver on most economic promises
- continual efforts to disguise those failures from the public for as long as possible
- attempts to identify and squelch any individual expression that might conflict with the official party line
- a lack of popular support from the public - if the public supported them, the authoritarianism wouldn't be needed
Those dynamics are incompatible with allowing a vibrant culture to operate and produce the next big trend and the next big star. Authoritarian regimes fear the operation of pop culture precisely because its unpredictability conflicts with their need for predictability and control. The existence of a vibrant pop culture demonstrates to the public that there are other sources for ideas and people to communicate them more effectively than leadership. Leadership cannot trust such a population to follow the party line but they cannot predict who the next successful pop culture icon will be so they would prefer to squelch culture in its entirety unless they can control it.
The Republican Party is already treading water with a 25% share of the electorate and barely holding onto power via gerrymandering and other non-democratic distortions throughout the country. They are adopting an authoritarian playbook because such tactics are REQUIRED to retain power involuntarily when your actual policies lack popular support. It should be ZERO surprise to find the Republican Party suddenly freaking out about the prospect of a pop artist possibly weighing in against the party's candidates.
What Else Could Be Driving This? Oh Yea...
So really, Republicans... Is this really the battle you want to create out of thin air? Taylor Swift? Could it be that there is yet ANOTHER dynamic at work with this particular political tactic and target? On one side, we have a seventy eight year old supposed billionaire man, who just lost an $83 million dollar judgment in a case to a WOMAN attorney representing a WOMAN who accused him of rape in a department store. A man facing a $370 million dollar loss in another case brought by a WOMAN attorney general. A man facing criminal prosecution in a state case he may be unable to escape led by a WOMAN prosecuting attorney?
And suddenly, this man is striking out in public against a thirty five year old pop star? A WOMAN? A successful YOUNG woman? A successful, young BILLIONAIRE woman, who seems to call all of her shots in her career? It couldn't be that Trump and the entire misogynistic Republican Party are upset that yet another WOMAN could play a role in diminishing their power and collectively HUMILIATING them, could it? And doing so predominately because of attention she is uniquely suited to draw to longstanding Republican policies that become more toxic for women every day?
Nahhhhhhh. It has to be something else.
WTH
