Taylor Swift unexpectedly took a political stance on Sunday, throwing her support behind Tennessee Democratic candidates while urging her fans to register to vote and “educate yourself on the candidates running in your state and vote based on who most closely represents your values.” In other words, she didn’t tell her fans who to vote for, just that they should vote. Nonetheless, jimmies were rustled, with conservative pundits going on the network that routinely asks Kid Rock for political commentary to say Taylor Swift shouldn’t make political commentary. What a world.
And now that a few days have passed, we can look back on some of the reactions to her political statement, both from people making jokes and from people motivated to finally register to vote. As for the latter group, the voter registration website Swift recommended to her 112 million followers (Vote.org) told Buzzfeed they’ve seen an “unprecedented” number of new voter registrations (65,000) in the 24 hours after Swift’s post. In Swift’s home state of Tennessee, at least 2,144 registrations were made in the 36 hours after Swift’s post. For comparison, Vote.org received only 2,811 new Tennessee voter registrations during the entire month of September. We don’t have any jokes about that; it’s just damn impressive.
People on Twitter had jokes, however, with plenty of folks surprised to be suddenly siding with Taylor Swift instead of the MAGA hat-wearing Kanye West:
actually convinced Taylor Swift sent her political message just to flex on Kanye and I respect that on many levels
— Alpha Male (real) (@SortaBad) October 9, 2018
https://twitter.com/JRehling/status/1049463208539381761
https://twitter.com/kashanacauley/status/1049102952726593537
The Black Delegation would like to trade Kanye West for Taylor Swift. pic.twitter.com/PXkxevsdKS
— Houston 🇺🇸💙🇺🇸💙🇺🇸👨🦳👩🏽 (@H0ustonPa) October 8, 2018
Taylor Swift cares more about black people than Kanye West and now I need to lay down because I got a headache just from tweeting that.
— Ragnarok Lobster 🐺 (@eclecticbrotha) October 8, 2018
The image of Trump supporters having to pretend to support Kanye & denouncing Taylor Swift gives me life
— Alt Fed Employee (@Alt_FedEmployee) October 8, 2018
Others joked about the futility of trying to boycott Taylor Swift:
https://twitter.com/emmablackery/status/1049228072812273665
https://twitter.com/illumigomez/status/1049094588978421766
Taylor Swift to Republicans who attended the rep tour: “Put the money in a bag and I stole the keys, that was the last time you ever saw me! 💥🚗🚨👋🏻”
— Michel (Tortured Poet Version) (@miesjhul) October 8, 2018
https://twitter.com/reputationx1989/status/1049137413233102848
Republicans: I'm never listening to Taylor Swift again!!!!
Taylor Swift & the rest of us:
https://t.co/7RgCTDMHd0— samantha🎗️ (@_samanthapaigej) October 8, 2018
https://twitter.com/MildlyAmused/status/1049304252399726592
Some were especially pleased to think about how upset the alt-right might get over this:
https://twitter.com/MildlyAmused/status/1049286254867742720
https://twitter.com/beareyno/status/1049231861057126400
REPLACE ALL CONFEDERATE STATUES WITH STATUES OF TAYLOR SWIFT!!!!!!
— Phillip (@MajorPhilebrity) October 8, 2018
Taylor Swift's conservative fans are going ballistic. Huh. It's almost like they're surprised that the woman who sued a man on principle for sexually grabbing her might oppose the party that supports Trump and Kavanaugh.
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) October 8, 2018
https://twitter.com/costaggini/status/1049189290054283264
https://twitter.com/ManInTheHoody/status/1049168222207934465
https://twitter.com/EmilyGorcenski/status/1049164092345389056
And some made gamergate references:
https://twitter.com/9_volt_/status/1049287415549104129
https://twitter.com/david8hughes/status/1049204088108240896
Others reminded us to not mess with T-Swift or her army:
Taylor talking about Marsha Blackburn pic.twitter.com/WgTTClGk2J
— lindsey (@tobejustrees) October 7, 2018
https://twitter.com/zachheltzel/status/1049516371833282560
Some put things into perspective:
katy perry liking taylor’s post.. the simulation is glitching
— liz 🫶 (@AstoundingSwift) October 8, 2018
I feel like yesterday we got a very compact view of our future: One side begging the government to do something to stave off apocalyptic climate change while the other side burns their $900 Taylor Swift concert tickets to own the libs
— Jason O. Gilbert (@gilbertjasono) October 8, 2018
https://twitter.com/JensenClan88/status/1049132036844208128
Others just weren’t impressed:
Taylor Swift waiting til 2018 to choose a side like she’s America in World War II
— Chase Mitchell (@ChaseMit) October 8, 2018
https://twitter.com/islandgoth/status/1049143724255666181
https://twitter.com/alyssakeiko/status/1049455331963805703
This week has been quite a year.
https://twitter.com/nataliereed84/status/1048976110879272960
Speaking of voting, you can go to iwillvote or vote.org to register or to confirm that you’re still on the voter rolls.