Taylor Swift’s Political Statement Has Triggered Jokes And An ‘Unprecedented’ Voter Registration Spike

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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:

https://twitter.com/JRehling/status/1049463208539381761
https://twitter.com/kashanacauley/status/1049102952726593537

Others joked about the futility of trying to boycott Taylor Swift:

https://twitter.com/emmablackery/status/1049228072812273665
https://twitter.com/illumigomez/status/1049094588978421766

https://twitter.com/reputationx1989/status/1049137413233102848

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

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:

https://twitter.com/zachheltzel/status/1049516371833282560

Some put things into perspective:

https://twitter.com/JensenClan88/status/1049132036844208128

Others just weren’t impressed:

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.