September 18, 2024 • 20 mins
What if one tweet could swing an entire election? In this episode, we dissect the extraordinary political upheaval ignited by Taylor Swift’s endorsement of Kamala Harris after Donald Trump promoted AI-generated misinformation. Swift's endorsement wasn't just a showing of support; it was a call to arms that her fans appear eager to heed. Trump’s unrestrained behavior—especially his reckless tweet about hating Taylor Swift—has backfired spectacularly.
We unravel the complex web of celebrity influence, social media power plays, and misinformation, highlighting how Swift’s strategic responses have not only mobilized her massive fan base but could sway voters across generations. From AI-generated images to savvy denouncements, we dig into how this battle has created a political firestorm that Trump and his MAGA allies never saw coming.
This episode offers an eye-opening look at the intersection of pop culture and politics, showing the profound impact a single public figure can have on the democratic process. We also dive into how Swift’s political stance could ripple through households, influencing parents to reconsider their voting decisions based on their children’s activism. Get ready for a deep dive into how this high-profile feud has reshaped the 2024 election dynamics and what it means for both campaigns.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
There's an old adage in politics don't ever pick a
fight with someone who buys inkby the barrel.
Simply put, if you are in thepublic eye and you need to win
public approval, don't pick afight with a newspaper, because
they can make your lifemiserable, because they have the
means by which to do it.
Fairly straightforward, let'stranslate that into the 21st
(00:22):
century and today's politicalage.
Let's translate that into the21st century and today's
political age.
Maybe, I don't know.
Don't pick a fight with someonewho can grab Instagram likes by
the millions.
Seems like a good comparison.
Well, donald Trump and hisnever-ending commitment to
breaking norms and looking theother way at common sense
(00:42):
decided to violate thisunwritten rule of politics, and
did so in spectacular fashion,in ways that I don't think we
really can quite comprehend atthis point.
When he came out and attackedTaylor Swift after she endorsed
Kamala Harris immediatelyfollowing the Trump-Harris
(01:04):
debate and it actually started alittle bit earlier than that
the seeds were kind of plantedin advance.
But in doing all of this, trumpcreated one of the most insane
self-forced errors that I thinkwe'll ever see in American
politics.
So good afternoon.
This is the Keystone MarketingPodcast for Wednesday, september
(01:25):
18th 2024.
I'm Jesse White.
We are 40 days out from the2024 election and one of the
biggest factors is the TaylorSwift impact and I don't think
that people quite understandwhat that impact will be,
partially because this is kindof an outlier.
You know, we talk aboutendorsements all the time time
and some people make a reallybig deal about endorsements and
(01:48):
a lot of times they're much adoabout nothing.
And I always say to candidatesis look, if someone or an
organization is going to endorseyou, are they donating to your
campaign?
Are they putting people out inthe streets to help you?
Are they putting boots on theground?
If they're not willing to doeither of those things, or maybe
talk to their membership to alesser extent, the endorsement
(02:10):
isn't worth very much.
And you see campaigns all thetime go around and rack up
endorsements and they getcrushed because endorsements
don't vote Right.
This isn't that.
This is something entirelydifferent.
And if you follow Taylor Swiftat all which I only have in kind
of a passing way I'm more of aKesha kind of guy myself, but
(02:31):
the way that this all evolveddid not happen overnight.
There's a documentary out Ibelieve it's still on Netflix
where Taylor Swift was taking astand in politics.
Going back to the Dobbs decisionand you know and that kind of
thing, and there's a scene in itwhere her team, including, I
(02:51):
believe, her parents, are kindof like not trying to talk her
out of it, but saying, hey, doyou understand what you're about
to do here?
Like, do you get the enormityof what this could mean?
And I'm talking about back in2022.
And she was like, yeah, I getit, I want to do this and to her
credit, you know, in a worldwhere so many people, you know,
(03:11):
use the oh well, I can't speakout because dot dot, dot as a
way to avoid getting theirvoices heard out there, and you
know, and having to deal withthe reality of that, she was
like I don't care.
And having to deal with thereality of that, she was like I
don't care.
This is that to a level thatdoesn't even compare.
And you have to go back just alittle bit earlier to when Trump
(03:33):
.
Usually you look at fights andyou're like, well, he started,
she started whatever.
Well, trump absolutely startedthis one, because there were
people out there that werecirculating AI-generated images
of Taylor Swift basicallysupporting Trump.
They were circulating AIgenerated images of Taylor Swift
basically supporting Trump.
They were clearly AI and Trumptook them and shared them online
.
He reposted them with I don'thave the verbatim, but basically
(03:56):
it was like thanks for thesupport, right when anybody with
half a brain knew that that wasA not actually Taylor Swift,
and B that she does not supporthim.
But he was like, oh, wait, herewe'll just share this and let
people think that she is,because in his mind everybody's
stupid and I think, maybe to hiscredit, maybe more of that's
being demonstrated than we'dlike to admit.
(04:19):
But that was really kind of thatkind of started everything
going and there was kind of, ifyou remember the last night of
the DNC there was a big talkabout there was going to be a
surprise guest and no one knewwho it was going to be.
It ended up being nobody, forwhatever reason, whether it was
teased on purpose to try to keepviewership up through Harris's
speech or there was a schedulingsnafu.
(04:41):
There were all these likelittle weird oh so-and-so's in
the building and it was like didit either be Beyonce or Taylor
Swift?
And I remember talking to afriend that night like right
before the speeches started, andI was like look if it's Taylor
Swift.
I mean, that's maybe one of theonly people that could actually
upstage Kamala Harris, which isprobably why it won't be her,
because she would be the storyover the nominee.
(05:03):
That's clearly not thenarrative you're looking for,
but it would have been a massivedeal if she was there in a
political function, not just toperform.
And I'm looking at TaylorSwift's post that she did on
Instagram after the debate andit said part of it is recently I
was made aware that AI of quoteme falsely endorsing Donald
(05:25):
Trump's presidential campaignrun was posted to his site.
It really conjured up my fearsaround AI and the danger of
spreading misinformation.
It brought me to the conclusionthat I need to be very
transparent about my actualplans for this election as a
voter.
The simplest way to combatmisinformation is with the truth
.
That's a whole lot of words tosay F around and find out right,
(05:46):
that's what she's basicallysaying.
It had been one thing if it hadbeen just circulating in the
right wing Twittersphere orsomething like that, but the
second Trump, with his massiveability to, you know, amplify,
took it and pushed it out thereon his own.
He gave it, like the formerpresidential, stamp of approval.
(06:06):
I guess you could say that tookit to a whole different level
because, as with any cult leader, his followers believe anything
he says to be the gospel truth.
So that became fact at thatpoint.
Well, taylor Swift supportingDonald Trump Now what that's?
It move on.
And so clearly, whether it wastactical for her to wait until
after, uh, the convention, or ifshe decided, uh, you know, that
(06:31):
was kind of like she watchedkamala harris's speech and
thought, okay, this is like ano-brainer, I've got to get
behind her, this is how I can doit.
Whatever, it kind of doesn'tmatter.
She put that endorsement outand again legitimately broke the
Internet, at least thepolitical part of it.
And the post, as of right nowI'm looking at it, has 11.2
million likes on Instagram.
(06:54):
Now I get it Likes.
You know, social mediaengagement is like yard signs,
right?
Yard signs don't vote,Instagram likes don't vote.
Fair enough, fair enough.
However, the way in which shedid it was so smart and eloquent
(07:15):
, which she says I've done myresearch and I've made my choice
.
Your research is all yours todo and the choice is yours to
make.
So then she puts in there thelink.
She put a link in there to avoteorg, like a custom link that
they could track.
That link has now received over400,000 unique clicks just from
(07:35):
that link.
Again, are all those peopleregistering to vote?
Who knows?
There's just no way to knowquite yet, but as anybody that's
ever done a voter registrationdrive can tell you, getting
400,000 people to at least makethat first step to go to the
site is massive.
That's massive.
I mean, that's a huge shift,especially when you look at how
(07:58):
narrow the elections have beenin these swing states.
You know you start talkingabout 10, 20,000 voters in a
state like Pennsylvania.
Oh, oh.
That becomes very problematicfor the Trump campaign,
especially because, if you goback to Obama in 08, one of the
smartest things they did and Iremember being on the ground
(08:19):
when they did this as a staterep I was you know we worked
with the campaigns and everybodyjust assumed it was going to be
business as usual and they werelike no, we're going to use the
entire summer of 2008 toregister new voters.
Because they knew, especiallygiven the racial politics and
everything at play they knewthat the map as it existed was
(08:42):
not good for them.
So they did something reallysmart they expanded the edges of
the map as it existed was notgood for them.
So they did something reallysmart.
They expanded the edges of themap, so to speak, by going out
nationally and registering a tonof new voters that nobody had
really counted on before.
Everybody had been so busy,just kind of like dividing up
what was already there and allof a sudden you've got this new
influx of voters that are almostexclusively going to be for
(09:04):
Obama, because the Obamacampaign signed them up and that
allowed them to expand theelectorate just enough for them
to win.
This is kind of like that andit really.
You know, I read theendorsement, I watched it.
I was like wow, it was so welldone.
And she goes.
She talks about why, she talksabout Tim Walls, she talks about
(09:26):
standing up for LGBTQ plusrights, ivf, woman's right to
her own body, all of the thingsyou know say.
She's a steady handed, giftedleader, said all the right
things.
Right, it was a very.
I think part of the problemthat you saw on the right is
they wanted to paint her as likelittle girl.
She's just a little girl.
(09:47):
She doesn't know what she'stalking about Partially because
Taylor Swift came on the sceneas a very young person.
She's not a kid.
It's as well written andintelligent and damn near
perfect as it could ever beRight.
And the fact that she signs itChildless, cat, lady, clear, you
(10:09):
know, hit at what Vance hadsaid and a picture of her and
her cat.
It was perfect.
Now, so that's bad, right,that's like that's.
If you're running a campaign,you're like, oh boy, this is not
good.
You know what you don't need.
You don't need your candidate,who also has a massive social
media following, to go out andtweet or post the following in
(10:34):
all caps I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT.
That might be the four mostdamaging words ever put out on
social media to a politicalcampaign.
Utterly insane.
And it was at that moment, bythe way, that I realized there
are no guardrails with him.
There is not a single person onthe planet that has the ability
(10:57):
to step in and say yo, big man,put the phone down.
We'll go get you some KFC,it'll be all good, put the phone
down.
There's nobody in his orbit.
That's telling him that there'snobody willing to stand up to
him, which, by the way, forthose who think that when you
talk about being an autocrat ora wannabe dictator, you know
there's whole thing of oh well,there'll be people around him
(11:17):
that will let him do that.
Yeah, not this time around.
He learned his lesson last time.
All those people are going tostand up to him.
They're all going to be gone.
It's going to be like the LauraLoomer administration if this
guy gets reelected, so there'snobody around him to.
If you can't stop him fromdoing that, you can't stop him
from doing anything Like.
(11:37):
That's the political equivalentof launching nuclear missiles,
right?
I mean, the damage to yourcampaign is almost as bad as the
actual damage from launchingmissiles.
So he tweets that out and theresponse was just.
It was just kind of crazydisbelief.
Even for Donald Trump, whowe've all allowed ourselves to
(11:58):
just kind of become normalizedto his level of crazy.
Everyone's like whoa, whoa,dude, are you okay?
What are you thinking?
And now the right is attackingher and trying to minimize her
and all the things that youwould do.
Here's the problem that they'renot getting, and I don't think
a lot of people are getting,because what they did, they
(12:21):
didn't just Taylor Swift's fans,or not even people that are
fans, people that like her andrespect her.
Right, you know, you can likeher and respect her, without
even listening to her music verymuch, but the people that were
going to respond to that.
It's one thing for her to comeout of nowhere and be like, hey,
this is who I'm supporting.
It's an entirely differentthing for her to say and she
said it so expertly in herendorsement I'm speaking up
(12:44):
because they came after me withmisinformation and that, right,
there is the difference.
And then it was punctuated bywhat Trump did.
But that first part this wasnot an endorsement as much as a
call to arms saying I need you.
She doesn't come out and say it, which is even smarter, but
(13:04):
basically they're like look, shesays, look, this is what's
happened to me.
I need you to know what I'mthinking.
Do what you want, but this iswhat I'm going to do.
For all of these people thatlove Taylor Swift or respect her
, this is their opportunity todo something for her right, like
it's not a passive thing, likewe have to defend Taylor.
(13:25):
Right, we have to come to herdefense because look at what
these mean people are doing toher.
So that was like the call toarms.
Then, when Trump tweeted out Ihate Taylor Swift, like that was
.
Like that was.
Like that was D-Day, that wasPearl Harbor.
Politically, right now we're not.
We're not just on high alert,we are at war.
Right, and I know everybodygets the Republicans are making
(13:46):
a lot of noise about, you know,strong rhetoric and comparisons.
Yeah, nobody's talking aboutactual physical war, right,
we're talking about politically.
This was war.
You know.
It's like the line from 99 LoveBalloons.
You know, this is what we'vewaited for.
This is it, boys, this is war.
Mount up Right now.
I just pulled from regulators.
I'm really dating myself and mymusical references, but that's
(14:08):
fine.
Mount up right.
Register to vote, get involved,do all the things.
It became an entirely differentthing because now, when it's one
thing to say, oh well, they didthis thing and it wasn't nice,
but it was, you know,misinformation and AI and it's a
little, you know, whatever,it's another thing to be like
Donald Trump says I hate TaylorSwift.
You know for the fact thatsomeone that's running for
president and is a formerpresident to say they hate
(14:30):
anybody while at the same timecomplaining about everybody
being mean to him and doing itto a woman not a good look under
any circumstances, but doing itto somebody with maybe the most
popular woman on planet Earth,at least from an entertainment
point of view, is utter insanity, even for him.
He talks about the economy.
Taylor Swift, when she comes totown for a concert, is an
(14:53):
actual economic driver.
She moves economic indicatorsbecause her concerts generate so
much money of people coming inand spending and doing whatever
Like she.
Actually there's a tangibleimpact when Taylor Swift comes
to town.
So think about that.
If she has the ability tochange a city's economic picture
, why would you think shecouldn't do the same in terms of
(15:15):
an election?
But here's the kicker, and thisis the part that I think a lot
of people are missing.
This is not just the questionof are a bunch of little teeny
boppers going to go out andregister to vote and actually
vote?
That's part of it, sure.
But here's the bigger thing,and this is the part that I
think could really change theequation.
(15:36):
You are going to have youngwomen and men, but you're going
to have young people askingtheir parents at the dinner
table for the first time evermom, dad, who are you voting for
?
And at that point, as a parent,I can relate to this.
At that point they've got adecision to make, because
(15:57):
they're going to say well, youknow, taylor, I saw this thing
with Taylor Swift and blah, blah, blah.
You can either say, yes, I'mvoting for Kamala Harris and Tim
Walz, I was all along and I'myou know, we're all good or they
could lie to their kids whichis a dicey proposition and say,
oh yeah, yeah sure, and thenthey're going to vote for Trump
anyway.
Or they could risk reallychanging the way their kids look
(16:21):
at them, because a lot of thesekids and by I don't mean little
kids, I'm talking aboutteenagers, whether they're a
voting age or not but if this istheir entree into politics and
they feel passionate about itfor whatever reason, if this is
the thing that has them askingquestions or looking at things
and they go to their parents ortheir grandparents in a way that
(16:42):
they've never had before, right, they've never come at them in
a political sense before.
And these might be people whoallowed themselves to find ways
to be complacent and vote forTrump, even though they knew
they probably shouldn't.
They were kind of makingexcuses as to why, to justify it
, rationalize it, which is awhole other discussion we need
to have.
This could tip the scales,because I could tell you, as a
(17:04):
parent, I look across the tableand my kids, who are nine and 10
, if there's something thatmatters to them really matters
to them.
It matters to me too.
It just does.
That's what being a parent is,and if these young people
largely are are responding tohow Taylor Swift was attacked,
(17:25):
that was the key, not that shechose to endorse or support a
candidate.
The way she was attackedviciously for doing so, led by a
former president of the UnitedStates, which is almost an
impossible thing to say out loud, and the parents are not going
to have an explanation for that,it's an inexplicable thing for
Trump to have done.
(17:46):
This could be the thing thattips the scales, because it's
one thing if the quote teenybopper goes out and votes and
expands the electorate, which isuseful.
It's an entirely differentthing if that discussion at the
dinner table causes people thatweren't necessarily going to
vote for Kamala Harris.
If this is the thing that givesthem the reason, because they
(18:09):
want to have the respect oftheir kids, because what matters
to their kids matters to them,that is seismic, absolutely
seismic in an election,especially in an election where
it will be so close and I'mquite certain that there will be
as we get into vote by mail andwe get closer to the election,
there will be more Taylor Swiftappearances.
(18:31):
Right, she's going to come outon election day and say, hey,
don't forget to do this, ordon't forget to vote in the
state she's clearly all in, butdoing it in a very smart,
tactical way, and this could bethe single biggest outlying part
of the equation that nobody sawcoming.
The variable, the wild card,changes everything, and for the
(18:54):
right to dismiss it and continueto attack her, the single
smartest thing that they coulddo right now and it won't happen
, because he's never apologizedto anybody for anything ever
would be for Donald Trump tosend out something apologizing
to Taylor Swift because she is athing about it.
Of all the women that he hastaken on, you know, in his
(19:15):
entire career I mean, the guyhates women of all the women he
has taken on, this Taylor Swiftis the one who perhaps is the
biggest threat to finally takehim down, and he doesn't see it.
And then maybe the hubris andthe blindness that allowed him
to go down that road might bethe very thing that causes his
(19:37):
political demise.
And boy, I can't wait for theTaylor Swift song about how she
got wrong by that guy and whatshe did about it.
Thank you for listening to theKeystone Reckoning Podcast.
We'll be back with another onetomorrow.
Please, if you want to supportwhat we're doing, visit
keystonereckoningcom, make acontribution to our pack and
visit our sponsor,truebluegearcom.
I'm Jesse White.
(19:57):
See you tomorrow.
There's an old adage in politics don't ever pick a
fight with someone who buys inkby the barrel.
Simply put, if you are in thepublic eye and you need to win
public approval, don't pick afight with a newspaper, because
they can make your lifemiserable, because they have the
means by which to do it.
Fairly straightforward, let'stranslate that into the 21st
(00:22):
century and today's politicalage.
Let's translate that into the21st century and today's
political age.
Maybe, I don't know.
Don't pick a fight with someonewho can grab Instagram likes by
the millions.
Seems like a good comparison.
Well, donald Trump and hisnever-ending commitment to
breaking norms and looking theother way at common sense
(00:42):
decided to violate thisunwritten rule of politics, and
did so in spectacular fashion,in ways that I don't think we
really can quite comprehend atthis point.
When he came out and attackedTaylor Swift after she endorsed
Kamala Harris immediatelyfollowing the Trump-Harris
(01:04):
debate and it actually started alittle bit earlier than that
the seeds were kind of plantedin advance.
But in doing all of this, trumpcreated one of the most insane
self-forced errors that I thinkwe'll ever see in American
politics.
So good afternoon.
This is the Keystone MarketingPodcast for Wednesday, september
(01:25):
18th 2024.
I'm Jesse White.
We are 40 days out from the2024 election and one of the
biggest factors is the TaylorSwift impact and I don't think
that people quite understandwhat that impact will be,
partially because this is kindof an outlier.
You know, we talk aboutendorsements all the time time
and some people make a reallybig deal about endorsements and
(01:48):
a lot of times they're much adoabout nothing.
And I always say to candidatesis look, if someone or an
organization is going to endorseyou, are they donating to your
campaign?
Are they putting people out inthe streets to help you?
Are they putting boots on theground?
If they're not willing to doeither of those things, or maybe
talk to their membership to alesser extent, the endorsement
(02:10):
isn't worth very much.
And you see campaigns all thetime go around and rack up
endorsements and they getcrushed because endorsements
don't vote Right.
This isn't that.
This is something entirelydifferent.
And if you follow Taylor Swiftat all which I only have in kind
of a passing way I'm more of aKesha kind of guy myself, but
(02:31):
the way that this all evolveddid not happen overnight.
There's a documentary out Ibelieve it's still on Netflix
where Taylor Swift was taking astand in politics.
Going back to the Dobbs decisionand you know and that kind of
thing, and there's a scene in itwhere her team, including, I
(02:51):
believe, her parents, are kindof like not trying to talk her
out of it, but saying, hey, doyou understand what you're about
to do here?
Like, do you get the enormityof what this could mean?
And I'm talking about back in2022.
And she was like, yeah, I getit, I want to do this and to her
credit, you know, in a worldwhere so many people, you know,
(03:11):
use the oh well, I can't speakout because dot dot, dot as a
way to avoid getting theirvoices heard out there, and you
know, and having to deal withthe reality of that, she was
like I don't care.
And having to deal with thereality of that, she was like I
don't care.
This is that to a level thatdoesn't even compare.
And you have to go back just alittle bit earlier to when Trump
(03:33):
.
Usually you look at fights andyou're like, well, he started,
she started whatever.
Well, trump absolutely startedthis one, because there were
people out there that werecirculating AI-generated images
of Taylor Swift basicallysupporting Trump.
They were circulating AIgenerated images of Taylor Swift
basically supporting Trump.
They were clearly AI and Trumptook them and shared them online
.
He reposted them with I don'thave the verbatim, but basically
(03:56):
it was like thanks for thesupport, right when anybody with
half a brain knew that that wasA not actually Taylor Swift,
and B that she does not supporthim.
But he was like, oh, wait, herewe'll just share this and let
people think that she is,because in his mind everybody's
stupid and I think, maybe to hiscredit, maybe more of that's
being demonstrated than we'dlike to admit.
(04:19):
But that was really kind of thatkind of started everything
going and there was kind of, ifyou remember the last night of
the DNC there was a big talkabout there was going to be a
surprise guest and no one knewwho it was going to be.
It ended up being nobody, forwhatever reason, whether it was
teased on purpose to try to keepviewership up through Harris's
speech or there was a schedulingsnafu.
(04:41):
There were all these likelittle weird oh so-and-so's in
the building and it was like didit either be Beyonce or Taylor
Swift?
And I remember talking to afriend that night like right
before the speeches started, andI was like look if it's Taylor
Swift.
I mean, that's maybe one of theonly people that could actually
upstage Kamala Harris, which isprobably why it won't be her,
because she would be the storyover the nominee.
(05:03):
That's clearly not thenarrative you're looking for,
but it would have been a massivedeal if she was there in a
political function, not just toperform.
And I'm looking at TaylorSwift's post that she did on
Instagram after the debate andit said part of it is recently I
was made aware that AI of quoteme falsely endorsing Donald
(05:25):
Trump's presidential campaignrun was posted to his site.
It really conjured up my fearsaround AI and the danger of
spreading misinformation.
It brought me to the conclusionthat I need to be very
transparent about my actualplans for this election as a
voter.
The simplest way to combatmisinformation is with the truth
.
That's a whole lot of words tosay F around and find out right,
(05:46):
that's what she's basicallysaying.
It had been one thing if it hadbeen just circulating in the
right wing Twittersphere orsomething like that, but the
second Trump, with his massiveability to, you know, amplify,
took it and pushed it out thereon his own.
He gave it, like the formerpresidential, stamp of approval.
(06:06):
I guess you could say that tookit to a whole different level
because, as with any cult leader, his followers believe anything
he says to be the gospel truth.
So that became fact at thatpoint.
Well, taylor Swift supportingDonald Trump Now what that's?
It move on.
And so clearly, whether it wastactical for her to wait until
after, uh, the convention, or ifshe decided, uh, you know, that
(06:31):
was kind of like she watchedkamala harris's speech and
thought, okay, this is like ano-brainer, I've got to get
behind her, this is how I can doit.
Whatever, it kind of doesn'tmatter.
She put that endorsement outand again legitimately broke the
Internet, at least thepolitical part of it.
And the post, as of right nowI'm looking at it, has 11.2
million likes on Instagram.
(06:54):
Now I get it Likes.
You know, social mediaengagement is like yard signs,
right?
Yard signs don't vote,Instagram likes don't vote.
Fair enough, fair enough.
However, the way in which shedid it was so smart and eloquent
(07:15):
, which she says I've done myresearch and I've made my choice
.
Your research is all yours todo and the choice is yours to
make.
So then she puts in there thelink.
She put a link in there to avoteorg, like a custom link that
they could track.
That link has now received over400,000 unique clicks just from
(07:35):
that link.
Again, are all those peopleregistering to vote?
Who knows?
There's just no way to knowquite yet, but as anybody that's
ever done a voter registrationdrive can tell you, getting
400,000 people to at least makethat first step to go to the
site is massive.
That's massive.
I mean, that's a huge shift,especially when you look at how
(07:58):
narrow the elections have beenin these swing states.
You know you start talkingabout 10, 20,000 voters in a
state like Pennsylvania.
Oh, oh.
That becomes very problematicfor the Trump campaign,
especially because, if you goback to Obama in 08, one of the
smartest things they did and Iremember being on the ground
(08:19):
when they did this as a staterep I was you know we worked
with the campaigns and everybodyjust assumed it was going to be
business as usual and they werelike no, we're going to use the
entire summer of 2008 toregister new voters.
Because they knew, especiallygiven the racial politics and
everything at play they knewthat the map as it existed was
(08:42):
not good for them.
So they did something reallysmart they expanded the edges of
the map as it existed was notgood for them.
So they did something reallysmart.
They expanded the edges of themap, so to speak, by going out
nationally and registering a tonof new voters that nobody had
really counted on before.
Everybody had been so busy,just kind of like dividing up
what was already there and allof a sudden you've got this new
influx of voters that are almostexclusively going to be for
(09:04):
Obama, because the Obamacampaign signed them up and that
allowed them to expand theelectorate just enough for them
to win.
This is kind of like that andit really.
You know, I read theendorsement, I watched it.
I was like wow, it was so welldone.
And she goes.
She talks about why, she talksabout Tim Walls, she talks about
(09:26):
standing up for LGBTQ plusrights, ivf, woman's right to
her own body, all of the thingsyou know say.
She's a steady handed, giftedleader, said all the right
things.
Right, it was a very.
I think part of the problemthat you saw on the right is
they wanted to paint her as likelittle girl.
She's just a little girl.
(09:47):
She doesn't know what she'stalking about Partially because
Taylor Swift came on the sceneas a very young person.
She's not a kid.
It's as well written andintelligent and damn near
perfect as it could ever beRight.
And the fact that she signs itChildless, cat, lady, clear, you
(10:09):
know, hit at what Vance hadsaid and a picture of her and
her cat.
It was perfect.
Now, so that's bad, right,that's like that's.
If you're running a campaign,you're like, oh boy, this is not
good.
You know what you don't need.
You don't need your candidate,who also has a massive social
media following, to go out andtweet or post the following in
(10:34):
all caps I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT.
That might be the four mostdamaging words ever put out on
social media to a politicalcampaign.
Utterly insane.
And it was at that moment, bythe way, that I realized there
are no guardrails with him.
There is not a single person onthe planet that has the ability
(10:57):
to step in and say yo, big man,put the phone down.
We'll go get you some KFC,it'll be all good, put the phone
down.
There's nobody in his orbit.
That's telling him that there'snobody willing to stand up to
him, which, by the way, forthose who think that when you
talk about being an autocrat ora wannabe dictator, you know
there's whole thing of oh well,there'll be people around him
(11:17):
that will let him do that.
Yeah, not this time around.
He learned his lesson last time.
All those people are going tostand up to him.
They're all going to be gone.
It's going to be like the LauraLoomer administration if this
guy gets reelected, so there'snobody around him to.
If you can't stop him fromdoing that, you can't stop him
from doing anything Like.
(11:37):
That's the political equivalentof launching nuclear missiles,
right?
I mean, the damage to yourcampaign is almost as bad as the
actual damage from launchingmissiles.
So he tweets that out and theresponse was just.
It was just kind of crazydisbelief.
Even for Donald Trump, whowe've all allowed ourselves to
(11:58):
just kind of become normalizedto his level of crazy.
Everyone's like whoa, whoa,dude, are you okay?
What are you thinking?
And now the right is attackingher and trying to minimize her
and all the things that youwould do.
Here's the problem that they'renot getting, and I don't think
a lot of people are getting,because what they did, they
(12:21):
didn't just Taylor Swift's fans,or not even people that are
fans, people that like her andrespect her.
Right, you know, you can likeher and respect her, without
even listening to her music verymuch, but the people that were
going to respond to that.
It's one thing for her to comeout of nowhere and be like, hey,
this is who I'm supporting.
It's an entirely differentthing for her to say and she
said it so expertly in herendorsement I'm speaking up
(12:44):
because they came after me withmisinformation and that, right,
there is the difference.
And then it was punctuated bywhat Trump did.
But that first part this wasnot an endorsement as much as a
call to arms saying I need you.
She doesn't come out and say it, which is even smarter, but
(13:04):
basically they're like look, shesays, look, this is what's
happened to me.
I need you to know what I'mthinking.
Do what you want, but this iswhat I'm going to do.
For all of these people thatlove Taylor Swift or respect her
, this is their opportunity todo something for her right, like
it's not a passive thing, likewe have to defend Taylor.
(13:25):
Right, we have to come to herdefense because look at what
these mean people are doing toher.
So that was like the call toarms.
Then, when Trump tweeted out Ihate Taylor Swift, like that was
.
Like that was.
Like that was D-Day, that wasPearl Harbor.
Politically, right now we're not.
We're not just on high alert,we are at war.
Right, and I know everybodygets the Republicans are making
(13:46):
a lot of noise about, you know,strong rhetoric and comparisons.
Yeah, nobody's talking aboutactual physical war, right,
we're talking about politically.
This was war.
You know.
It's like the line from 99 LoveBalloons.
You know, this is what we'vewaited for.
This is it, boys, this is war.
Mount up Right now.
I just pulled from regulators.
I'm really dating myself and mymusical references, but that's
(14:08):
fine.
Mount up right.
Register to vote, get involved,do all the things.
It became an entirely differentthing because now, when it's one
thing to say, oh well, they didthis thing and it wasn't nice,
but it was, you know,misinformation and AI and it's a
little, you know, whatever,it's another thing to be like
Donald Trump says I hate TaylorSwift.
You know for the fact thatsomeone that's running for
president and is a formerpresident to say they hate
(14:30):
anybody while at the same timecomplaining about everybody
being mean to him and doing itto a woman not a good look under
any circumstances, but doing itto somebody with maybe the most
popular woman on planet Earth,at least from an entertainment
point of view, is utter insanity, even for him.
He talks about the economy.
Taylor Swift, when she comes totown for a concert, is an
(14:53):
actual economic driver.
She moves economic indicatorsbecause her concerts generate so
much money of people coming inand spending and doing whatever
Like she.
Actually there's a tangibleimpact when Taylor Swift comes
to town.
So think about that.
If she has the ability tochange a city's economic picture
, why would you think shecouldn't do the same in terms of
(15:15):
an election?
But here's the kicker, and thisis the part that I think a lot
of people are missing.
This is not just the questionof are a bunch of little teeny
boppers going to go out andregister to vote and actually
vote?
That's part of it, sure.
But here's the bigger thing,and this is the part that I
think could really change theequation.
(15:36):
You are going to have youngwomen and men, but you're going
to have young people askingtheir parents at the dinner
table for the first time evermom, dad, who are you voting for
?
And at that point, as a parent,I can relate to this.
At that point they've got adecision to make, because
(15:57):
they're going to say well, youknow, taylor, I saw this thing
with Taylor Swift and blah, blah, blah.
You can either say, yes, I'mvoting for Kamala Harris and Tim
Walz, I was all along and I'myou know, we're all good or they
could lie to their kids whichis a dicey proposition and say,
oh yeah, yeah sure, and thenthey're going to vote for Trump
anyway.
Or they could risk reallychanging the way their kids look
(16:21):
at them, because a lot of thesekids and by I don't mean little
kids, I'm talking aboutteenagers, whether they're a
voting age or not but if this istheir entree into politics and
they feel passionate about itfor whatever reason, if this is
the thing that has them askingquestions or looking at things
and they go to their parents ortheir grandparents in a way that
(16:42):
they've never had before, right, they've never come at them in
a political sense before.
And these might be people whoallowed themselves to find ways
to be complacent and vote forTrump, even though they knew
they probably shouldn't.
They were kind of makingexcuses as to why, to justify it
, rationalize it, which is awhole other discussion we need
to have.
This could tip the scales,because I could tell you, as a
(17:04):
parent, I look across the tableand my kids, who are nine and 10
, if there's something thatmatters to them really matters
to them.
It matters to me too.
It just does.
That's what being a parent is,and if these young people
largely are are responding tohow Taylor Swift was attacked,
(17:25):
that was the key, not that shechose to endorse or support a
candidate.
The way she was attackedviciously for doing so, led by a
former president of the UnitedStates, which is almost an
impossible thing to say out loud, and the parents are not going
to have an explanation for that,it's an inexplicable thing for
Trump to have done.
(17:46):
This could be the thing thattips the scales, because it's
one thing if the quote teenybopper goes out and votes and
expands the electorate, which isuseful.
It's an entirely differentthing if that discussion at the
dinner table causes people thatweren't necessarily going to
vote for Kamala Harris.
If this is the thing that givesthem the reason, because they
(18:09):
want to have the respect oftheir kids, because what matters
to their kids matters to them,that is seismic, absolutely
seismic in an election,especially in an election where
it will be so close and I'mquite certain that there will be
as we get into vote by mail andwe get closer to the election,
there will be more Taylor Swiftappearances.
(18:31):
Right, she's going to come outon election day and say, hey,
don't forget to do this, ordon't forget to vote in the
state she's clearly all in, butdoing it in a very smart,
tactical way, and this could bethe single biggest outlying part
of the equation that nobody sawcoming.
The variable, the wild card,changes everything, and for the
(18:54):
right to dismiss it and continueto attack her, the single
smartest thing that they coulddo right now and it won't happen
, because he's never apologizedto anybody for anything ever
would be for Donald Trump tosend out something apologizing
to Taylor Swift because she is athing about it.
Of all the women that he hastaken on, you know, in his
(19:15):
entire career I mean, the guyhates women of all the women he
has taken on, this Taylor Swiftis the one who perhaps is the
biggest threat to finally takehim down, and he doesn't see it.
And then maybe the hubris andthe blindness that allowed him
to go down that road might bethe very thing that causes his
(19:37):
political demise.
And boy, I can't wait for theTaylor Swift song about how she
got wrong by that guy and whatshe did about it.
Thank you for listening to theKeystone Reckoning Podcast.
We'll be back with another onetomorrow.
Please, if you want to supportwhat we're doing, visit
keystonereckoningcom, make acontribution to our pack and
visit our sponsor,truebluegearcom.
I'm Jesse White.
(19:57):
See you tomorrow.
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