On Wednesday, Time Magazine announced its 2023 Person of the Year: Singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, who is arguably one of the biggest stars in the world at the moment.
In an essay that accompanied the announcement, Time reporter Sam Lansky writes:
Swift’s accomplishments as an artist—culturally, critically, and commercially—are so legion that to recount them seems almost beside the point. As a pop star, she sits in rarefied company, alongside Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, and Madonna; as a songwriter, she has been compared to Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, and Joni Mitchell. As a businesswoman, she has built an empire worth, by some estimates, over $1 billion. And as a celebrity—who by dint of being a woman is scrutinized for everything from whom she dates to what she wears—she has long commanded constant attention and knows how to use it. (“I don’t give Taylor advice about being famous,” Stevie Nicks tells me. “She doesn’t need it.”) But this year, something shifted. To discuss her movements felt like discussing politics or the weather—a language spoken so widely it needed no context. She became the main character of the world.
Swift, it should be noted, is also politically involved, and that doesn’t exactly sit well with many on the political right, mainly because she’s a strong, successful woman who just so happens to believe that more freedom for everyone is a good thing.
So perhaps it should come as no surprise that the Time Person of the Year honor rubbed so many Trump supporters the wrong way
According to online comments made by several Trump acolytes, Swift represents everything that’s wrong with the United States.
Here’s a sampling of those right-wing attacks:
“From her hand-selected vaccine shill boyfriend to her DINK lifestyle to her upcoming 2024 voter operation for Democrats on abortion rights It’s all coming.” Right-wing gadfly and failed podcaster Jack Posobiec
“This is what happens when we cede culture to the Left. Brainless youth raising themselves on Taylor Swift’s saccharine bland music and that washing over into the serious world of politics. If we reach the point where Dwayne The Rock Johnson and Taylor Swift run for office together we will have truly reached full-on Idiocracy where Mike Judge imagined “President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho.” Former Trump Justice Department Official and current criminal defendant Jeffrey Clark
“What’s happening with Taylor Swift is not organic.” Former Trump administration senior adviser Stephen Miller
Wow! A bunch of repressed white guys are afraid of a strong woman. Imagine that!