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Answer: She's urged younger folk to register to vote and they are. The GOP fears this because they know a large amount of younger folks are against their political stances.
And instead of changing their stances to appeal to and actually represent voters interests, they'd rather not have young, informed, educated and people among minorities vote.
Not even that, but republicans don't [want everyone to vote.](https://youtu.be/8GBAsFwPglw?si=OoYxiI5MfZ2h_RKd). They never did and never will. Huge voter turnout is an instant lose for them because it overrides their gerrymandering and disenfranchisement they rely on to win the electoral votes they need since they can't win the popular vote.
Answer: Historically, Republicans don't do well in very high turnout elections. They also don't do well with the demographics of the typical Taylor Swift fan, who are moving more and more away from the GOP.
Recently, Swift encouraged her fans to register to vote, and voter registrations saw a noteable uptick. This is obviously not great news for Republicans.
Right around the same time, news came out that she probably has a thing with Kansas City Chiefs superstar Tight End Travis Kelce, who has recently been appearing in commercials for the updated Covid vaccination. Which further pissed off MAGA Republicans.
So, rather then MAGA/Republicans addressing why they don't do well in high turnout elections or with Swift fan demographics, some are now double downing and are trying to bring hate on Taylor Swift.
The Travis Kelce thing is a big one too IMO, they’ve been tweeting a lot about him as well. So trying to lump them in as liberal icons who need to stopped.
All I think about when I hear/read Chris Christie is [this](https://youtube.com/shorts/74jxPoaZUJk?si=SXnn0MS2hHeVnBYV) 😂 Unrelated and I honestly don’t even know the context, but I think it’s hilarious.
Seems more directed at Swift, because even with the Kelce COVID shot commercials I'm seeing tweets linking it and saying "Is this what dating Swift does to you". I don't see anything about the vote registration comments, but they sure do dislike her music and think she ruins everything she touches...which currently to them is Travis Kelce or ostensibly the NFL I imagine.
NFL fans are often the boyfriends of people who are into TS's music to begin with though
a lot of negativity is just a vocal minority. Most people seem enthusiastic. Taylor's biggest demographic is casual normies - the type of people who watch sports, go to theme parks, etc.
If only the US had compulsory voting like we do in Australia. The parties wouldn’t have to outdo each other in being extreme and trying to appeal to the fringes. It’s not perfect but compulsory voting (and the apathetic centrist bloc it activates) is a good counterweight to stop the edifice of democracy from swaying too far and toppling
a ranked voting system of any kind would bring things closer to center imo.
but republicans won't go for it or compulsory voting because it would be the last time they controlled anything.
And just because it’s compulsory to vote doesn’t mean you actually need to vote, as about 3-5% (depending on the ballot) voted informally at our last election.
The traditional Australian informal vote is to express your artistic skills in phallic imagery.
> voter registrations saw a noteable uptick. This is obviously not great news for Republicans.
How did we get to a point where simply having more people vote is seen as bad for one of the parties?
If you step back and think of the parties as progressive and regressive - making the center vote has *always* been bad for regressives. It's true across the board.
Answer: she has been telling her fans to register to vote, and they have been. Thats legitimately all she did. She didnt say what party or agendas to vote for, just that young people need to register to vote. Republicans are mad at her for it. Kinda makes you wonder doesnt it? Why would they be mad about more young people registering to vote?
When I was a college professor, I always encouraged my students to register to vote and reminded them when elections were coming up. Never told them how to vote, who to vote for, anything of that sort—just reminded them to vote, and that the reason politicians care so much about senior citizens and so little about 20-somethings is because seniors vote and 20-somethings do not. So I just encouraged them to participate and make their voices heard, which I considered part of my duty to look out for their interests and well-being.
And yet, certain people saw that—encouraging college students to vote—to be an inappropriate partisan action, based on their presumption about who young people would vote for.
Current Prof here: I have them choose any issue they most care about and research each major candidate's position. Then a paragraph on how to register in our state and where the nearest polling place is.
Waiting for a parent to complain about my forcing an agenda down their throats...
I know you are joking...but
My daughter is President of queer student union on her small liberal arts college. Like 1200 kids total. Small. 85 kids showed up to her first QSU meeting of the semester. I was excited for her. Kids today are so much free to be who they are. My Aunt is also a lesbian. Her life was hard.
Curious whether the kids were queer or there to show support? There are two gay couples in their 60-70s in our local Catholic Church. One partner in each was married with children. Nobody suggested that they were confused or just doing what their friends did when they pretended to be hetero. I still hear adults saying gay young people are just going through a stage. From what I've seen, most young people don't think that way.
As I understand it, Queer groups at Schools etc. explicitly invite*non-queer Allies to attend in part because it gives closeted/questioning people a cover for attending.
My child had her first crush on a girl in kindergarten. The girls twin brother gave my daughter a pencil and ask my daughter to be his girlfriend...and all she could talk about was his girl twin sister.
I think there are some allies. My daughters freshman roommate and bestie is part of it.
I mean from their perspective they sent their good Christian-Republican child to college and when they came back their opinions were suddenly no longer aligned. Instead of applying any logic to the situation they just assume that they were indoctrinated. In reality it's probably because they've grown as a person, experienced diversity, learned about the rest of the world, made friends with the groups they once hated, etc.
And not just growing as a person. College also taught me that I could speak up for myself. It was never that my politics were conservative like my father’s. It’s just that I didn’t want to argue with him or be subject to some long diatribe about why he was right and I was wrong simply because he said so. Once I was in college, I was an adult and could just give my opinion and walk away from him. I imagine there is a lot of that too. Parents just think their kids are like them because they don’t allow them to be any other way.
I was explaining to my conservative family how I teach my students history but critical thinking and research skills are what I really hope they walk away from the class with. My dumbshit great uncle who has no business near a polling booth (dude in his 60s still mooches off his sister and my grandfather) pipes up, "You teaching them critical race theory?!"
Between that and his mother insisting that liberals are the ones who are trying to take slavery out of history books, I try to avoid that side of the family now.
I am a historical reenactor (talk about hanging out with a crowd that skews toward the regressive.) When people talk about Critical Race Theory, I explain that I have read a lot of primary legal documents and honestly came to the same conclusion myself. Then if they sputter I ask them if they read the same primary sources. “Primary sources” has a powerful effect on a reenactor - if you don’t have primary sources, you are just at the mercy of other scholar’s ideas.
I remember my prof being pretty open about which party he voted for, and really showing his liberal stripes.
I hVe voted liberal all my life (obviously only starting to vote during/after university) and for quite a few years had to hear from certain family members about my “liberal indoctrination.” But now I’m 10 years out of university. I have changed considerably since my student days, I have a different outlook on many aspects of the world. And I’m STILL not a conservative.
Should my prof not have openly displayed his political leanings to a bunch of impressionable young adults? I don’t know, maybe. But I love challenging conservatives on the idea that I’m only liberal BECAUSE I went to university. Nah, the reasons for staying to the left (I don’t even like using the word “liberal” - I see myself as more left than that) are multiple and go way deeper than “because Teacher told me to.” University was 4 years. Conservatives have had the rest of my adult life to win me over, and yet most of the time can barely refrain from even hiding their open contempt.
I know it's an old joke, but if I have trouble getting them to read the syllabus carefully and turn things in on time, why does anyone think I can magically shape their partisan affiliations simply by saying what I think and telling them I want to know what they think?
Which I always find funny because universities are generally (small c) conservative institutions that are, at most, centre left. The only folks who believe otherwise have never tried to get a new curriculum approved by an internal review board.
They clearly didn’t do a good job of indoctrination if a year of undergrad education gets them to question years of indoctrination.
Either that or the indoctrination is so blatantly false and ridiculous that the slightest push back would reveal the lies.
Most college students are getting through college either in their parents money or student loans. Even when the parents aren't paying, they're still a major social safety net. Unless the students want to cut all contact with their parents, they're going to keep interesting with them and will have to deal with any differences of opinion.
Yeah, it’s not an accident [that three-quarters of people with post-graduate education lean left](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2016/04/26/a-wider-ideological-gap-between-more-and-less-educated-adults/). Self-selection plays a role of course, but IME the rest of the gap is not indoctrination, just education. When you study the world, from the perspective of practically any field, it’s really hard to ignore all the evidence of systemic injustice and of ways that social programs improve the well-being of all people.
I don't think the students rat me out, but they'll talk about classes and mine happens to deal with diversity in the Criminal Justice area. Topics like cisgender, female genital mutilation, transexual, TERF, sodomy, and late-term abortion are part of the discussion. My fifth grader wanted to sit in on a class and I couldn't find a single lecture that was totally appropriate.
A trans woman guest lectures for me, and this is the first time many of us have talked to a trans person. She's super cool, and easy to like, which isn't the expectation of many of my students. Sometimes life experiences lead them to become more tolerant than their parents. Hope that makes sense!
True. Gun rights are big around here, and some students are surprised by how reasonable the Democratic candidate's position is on the issue. They really expected a gun round-up platform.
I'm a HS teacher and one year we had a program through our district to encourage all students turning 18 to register to vote. An acquaintance of mine went off on me about how the "agenda" because most of my students would be "voting liberal" (I work in a Title I school but he doesn't know that- just assumed because of what my students look like) and then even had the audacity to question if my students were even legal. I'm like- shouldn't you be proud to know that the next generation of students wants to participate in government? It's wild.
There are certain people who don't like democracy as much as they like controlling others. These people generally are anti-social and/or narcissistic to some degree.
There are other types of people who see politics as a sports game and they only want their team to "win," even though that "win" would personally harm them. These people generally lack self esteem.
Finally there are people who are so ignorant and unintelligent that they are easily swayed by messages that invoke emotions such as fear, anger, and disgust. These people truly believe they're doing the right thing.
In my high school all seniors had to pass a US Government class to graduate. The teacher would only pass you if you brought in your voter registration or proof that you "pre-registered" (in my state you can pre-register at 17 if you will be 18 by the next general election). Everyone thought it was a great idea, parents had no problems. I'm from a conservative area, but this was also a long time ago before conservatives went off the deep end and politicized everything.
Current college professor, do the same thing. I even give them bonus points for it. Fortunately, I haven't had any complaints so far, but it probably won't be long.
Thank you for doing this! I had a professor offer a few extra credit points to anyone currently registered or newly registered to vote one year. They did not push any agenda or political party preference. Parents STILL complained! Unreal.
My Chemistry teacher told us if we brought our I voted sticker to the next test, he would give us 5% extra credit. He was a grumpy 70 year old who hated people who didn't vote.
>Why would they be mad about more young people registering to vote?
I recently read a [news article](https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4221525-trump-says-automatic-voter-registration-in-pennsylvania-will-harm-him/) about Trump saying the quiet part out loud. He outright said that a switch to automatic voter registration in Pennsylvania would be "a disaster for the Election of Republicans."
I'll go ahead and paste some examples I had saved from 2020:
> levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you'd never have a Republican elected in this country again.
\- [Donald Trump on 3/20/20](https://twitter.com/LisPower1/status/1244606910462136321) - this was the first example I ever saw of "saying the quiet part out loud"
Here are some from other Republicans (I'm sure there are more but back in the leadup to the election I was tracking this stuff more closely):
> If we don't do something about voting by mail, we are going to lose the ability to elect a Republican in this country.
\- [Lindsey Graham on 11/10/20](https://www.businessinsider.com/us-republican-president-mail-in-voting-lindsey-graham-warns-2020-11)
> If Republicans don't challenge and change the US election system, there will never be another Republican president elected again.
\- [Lindsey Graham on 11/8/20](https://thehill.com/homenews/525063-lindsey-graham-if-trump-concedes-election-republicans-will-never-elect-another/)
> I’m very, very concerned that if you solicit votes from typically non-voters, that you will affect and change the outcome. So I’m very worried that the Democrats will control all three branches of government.
\- [Rand Paul on 12/17/20](https://www.motherjones.com/2020-elections/2020/12/rand-paul-is-very-very-concerned-with-eligible-voters-voting/)
Feel free to share and add to it!
I wish I had a good answer. I think the people who most need to hear about this either would support it, or are too far gone into MAGA fantasyland where our words can't really reach them.
They are!
We've been beating this drum for decades. The Republican strategy for elections is *not* to appeal to new voters; it's to disenfranchise the people likely to vote against them.
Voter suppression has been their #1 strategy since 2004.
All of this has literally been my “conspiracy idea” since I started teaching and by my second year schools got rid of standardized testing for history in most grades. Two different states and both slowly stopped caring about the subject in favor of pushing math and English. I’ve been told not to teach standards that are controversial. I’ve been told history is just memorization. I’ve been told it’s just not important.
Why? To create good little worker bees that don’t know their rights or care about civic duty outside of making money for the rich.
Trump is on the record a few years ago as saying something to the effect of, "if they get mail-in voting, no Republican will ever win office again!!1!".
Which is absolutely insane to me. I grew up in a very rural conservative area. There were a ton of seniors who couldn’t make it to polling places there.
Mail-in voting could be a boon to republicans. Thank god I made it out of that backwards place.
Yup, self fulfilling prophecy where they tried to discredit it for short term gains, and didn't realize how much it would blow up in their faces in the long term.
It would be an even bigger boon to residents of Houston, who have exactly one polling place because vile christian republicans closed all the other ones down to suppress voting.
For anyone who lives in a state with restrictions on mail in ballots, I recommend you look into the Church of Universal Suffrage.
All the holy days are voting days, so you can request a mail in ballot for religious reasons.
To add, they've been all up in arms about a video of Taylor arguing with her Dad about making a statement to support a Dem in the Tennessee election a few years ago. It started making the rounds again.
Basically in the clip she says that she was sick of this female Republican who's name I can't recall at the moment being against anti-stalking laws and anti-LGBTQ and so on while claiming it was because she was a good Christian, which Taylor contests isn't being a good Christian. Her father is upset because he's afraid people will attempt to physically attack her because of her coming out. Keep in mind she got her start in Country, so I would assume the right would be pissed as she "betrayed" them.
> Basically in the clip she says that she was sick of this female Republican who's name I can't recall at the moment
Marsha Blackburn, a hard right Republican who swept in after a less radical (but still ultimately pretty conservative) Republican retired. Also Philbert Bredesen, very moderate Democratic former governor of the state, was the guy who Swift endorsed (and it is kind of a sign of the times that Bredesen lost by over 10 points in that race, when 12 years earlier he'd won nearly 70% of the vote)
Dead on, (presumably) fellow Tennesseean. Piggybacking on your comment to remind everyone that one of our Tennessee Three, Gloria Johnson, is [gunning for Blackburn’s job in 2024.](https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/21/tennessee-three-marsha-blackburn-senate-challenge-00107646)
It was in the documentary Miss Americana on Netflix. There's a who segment of her team trying to get her to shut up and look pretty when it comes to politics that is so infuriating.
As a side note: for a number of years, [white supremacists worshipped Taylor Swift](https://www.vice.com/en/article/ae5x8a/cant-shake-it-off-how-taylor-swift-became-a-nazi-idol), [believing her to be the Aryan ideal](https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/05/27/479462825/taylor-swift-aryan-goddess)\--tall, beautiful, blonde, confident, talented--and so, secretly sympathetic to them. But (they argued) she couldn't go public with her white supremacist/neo-Nazi views because (((they))) would destroy her. It seems like she was totally unaware of all of this at that time--I mean, there's so much said and written about her, it's not like she can keep track. However: eventually it was brought to her attention and [she decided to go public with her disgust and hatred of white supremacists and her denial of their views, and to such an extent that it was clear she leaned left-wing](https://www.thecut.com/2019/09/taylor-swift-says-rolling-stone-she-didnt-know-she-was-an-alt-right-icon.html). This revelation made these guys even more furious because it was like a betrayal. Their goddess had been co-opted by (((them)))!! So it's not a surprise that now that same crowd has decided to attack her. But in a larger sense, it's all part of attacking and tearing down and degrading things that are liked and admired by women and girls, in an effort to emphasize the superiority of masculinity and strength and power over femininity and friendship and playfulness. Earlier this summer, Barbie was public enemy #1 to the crowd now attacking Taylor Swift.
The crazy part was Kap had actually had a conversation with a veteran before he kneeled and asked him what would be the most appropriate way to protest after he had initially remained seated on the bench. The vet was the one who suggested kneeling as a more respectful way to protest. Obviously this one guy doesnt speak for all veterans, but still.
[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-police-knee-idUSKBN23G2E2](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-police-knee-idUSKBN23G2E2)
> My dad is a right wing fundie Christian and he and a bunch of elders at his racist Southern Baptist Church decided to boycott football because some of the Chiefs players were asking
This vet agrees 100% with the freedom that Kaepernick demonstrated when kneeling. It's astounding that the supposed party of freedom and the Constitution picks and chooses what parts of each they like. Hmmm, I guess they're just like most religious people and the selective use of their own dogma.
What's so wild to me about all that is that Kaepernick actually consulted with a combat veteran about the most respectful way for him to go about that. If I recall, he was originally just going to sit, but they decided together that taking a knee would be more respectful.
None of that nuance matters to the MAGA cultists though. Their reaction is so visceral to something so tame.
He did sit on the bench during the anthem initially. A combat veteran wrote him and said he didn't agree with that form of protest but that if he was going to do it, kneeling would be more respectful. Kaep took his feedback and started kneeling after that.
Probably also don’t like she had broken up with her long term boyfriend while being in her past 30s. Especially with all the young girls who follow and look up to her.
An entire political ideology driven by spite at the people who want them to have higher pay and healthcare, because it comes at the "cost" of LGBTQ people and non-white people existing.
I hope Gen Z realises how much actual power they have, to make their future and the next few generations much better off, if they vote.
There's a reason Conservatives have been arguing to take the right to vote from their age group. They know they are the minority, and are on the cusp of being made even smaller.
It's why they vote *every* time. It's why they attempted a coup.
W GenZ, please. From a tired elder millennial <3 if not for us then for Taylor (wife bought us tickets to the Eras screening today, yay)
Edit: totally right - millennials also have a tonne of power and we should do our part alongside Gen Z.
18-24 demographic has always had the lowest turnouts in elections. If you can get young people to do the simplest and one of the most important civic duties and vote one day every couple of years, we could see real change. Republicans wouldn't have a chance and they know it. Voter suppression is the only way they can get elected anywhere that isn't a right wing cesspool.
Obama's first run got the 18-24 out to vote for Pres, unfortunately they were absent for the mid terms. Someone needs to get them a refresher course on Congress and it's importance.
Mom of a Zoomer, he's 16.
"Vote in all elections" is a house rule for myself, my husband, and in two years, my son. This year, I'm going to have him go through Colorado's mail in ballot, do his research, and talk over the ballot questions with me. Same thing next year. And as soon as he turns 18, he's going to the DMV to register to vote and get his new ID.
I'm in Colorado too. What's nice is getting the mailer booklet that details every measure or proposal clearly. It would also be good for him to learn what TABOR is and what it means. Also how to start a petition to have measures added to a ballot to go to vote.
Young millennial here (28). Let's not pretend we're powerless. We are the biggest generation *ever*, bigger than the Boomers. Mostly progressive, too, similar politics to our gen z sibs. Our voting power *should be* turning tables, but it isn't because we still don't goddamn vote in anything remotely resembling high enough numbers.
Shunting responsibility to gen z is something I see us doing a lot and it isn't cool or fair. We have a responsibility to keep fighting, too. A lot of us bought into this idea that if you aren't settled in a powerful job with a house by 35 your life is over. Well, it isn't. We had the spirit beat out of us by all the bullshit we've been through as a generation but we are still standing. Vote, pls.
i always wondered why millennials are more apathetic when it comes to politics/voting compared to Gen Z.
i wonder if some of it has to do with bleed over from Gen X who were way too small in numbers to combat conservative boomers. progressive Xers probably became understandably defeatist and maybe that rubbed off on some millennials? or maybe just has do with Gen Z being way overexposed to injustices due to social media so they might have more heightened urgency.
whatever it is i hope more millennials will start to gain more passion for this stuff. Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z combined far outnumber boomer voters. and not all boomers vote conservatively as is. there are so many progressive voters out there than can hopefully bring some much needed change 🤞
No you're literally 100% on it. Shows by Xers like South Park especially spread this whole political nihilist "both sides"-ism and it had a formative experience on a lot of people my age and slightly older.
i'm a millennial and i always remember this "voting doesn't matter" "voting doesn't accomplish anything" attitude my entire life. but when i stopped to think about it i realized it didn't make sense for millennials to feel that way when we outnumber boomers. so i started to wonder if that started with Gen X. except it made sense for them since there were too few of them.
but now i'm wondering if this attitude had always been there and didn't start with Gen X? but progressive boomers got certain civil/women's rights laws passed so at least by that point there was an attitude that protesting and voting could maybe accomplish something. but i'm gonna need some older folks to chime in on this one. because i'm wondering if the apathetic-american-voter is more of a new thing or always been here.
I'm a young GenXer. I was raised with my mom telling me all the political stuff she did growing up and how things got better.
I always voted, and I always voted left of center. Nobody I voted for EVER won until I think Obama. And that didn't stick either... it's hard to feel like voting matters when you've done it your whole life and everything you vote against keeps winning.
I still vote, though.
That website is absolutely shitty. They wrote an article blasting Priyanka Chopra....her crime was being a brown person that decided to marry a white person. Racism against Indians is considered acceptable.....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2018/12/05/cut-deleted-bizarre-article-that-called-priyanka-chopra-global-scam-artist/
As someone who used to lurk /pol/ on 4chan to keep the pulse of the loonies, this is very very true. She was a great white goddess to them. It was gross, like everything on that site. I haven't looked at it in a few years and hope I never look at it again.
>in an effort to emphasize the superiority of ~~masculinity and strength and power~~ their anti-social bullshit ideals over ~~femininity and friendship and playfulness~~ basic social competencies.
I'm not attacking or disagreeing with you here, I think you're right about the motivations overall.
I just don't want people to get sucked into the trap of arguing from a standpoint of accepting that masculinity/strength/power are all conflated, and at odds with those other things.
Strong social bonds *are* power. There is strength in unity.
Friendship and playfulness are not inherently masculine or feminine.
It take strength to be open enough to let people inside your emotional walls, it's only cowards who try to keep everyone out. It's only the weakest people who refuse to acknowledge the full array of their emotions.
These misogynistic racists are weak, they are cowards, they are people who are in *constant* fear.
This is something that should always, *always* be in the conversation. They do not, and should not get to define what masculinity is, or what femininity is. These are deeply troubled people, don't ever let them control the narrative.
For those who don't know (((this))) means Jew in 201x internet Nazi. When talking about their Jews rule the world conspiracies, they would surround the names of Jews and those they suspected of being Jews like it was a target. When it became widely known around 2016, a lot of progressive people, Jewish and gentile alike, started using it on their social media profiles to take the power away from the conspiracy theorists.
Extra funny because she doesn't have any legal restrictions on advocating for specifics but she isn't doing that. Meanwhile all their maga churches should be losing tax exempt status for supporting Trump and Republicans. If they say a specific party or candidate, they are not allowed to stay tax exempt.
A similar thing happened with the Christian rapper Lecrae. Back in the pre-Trump days, he was loved by evangelicals because he was rapping about the Bible and theology.
Then in 2020, he performed at a "Get Out the Early Vote Rally & Concert" in Atlanta GA for the Senate runoff election. Because the event was hosted by Democrat candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, this was seen as a betrayal by many of those same evangelicals.
Charlie Kirk, for example, responded to this with:
> [That's the guy who we’re listening to on K-LOVE, who we're supposed to look up to, who, in my personal opinion, should never be allowed to perform at another church after advocating for Raphael Warnock.](https://www.christianpost.com/news/charlie-kirk-lecrae-shouldnt-be-allowed-to-perform-in-churches.html)
(keep in mind Warnock is a Christian pastor)
Don't forget that for years Republicans swore up and down that Swift was secretly a conservative as she was wealthy, was part of the country scene, and was extremely tight lipped about politics (a thing conservatives in Hollywood claim to do to protect their careers).
So it was a rude awekening when she came out as a liberal and extremely against Trump, which was a huge part of her documentary *Miss America* was her flighting her parents who were against her opening denouncing Trump because they feared the backlash, and her finally doing it to the annoyance of conservatives.
They also know that party identification is very durable. If you mobilize a voting bloc to vote for one party at a young age, it's difficult for the opposing party to get them to jump ship when they get older.
Maybe if more young people were billionaires and invited them on fishing trips and to speak at political conferences, the GOP would care more about appealing to them! /s
Same. For many years I basically voted exclusively GOP. The first time I didn't vote GOP was for McCain in 2008 - which HURT because I fucking LOVED John McCain back then. But Sarah Palin was on my shitlist for quite a while because as Governor of Alaska she (to the best of my recollection - this is a LONG ago memory) refused to offer rape kits to women because it included PlanB as an emergency contraceptive, which I thought was just goddamn ridiculous - how can you be against abortion and not try to prevent one of the most obvious situations where one would want to seek one?!
(I mean, history has answered this question, but back then it really pissed me off)
Subsequent national elections just widened those cracks. The rise of the Tea Party and the run-to-the-right (well, more to the right) was a pretty big turn-off to me. I finally voted DEM in a national election for the first time in 2016, but I told myself that I would continue to look at each candidate individually, regardless of party, and vote for the one that seemed the most reasonable. Then Q-Anon got big, and Roe got overturned and turned me into a blue, straight-ticket voter.
Younger people skew democrat, and also, overall, the population skews liberal. Suppressing voter turnout has been a key Republican strategy since at least Nixon's era.
If the population skews liberal, then why does reducing turnout cause more votes for the GOP? One of the more straightforward reasons is that poor people in urban areas are often more liberal. But they're poor. They have a hard time even making ends meet, much less getting to the voting booth.
Speaking of reminders....
Texans! Last Day to Register to Vote for Local Elections and important State Propositions : Tuesday, October 10, 2023
Remind all your friends, coworkers, and college peers who haven't registered to get it done!!!
[https://www.votetexas.gov/register-to-vote/update-voter-registration.html](https://www.votetexas.gov/register-to-vote/update-voter-registration.html)
First Day of Early Voting by Personal Appearance Monday, October 23, 2023 (17th day before election day falls on a Saturday, first day moves to next business day)
Source: [https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/voter/important-election-dates.shtml](https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/voter/important-election-dates.shtml)
I know you have to be unbiased but I don't, so I'll just come out and say it:
Republican'ts know that they lose when an informed, educated populace votes. It's why they are pro-poverty and anti-education.
Right. Taylor Swift fans are *overwhelmingly* young suburban-ish white women, a demographic the GOP did around 50-50 with until Trump and have been straight up hemorrhaging since the Roe reversal.
Like, lost an election for an anti-abortion measure in *Kansas* by 18 points hemorrhaging.
Also, just generally, suburban white women are one of those demographics that win elections. When they go democrat, the democrats win. When they go republican (or stay home), republicans win.
And rather then try to give people a reason to like their party (like passing legislation that helps people) they’d rather just spend their time making it harder for people to vote
[2020 interview where she starts to attack maga republicans](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhjSEkkZ2aA)
and asks her dad to forgive her but she cant keep quiet.
and [this "First of all, these aren't your dad's celebrities, and these aren't your dad's Republicans" said Taylor Swift, when asked during a recent interview why she has decided to speak out against the GOP.](https://twitter.com/theliamnissan/status/1653480629302902803)
She wanted to stay out of politics, but couldnt stand it with trump and maga republicans.
Straying off topic here... If Republicans can't even be Swift fans, why are there so many of them? Seriously. Isn't it just really frustrating? Most entertainment media nowadays shits on them constantly. Even if they do manage to do enough mental gymnastics to find logic in their principles, aren't they just tired of being the bad guys?
Answer: Taylor Swift encouraged her fans to register to vote. The GOP does not like people voting, especially young people (they've actually proposed raising the voting age to 25, because young people aren't voting for them).
In short, Taylor Swift supports democracy, voting rights, and America, and the GQP hates her, because the GQP hates all those things. And also because she's a woman and the GQP hates women.
Democracy is clearly democrat propaganda, its in the name!!
We should replace with something with more of a Republican tone, like, I don't know.. Repression sound good
They've been using that line for at least a decade or two, most often when they try to cram through some authoritarian BS and people complain and threaten to vote them out.
The post’s title had me laughing, at first I thought it was going to be about how they’ve sneaking her in and out of her concerts in totally no suspicious containers surrounded by security guards. This is way better.
Probably their long-term play is to go back to the Founding Fathers and advocate for restricting the vote to white male property holders.
I’m only half joking.
answer: She told people to go out, register to vote, then vote. That's it. No political leanings.
The GOP are pissed cause most younger voters are left leaning, so in their eyes, they feel she basically told them to vote for Democrats.
The larger the turnout, the better Democratic candidates tend to do, hence Republicans want to suppress vote totals. Winning the election is far more important to them than defending democracy.
Republicans are only for democracy when it's them that you're voting for. They are certainly very against having power belong to the people.
Those spineless morons in politics also only ever see having power as the ultimate goal, instead of it being more of a tool or conduit used to achieve actual things. That's why they cling on to it like crusty barnacles to a rock and why they are wholly devoid of any actual principles.
Answer: Back in 2018, she came out against Tennessee republican candidate Marsha Blackburn. And stated she would be voting for one of the democratic candidates instead.
It was her first time ever speaking about her political preference. She believes in and heavily supports human rights. For example, at the end of her "You Need To Calm Down" video, there was a petition to sign for The Equality Act.
So when she posted recently about registering to vote. The GOP lost their minds over it. The GOP is terrified of the younger Millennials and GenZ. Especially after the midterms didn't go their way. And they knew it was because Millennials and GenZ showed up and voted en masse. That's another reason why the GOP wants to raise the voting age to 21. There are millions about to turn 18 that will be able to vote.
As a GenX'r mom to two Millennials and one GenZ. I'm in awe and fully support how both generations are so intelligent and really vote for what counts and matters for their future. It's an amazing thing to watch.
>As a GenX'r mom to two Millennials and one GenZ. I'm in awe and fully support how both generations are so intelligent and really vote for what counts and matters for their future. It's an amazing thing to watch.
As a GenX'r mom to one GenZ'er, I agree that he and his friends are delightful.
As a Tennessean, I share Tay's complete and utter disdain for Marsha Blackburn. I really, really, hope that Gloria Johnson's higher profile in the wake of the Tennessee Three GOP debacle gives her a boost.
Answer: Taylor Swift knows full well at how influential she is. She told people to got out and vote. The GOP fears modern young people will vote Democrat and will hate anything that gets in their way. They feared to lose in the next election.
answer: Taylor Swift made a (nonpartisan) appeal to her fans to register to vote. Republicans despise Democracy with every fiber of their being, so are now attacking her.
Answer: I think it’s been brewing but came to a culmination with her new man friend being spokesman for Bud Light and Covid vaccines. She has already been outspoken about her disdain for the right nationally and in Tennessee with Marsha Blackburn. And many of the registered will likely vote blue for the Cherry on top.
Answer: She told people to register to vote. Those people happen to be young people. Young people overwhelmingly vote Democrat. GOP is big mad because people who won't vote for them are now registered to vote.
Answer: Taylor Swift started as a country singer, and we all “know” that means she’s supposed to be a conservative.
She’s also a blonde-(ish), white, feminine woman, and we all “know” that means she should belong to the right wing.
They feel a sense of ownership over her, and she is not only rejecting them but actively speaking in ways that hurt them.
Also throw in: she’s a pretty woman, and she writes and sings songs that girls like, and songs that are about breakups, so she’s a trivial person, in their eyes. And now she has the gall to speak about substantive matters like endorsing Democrats and encouraging people to vote. That offends them as well.
I would say she didn't endorse Democrats, she just said go vote. But yeah to the GOP that means oh \*\*\*\*
ok
[https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/16tqpat/comment/k2imo1f/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/16tqpat/comment/k2imo1f/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
she literally endorsed the Democratic candidate for governor in Tennessee and she endorsed Biden. I looked it up before I posted. You know, so I could be accurate.
From 2018: https://www.npr.org/2018/10/08/655599374/taylor-swift-endorses-democratic-candidates-in-tennessee
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/taylor-swift-endorses-joe-biden-president-n1242483
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Answer: She's urged younger folk to register to vote and they are. The GOP fears this because they know a large amount of younger folks are against their political stances.
And instead of changing their stances to appeal to and actually represent voters interests, they'd rather not have young, informed, educated and people among minorities vote.
They adopted a form of tribal authoritarianism lately. "With us or against us"
Not even that, but republicans don't [want everyone to vote.](https://youtu.be/8GBAsFwPglw?si=OoYxiI5MfZ2h_RKd). They never did and never will. Huge voter turnout is an instant lose for them because it overrides their gerrymandering and disenfranchisement they rely on to win the electoral votes they need since they can't win the popular vote.
Answer: Historically, Republicans don't do well in very high turnout elections. They also don't do well with the demographics of the typical Taylor Swift fan, who are moving more and more away from the GOP. Recently, Swift encouraged her fans to register to vote, and voter registrations saw a noteable uptick. This is obviously not great news for Republicans. Right around the same time, news came out that she probably has a thing with Kansas City Chiefs superstar Tight End Travis Kelce, who has recently been appearing in commercials for the updated Covid vaccination. Which further pissed off MAGA Republicans. So, rather then MAGA/Republicans addressing why they don't do well in high turnout elections or with Swift fan demographics, some are now double downing and are trying to bring hate on Taylor Swift.
The Travis Kelce thing is a big one too IMO, they’ve been tweeting a lot about him as well. So trying to lump them in as liberal icons who need to stopped.
Stopped from… getting people to participate in our democratic processes. They really do hate democracy, don’t they?
"A very large portion of my party really doesn't believe in the Constitution” -MittRomney
When Romney is the voice of reason for the GOP, you know it’s bad.
Mr binders full of women is the most reasonable person in the party right now, lol
Romney and Chris Christie has been the voice of reason for the GOP for the past decade now and thats just sad
All I think about when I hear/read Chris Christie is [this](https://youtube.com/shorts/74jxPoaZUJk?si=SXnn0MS2hHeVnBYV) 😂 Unrelated and I honestly don’t even know the context, but I think it’s hilarious.
A republican when faced with losing an election will reject democracy, if they can retain power.
In other words, republicans cheat.
From Wisconsin, can confirm
Texan here. Also confirm
North Carolina here. More confirmation.
Seems more directed at Swift, because even with the Kelce COVID shot commercials I'm seeing tweets linking it and saying "Is this what dating Swift does to you". I don't see anything about the vote registration comments, but they sure do dislike her music and think she ruins everything she touches...which currently to them is Travis Kelce or ostensibly the NFL I imagine.
NFL fans are often the boyfriends of people who are into TS's music to begin with though a lot of negativity is just a vocal minority. Most people seem enthusiastic. Taylor's biggest demographic is casual normies - the type of people who watch sports, go to theme parks, etc.
trying to prop up Trump as some alpha male while Travis Kelce is some beta dude lmao, couldn't be farther from the truth. Exact opposite too.
If only the US had compulsory voting like we do in Australia. The parties wouldn’t have to outdo each other in being extreme and trying to appeal to the fringes. It’s not perfect but compulsory voting (and the apathetic centrist bloc it activates) is a good counterweight to stop the edifice of democracy from swaying too far and toppling
I agree. Also, a Preferential voting system instead of a First Past The Post one might help, too.
a ranked voting system of any kind would bring things closer to center imo. but republicans won't go for it or compulsory voting because it would be the last time they controlled anything.
And just because it’s compulsory to vote doesn’t mean you actually need to vote, as about 3-5% (depending on the ballot) voted informally at our last election. The traditional Australian informal vote is to express your artistic skills in phallic imagery.
Given the state of American politics, "hand-drawn penis" would have a decent shot on most ballots.
I’d vote for the hand drawn penis
They are such fucking cry babies
Do you want MAGA/Republicans to address why they're not doing well in elections?
Actually, yes. Some self-reflection and personal growth would be lovely to see. Never gonna happen, but it would be nice.
Heard a saying once: “there’s nothing more dangerous than someone who is more judgmental than they are introspective”
> voter registrations saw a noteable uptick. This is obviously not great news for Republicans. How did we get to a point where simply having more people vote is seen as bad for one of the parties?
If you step back and think of the parties as progressive and regressive - making the center vote has *always* been bad for regressives. It's true across the board.
There is a quote that when conservatives fail to draw votes, they won’t change their conservatism, they’ll change democracy.
Typical fascist reaction.
Answer: she has been telling her fans to register to vote, and they have been. Thats legitimately all she did. She didnt say what party or agendas to vote for, just that young people need to register to vote. Republicans are mad at her for it. Kinda makes you wonder doesnt it? Why would they be mad about more young people registering to vote?
When I was a college professor, I always encouraged my students to register to vote and reminded them when elections were coming up. Never told them how to vote, who to vote for, anything of that sort—just reminded them to vote, and that the reason politicians care so much about senior citizens and so little about 20-somethings is because seniors vote and 20-somethings do not. So I just encouraged them to participate and make their voices heard, which I considered part of my duty to look out for their interests and well-being. And yet, certain people saw that—encouraging college students to vote—to be an inappropriate partisan action, based on their presumption about who young people would vote for.
Current Prof here: I have them choose any issue they most care about and research each major candidate's position. Then a paragraph on how to register in our state and where the nearest polling place is. Waiting for a parent to complain about my forcing an agenda down their throats...
I assume this is what they mean when they complain about liberal indoctrination in higher education.
Jokes on them. I get a bonus for every student I turn gay!
grey crown quiet fuel hat modern snatch teeny axiomatic thumb *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
The water already took care of those
Best I can do is turn them into gay toads.
Frog and Toad Are Gay
Mine turned me into a newt!
I got better....
But you got better , right ?
Any bonuses for mudskippers?
Brilliant response! *chef’s kiss*
I know you are joking...but My daughter is President of queer student union on her small liberal arts college. Like 1200 kids total. Small. 85 kids showed up to her first QSU meeting of the semester. I was excited for her. Kids today are so much free to be who they are. My Aunt is also a lesbian. Her life was hard.
Curious whether the kids were queer or there to show support? There are two gay couples in their 60-70s in our local Catholic Church. One partner in each was married with children. Nobody suggested that they were confused or just doing what their friends did when they pretended to be hetero. I still hear adults saying gay young people are just going through a stage. From what I've seen, most young people don't think that way.
As I understand it, Queer groups at Schools etc. explicitly invite*non-queer Allies to attend in part because it gives closeted/questioning people a cover for attending.
My child had her first crush on a girl in kindergarten. The girls twin brother gave my daughter a pencil and ask my daughter to be his girlfriend...and all she could talk about was his girl twin sister. I think there are some allies. My daughters freshman roommate and bestie is part of it.
Do you get more if you also make them trans?
Double bonus time!
It happened to me at a Barbiheimer double header.
I just put a book in my classroom library and poof!
I knew it!
Yes liberal indoctrination = teaching young people critical thinking
I mean from their perspective they sent their good Christian-Republican child to college and when they came back their opinions were suddenly no longer aligned. Instead of applying any logic to the situation they just assume that they were indoctrinated. In reality it's probably because they've grown as a person, experienced diversity, learned about the rest of the world, made friends with the groups they once hated, etc.
Precisely
And not just growing as a person. College also taught me that I could speak up for myself. It was never that my politics were conservative like my father’s. It’s just that I didn’t want to argue with him or be subject to some long diatribe about why he was right and I was wrong simply because he said so. Once I was in college, I was an adult and could just give my opinion and walk away from him. I imagine there is a lot of that too. Parents just think their kids are like them because they don’t allow them to be any other way.
I was explaining to my conservative family how I teach my students history but critical thinking and research skills are what I really hope they walk away from the class with. My dumbshit great uncle who has no business near a polling booth (dude in his 60s still mooches off his sister and my grandfather) pipes up, "You teaching them critical race theory?!" Between that and his mother insisting that liberals are the ones who are trying to take slavery out of history books, I try to avoid that side of the family now.
Was your response “no because I’m not a law professor teaching grad students”?
I am a historical reenactor (talk about hanging out with a crowd that skews toward the regressive.) When people talk about Critical Race Theory, I explain that I have read a lot of primary legal documents and honestly came to the same conclusion myself. Then if they sputter I ask them if they read the same primary sources. “Primary sources” has a powerful effect on a reenactor - if you don’t have primary sources, you are just at the mercy of other scholar’s ideas.
Well yeah, of course, from the perspective of a party that consistently gets people to vote against their own best interests.
I remember my prof being pretty open about which party he voted for, and really showing his liberal stripes. I hVe voted liberal all my life (obviously only starting to vote during/after university) and for quite a few years had to hear from certain family members about my “liberal indoctrination.” But now I’m 10 years out of university. I have changed considerably since my student days, I have a different outlook on many aspects of the world. And I’m STILL not a conservative. Should my prof not have openly displayed his political leanings to a bunch of impressionable young adults? I don’t know, maybe. But I love challenging conservatives on the idea that I’m only liberal BECAUSE I went to university. Nah, the reasons for staying to the left (I don’t even like using the word “liberal” - I see myself as more left than that) are multiple and go way deeper than “because Teacher told me to.” University was 4 years. Conservatives have had the rest of my adult life to win me over, and yet most of the time can barely refrain from even hiding their open contempt.
I know it's an old joke, but if I have trouble getting them to read the syllabus carefully and turn things in on time, why does anyone think I can magically shape their partisan affiliations simply by saying what I think and telling them I want to know what they think?
Which I always find funny because universities are generally (small c) conservative institutions that are, at most, centre left. The only folks who believe otherwise have never tried to get a new curriculum approved by an internal review board.
The indoctrination is when they learn critical thinking skills and see beyond just themselves
When they finally meet people that look different to them as well. Happens to so many smaller city kids like myself.
How dare you undo the years of indoctrination that I put my child through.
They clearly didn’t do a good job of indoctrination if a year of undergrad education gets them to question years of indoctrination. Either that or the indoctrination is so blatantly false and ridiculous that the slightest push back would reveal the lies.
Who cares about he fucking parents. They’re adults and can make their own minds. Parents who feel they own their kids are weird af
Most college students are getting through college either in their parents money or student loans. Even when the parents aren't paying, they're still a major social safety net. Unless the students want to cut all contact with their parents, they're going to keep interesting with them and will have to deal with any differences of opinion.
Reality has a liberal bias.
Yeah, it’s not an accident [that three-quarters of people with post-graduate education lean left](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2016/04/26/a-wider-ideological-gap-between-more-and-less-educated-adults/). Self-selection plays a role of course, but IME the rest of the gap is not indoctrination, just education. When you study the world, from the perspective of practically any field, it’s really hard to ignore all the evidence of systemic injustice and of ways that social programs improve the well-being of all people.
Heeey. You beetlejuiced.
you still get parent complaints as a prof? christ
I don't think the students rat me out, but they'll talk about classes and mine happens to deal with diversity in the Criminal Justice area. Topics like cisgender, female genital mutilation, transexual, TERF, sodomy, and late-term abortion are part of the discussion. My fifth grader wanted to sit in on a class and I couldn't find a single lecture that was totally appropriate. A trans woman guest lectures for me, and this is the first time many of us have talked to a trans person. She's super cool, and easy to like, which isn't the expectation of many of my students. Sometimes life experiences lead them to become more tolerant than their parents. Hope that makes sense!
Hence why Florida wants to make critical thinking illegal
True. Gun rights are big around here, and some students are surprised by how reasonable the Democratic candidate's position is on the issue. They really expected a gun round-up platform.
Pick-a-topic assignments like that used to have a no marijuana rule. Is it not a common choice now?
I don't limit them, but marijuana hasn't been a top issue. Maybe it's because they drink so much beer! Guns, abortion and now gay rights top the list.
I'm a HS teacher and one year we had a program through our district to encourage all students turning 18 to register to vote. An acquaintance of mine went off on me about how the "agenda" because most of my students would be "voting liberal" (I work in a Title I school but he doesn't know that- just assumed because of what my students look like) and then even had the audacity to question if my students were even legal. I'm like- shouldn't you be proud to know that the next generation of students wants to participate in government? It's wild.
There are certain people who don't like democracy as much as they like controlling others. These people generally are anti-social and/or narcissistic to some degree. There are other types of people who see politics as a sports game and they only want their team to "win," even though that "win" would personally harm them. These people generally lack self esteem. Finally there are people who are so ignorant and unintelligent that they are easily swayed by messages that invoke emotions such as fear, anger, and disgust. These people truly believe they're doing the right thing.
In my high school all seniors had to pass a US Government class to graduate. The teacher would only pass you if you brought in your voter registration or proof that you "pre-registered" (in my state you can pre-register at 17 if you will be 18 by the next general election). Everyone thought it was a great idea, parents had no problems. I'm from a conservative area, but this was also a long time ago before conservatives went off the deep end and politicized everything.
Maybe if the GOP was less awful, they wouldn't have to rely on voter suppression so much.
Golly, what an idea!
Current college professor, do the same thing. I even give them bonus points for it. Fortunately, I haven't had any complaints so far, but it probably won't be long.
Thank you for doing this! I had a professor offer a few extra credit points to anyone currently registered or newly registered to vote one year. They did not push any agenda or political party preference. Parents STILL complained! Unreal.
My Chemistry teacher told us if we brought our I voted sticker to the next test, he would give us 5% extra credit. He was a grumpy 70 year old who hated people who didn't vote.
>Why would they be mad about more young people registering to vote? I recently read a [news article](https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4221525-trump-says-automatic-voter-registration-in-pennsylvania-will-harm-him/) about Trump saying the quiet part out loud. He outright said that a switch to automatic voter registration in Pennsylvania would be "a disaster for the Election of Republicans."
I'll go ahead and paste some examples I had saved from 2020: > levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you'd never have a Republican elected in this country again. \- [Donald Trump on 3/20/20](https://twitter.com/LisPower1/status/1244606910462136321) - this was the first example I ever saw of "saying the quiet part out loud" Here are some from other Republicans (I'm sure there are more but back in the leadup to the election I was tracking this stuff more closely): > If we don't do something about voting by mail, we are going to lose the ability to elect a Republican in this country. \- [Lindsey Graham on 11/10/20](https://www.businessinsider.com/us-republican-president-mail-in-voting-lindsey-graham-warns-2020-11) > If Republicans don't challenge and change the US election system, there will never be another Republican president elected again. \- [Lindsey Graham on 11/8/20](https://thehill.com/homenews/525063-lindsey-graham-if-trump-concedes-election-republicans-will-never-elect-another/) > I’m very, very concerned that if you solicit votes from typically non-voters, that you will affect and change the outcome. So I’m very worried that the Democrats will control all three branches of government. \- [Rand Paul on 12/17/20](https://www.motherjones.com/2020-elections/2020/12/rand-paul-is-very-very-concerned-with-eligible-voters-voting/)
How can this comment be spread around the US? Why aren't more people talking about this?
Feel free to share and add to it! I wish I had a good answer. I think the people who most need to hear about this either would support it, or are too far gone into MAGA fantasyland where our words can't really reach them.
Am i the only one legit worried about Americas future in 2024
With certainty, no you are not.
They are! We've been beating this drum for decades. The Republican strategy for elections is *not* to appeal to new voters; it's to disenfranchise the people likely to vote against them. Voter suppression has been their #1 strategy since 2004.
All of this has literally been my “conspiracy idea” since I started teaching and by my second year schools got rid of standardized testing for history in most grades. Two different states and both slowly stopped caring about the subject in favor of pushing math and English. I’ve been told not to teach standards that are controversial. I’ve been told history is just memorization. I’ve been told it’s just not important. Why? To create good little worker bees that don’t know their rights or care about civic duty outside of making money for the rich.
Trump is on the record a few years ago as saying something to the effect of, "if they get mail-in voting, no Republican will ever win office again!!1!".
Which is absolutely insane to me. I grew up in a very rural conservative area. There were a ton of seniors who couldn’t make it to polling places there. Mail-in voting could be a boon to republicans. Thank god I made it out of that backwards place.
They spent so long saying that you can't trust mail-in voting and now are crying because their voters won't do it 🤣
Yup, self fulfilling prophecy where they tried to discredit it for short term gains, and didn't realize how much it would blow up in their faces in the long term.
It would be an even bigger boon to residents of Houston, who have exactly one polling place because vile christian republicans closed all the other ones down to suppress voting.
For anyone who lives in a state with restrictions on mail in ballots, I recommend you look into the Church of Universal Suffrage. All the holy days are voting days, so you can request a mail in ballot for religious reasons.
I can’t wait until we get these fascists out of power
There will always be another one waiting in the sidelines ☹️
Yeah, the fighting never stops, that’s why you do what you can to keep the next head from sprouting from the Hydra’s body.
To add, they've been all up in arms about a video of Taylor arguing with her Dad about making a statement to support a Dem in the Tennessee election a few years ago. It started making the rounds again. Basically in the clip she says that she was sick of this female Republican who's name I can't recall at the moment being against anti-stalking laws and anti-LGBTQ and so on while claiming it was because she was a good Christian, which Taylor contests isn't being a good Christian. Her father is upset because he's afraid people will attempt to physically attack her because of her coming out. Keep in mind she got her start in Country, so I would assume the right would be pissed as she "betrayed" them.
> Basically in the clip she says that she was sick of this female Republican who's name I can't recall at the moment Marsha Blackburn, a hard right Republican who swept in after a less radical (but still ultimately pretty conservative) Republican retired. Also Philbert Bredesen, very moderate Democratic former governor of the state, was the guy who Swift endorsed (and it is kind of a sign of the times that Bredesen lost by over 10 points in that race, when 12 years earlier he'd won nearly 70% of the vote)
Dead on, (presumably) fellow Tennesseean. Piggybacking on your comment to remind everyone that one of our Tennessee Three, Gloria Johnson, is [gunning for Blackburn’s job in 2024.](https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/21/tennessee-three-marsha-blackburn-senate-challenge-00107646)
It was in the documentary Miss Americana on Netflix. There's a who segment of her team trying to get her to shut up and look pretty when it comes to politics that is so infuriating.
As a side note: for a number of years, [white supremacists worshipped Taylor Swift](https://www.vice.com/en/article/ae5x8a/cant-shake-it-off-how-taylor-swift-became-a-nazi-idol), [believing her to be the Aryan ideal](https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/05/27/479462825/taylor-swift-aryan-goddess)\--tall, beautiful, blonde, confident, talented--and so, secretly sympathetic to them. But (they argued) she couldn't go public with her white supremacist/neo-Nazi views because (((they))) would destroy her. It seems like she was totally unaware of all of this at that time--I mean, there's so much said and written about her, it's not like she can keep track. However: eventually it was brought to her attention and [she decided to go public with her disgust and hatred of white supremacists and her denial of their views, and to such an extent that it was clear she leaned left-wing](https://www.thecut.com/2019/09/taylor-swift-says-rolling-stone-she-didnt-know-she-was-an-alt-right-icon.html). This revelation made these guys even more furious because it was like a betrayal. Their goddess had been co-opted by (((them)))!! So it's not a surprise that now that same crowd has decided to attack her. But in a larger sense, it's all part of attacking and tearing down and degrading things that are liked and admired by women and girls, in an effort to emphasize the superiority of masculinity and strength and power over femininity and friendship and playfulness. Earlier this summer, Barbie was public enemy #1 to the crowd now attacking Taylor Swift.
They're also mad at Swift's new boyfriend who is one of the football players who kneeled during the national anthem during that whole situation.
He also did a Pfizer ad encouraging people to get their flu and covid shots at the same time, so they're Big Mad about that.
Oh, right. AND if that's not bad enough, he was pro-vax!
Pro-vax... It's silly that there's an actual label for doing the sensible and normal thing, like getting vaccinated.
Yeah, maybe we should just say “pro-science”.
More like pro-brain
And appeared in Bud Light ads, which they don't take kindly to.
OMG! I thought you're only allowed to appear in Bud Light ads if you're trans? OMG he's trans! That means Taylor Swift caught the trans from him!
OMG, DOES HE EVEN AMERICA
I'm a Chiefs fan and had forgotten that Trav did that. He's the GOAT.
[удалено]
You should tell him his friendship with Jesus only goes one way if he’s as horrible as he sounds.
Because kneeling has always been such a sign of disrespect... /s
The crazy part was Kap had actually had a conversation with a veteran before he kneeled and asked him what would be the most appropriate way to protest after he had initially remained seated on the bench. The vet was the one who suggested kneeling as a more respectful way to protest. Obviously this one guy doesnt speak for all veterans, but still. [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-police-knee-idUSKBN23G2E2](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-police-knee-idUSKBN23G2E2)
> My dad is a right wing fundie Christian and he and a bunch of elders at his racist Southern Baptist Church decided to boycott football because some of the Chiefs players were asking This vet agrees 100% with the freedom that Kaepernick demonstrated when kneeling. It's astounding that the supposed party of freedom and the Constitution picks and chooses what parts of each they like. Hmmm, I guess they're just like most religious people and the selective use of their own dogma.
They LOVE kneeling… as long as it’s on someone’s neck.
That's rough. Sorry your dad's that way. Glad you're not
"Unlike you libs, I'm not so easily triggered." "WHY FOOTBALL MAN NO STAND UP"
Complain about a beer tasting like piss for years and still drinking it. Then all of a sudden...
What's so wild to me about all that is that Kaepernick actually consulted with a combat veteran about the most respectful way for him to go about that. If I recall, he was originally just going to sit, but they decided together that taking a knee would be more respectful. None of that nuance matters to the MAGA cultists though. Their reaction is so visceral to something so tame.
He did sit on the bench during the anthem initially. A combat veteran wrote him and said he didn't agree with that form of protest but that if he was going to do it, kneeling would be more respectful. Kaep took his feedback and started kneeling after that.
Probably also don’t like she had broken up with her long term boyfriend while being in her past 30s. Especially with all the young girls who follow and look up to her.
An entire political ideology driven by spite at the people who want them to have higher pay and healthcare, because it comes at the "cost" of LGBTQ people and non-white people existing. I hope Gen Z realises how much actual power they have, to make their future and the next few generations much better off, if they vote. There's a reason Conservatives have been arguing to take the right to vote from their age group. They know they are the minority, and are on the cusp of being made even smaller. It's why they vote *every* time. It's why they attempted a coup. W GenZ, please. From a tired elder millennial <3 if not for us then for Taylor (wife bought us tickets to the Eras screening today, yay) Edit: totally right - millennials also have a tonne of power and we should do our part alongside Gen Z.
18-24 demographic has always had the lowest turnouts in elections. If you can get young people to do the simplest and one of the most important civic duties and vote one day every couple of years, we could see real change. Republicans wouldn't have a chance and they know it. Voter suppression is the only way they can get elected anywhere that isn't a right wing cesspool.
Obama's first run got the 18-24 out to vote for Pres, unfortunately they were absent for the mid terms. Someone needs to get them a refresher course on Congress and it's importance.
Mom of a Zoomer, he's 16. "Vote in all elections" is a house rule for myself, my husband, and in two years, my son. This year, I'm going to have him go through Colorado's mail in ballot, do his research, and talk over the ballot questions with me. Same thing next year. And as soon as he turns 18, he's going to the DMV to register to vote and get his new ID.
I'm in Colorado too. What's nice is getting the mailer booklet that details every measure or proposal clearly. It would also be good for him to learn what TABOR is and what it means. Also how to start a petition to have measures added to a ballot to go to vote.
Young millennial here (28). Let's not pretend we're powerless. We are the biggest generation *ever*, bigger than the Boomers. Mostly progressive, too, similar politics to our gen z sibs. Our voting power *should be* turning tables, but it isn't because we still don't goddamn vote in anything remotely resembling high enough numbers. Shunting responsibility to gen z is something I see us doing a lot and it isn't cool or fair. We have a responsibility to keep fighting, too. A lot of us bought into this idea that if you aren't settled in a powerful job with a house by 35 your life is over. Well, it isn't. We had the spirit beat out of us by all the bullshit we've been through as a generation but we are still standing. Vote, pls.
Definitely, you millennials should vote, and all eight of us in Gen X stand with you.
Aye! And mine X!
i always wondered why millennials are more apathetic when it comes to politics/voting compared to Gen Z. i wonder if some of it has to do with bleed over from Gen X who were way too small in numbers to combat conservative boomers. progressive Xers probably became understandably defeatist and maybe that rubbed off on some millennials? or maybe just has do with Gen Z being way overexposed to injustices due to social media so they might have more heightened urgency. whatever it is i hope more millennials will start to gain more passion for this stuff. Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z combined far outnumber boomer voters. and not all boomers vote conservatively as is. there are so many progressive voters out there than can hopefully bring some much needed change 🤞
No you're literally 100% on it. Shows by Xers like South Park especially spread this whole political nihilist "both sides"-ism and it had a formative experience on a lot of people my age and slightly older.
i'm a millennial and i always remember this "voting doesn't matter" "voting doesn't accomplish anything" attitude my entire life. but when i stopped to think about it i realized it didn't make sense for millennials to feel that way when we outnumber boomers. so i started to wonder if that started with Gen X. except it made sense for them since there were too few of them. but now i'm wondering if this attitude had always been there and didn't start with Gen X? but progressive boomers got certain civil/women's rights laws passed so at least by that point there was an attitude that protesting and voting could maybe accomplish something. but i'm gonna need some older folks to chime in on this one. because i'm wondering if the apathetic-american-voter is more of a new thing or always been here.
I'm a young GenXer. I was raised with my mom telling me all the political stuff she did growing up and how things got better. I always voted, and I always voted left of center. Nobody I voted for EVER won until I think Obama. And that didn't stick either... it's hard to feel like voting matters when you've done it your whole life and everything you vote against keeps winning. I still vote, though.
Jesus, that site "The Cut" is pure garbage. They make it sound like she was personally responsible for Trump getting elected.
That website is absolutely shitty. They wrote an article blasting Priyanka Chopra....her crime was being a brown person that decided to marry a white person. Racism against Indians is considered acceptable..... https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-entertainment/2018/12/05/cut-deleted-bizarre-article-that-called-priyanka-chopra-global-scam-artist/
I know very little about Taylor, but my gf likes her and she’s a positive role model for girls to look up to, so I’m all in
As someone who used to lurk /pol/ on 4chan to keep the pulse of the loonies, this is very very true. She was a great white goddess to them. It was gross, like everything on that site. I haven't looked at it in a few years and hope I never look at it again.
>in an effort to emphasize the superiority of ~~masculinity and strength and power~~ their anti-social bullshit ideals over ~~femininity and friendship and playfulness~~ basic social competencies. I'm not attacking or disagreeing with you here, I think you're right about the motivations overall. I just don't want people to get sucked into the trap of arguing from a standpoint of accepting that masculinity/strength/power are all conflated, and at odds with those other things. Strong social bonds *are* power. There is strength in unity. Friendship and playfulness are not inherently masculine or feminine. It take strength to be open enough to let people inside your emotional walls, it's only cowards who try to keep everyone out. It's only the weakest people who refuse to acknowledge the full array of their emotions. These misogynistic racists are weak, they are cowards, they are people who are in *constant* fear. This is something that should always, *always* be in the conversation. They do not, and should not get to define what masculinity is, or what femininity is. These are deeply troubled people, don't ever let them control the narrative.
For those who don't know (((this))) means Jew in 201x internet Nazi. When talking about their Jews rule the world conspiracies, they would surround the names of Jews and those they suspected of being Jews like it was a target. When it became widely known around 2016, a lot of progressive people, Jewish and gentile alike, started using it on their social media profiles to take the power away from the conspiracy theorists.
Extra funny because she doesn't have any legal restrictions on advocating for specifics but she isn't doing that. Meanwhile all their maga churches should be losing tax exempt status for supporting Trump and Republicans. If they say a specific party or candidate, they are not allowed to stay tax exempt.
A similar thing happened with the Christian rapper Lecrae. Back in the pre-Trump days, he was loved by evangelicals because he was rapping about the Bible and theology. Then in 2020, he performed at a "Get Out the Early Vote Rally & Concert" in Atlanta GA for the Senate runoff election. Because the event was hosted by Democrat candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, this was seen as a betrayal by many of those same evangelicals. Charlie Kirk, for example, responded to this with: > [That's the guy who we’re listening to on K-LOVE, who we're supposed to look up to, who, in my personal opinion, should never be allowed to perform at another church after advocating for Raphael Warnock.](https://www.christianpost.com/news/charlie-kirk-lecrae-shouldnt-be-allowed-to-perform-in-churches.html) (keep in mind Warnock is a Christian pastor)
And Joe Biden is Catholic, and Trump is not remotely religious. It is all hogwash.
Don't forget that for years Republicans swore up and down that Swift was secretly a conservative as she was wealthy, was part of the country scene, and was extremely tight lipped about politics (a thing conservatives in Hollywood claim to do to protect their careers). So it was a rude awekening when she came out as a liberal and extremely against Trump, which was a huge part of her documentary *Miss America* was her flighting her parents who were against her opening denouncing Trump because they feared the backlash, and her finally doing it to the annoyance of conservatives.
It’s because they know younger people skew democrat and their number one goal is to prevent dems from voting at all costs.
They also know that party identification is very durable. If you mobilize a voting bloc to vote for one party at a young age, it's difficult for the opposing party to get them to jump ship when they get older.
And yet they make zero effort to appeal to young people.
Maybe if more young people were billionaires and invited them on fishing trips and to speak at political conferences, the GOP would care more about appealing to them! /s
You say /s, but...
All my homies and I jumped ship and aren't Republican anymore.
Same. For many years I basically voted exclusively GOP. The first time I didn't vote GOP was for McCain in 2008 - which HURT because I fucking LOVED John McCain back then. But Sarah Palin was on my shitlist for quite a while because as Governor of Alaska she (to the best of my recollection - this is a LONG ago memory) refused to offer rape kits to women because it included PlanB as an emergency contraceptive, which I thought was just goddamn ridiculous - how can you be against abortion and not try to prevent one of the most obvious situations where one would want to seek one?! (I mean, history has answered this question, but back then it really pissed me off) Subsequent national elections just widened those cracks. The rise of the Tea Party and the run-to-the-right (well, more to the right) was a pretty big turn-off to me. I finally voted DEM in a national election for the first time in 2016, but I told myself that I would continue to look at each candidate individually, regardless of party, and vote for the one that seemed the most reasonable. Then Q-Anon got big, and Roe got overturned and turned me into a blue, straight-ticket voter.
Younger people skew democrat, and also, overall, the population skews liberal. Suppressing voter turnout has been a key Republican strategy since at least Nixon's era. If the population skews liberal, then why does reducing turnout cause more votes for the GOP? One of the more straightforward reasons is that poor people in urban areas are often more liberal. But they're poor. They have a hard time even making ends meet, much less getting to the voting booth.
They've become the embodiment of the principal Skinner meme at this point. "Why should *we* change? It's the young people who are wrong!"
Speaking of reminders.... Texans! Last Day to Register to Vote for Local Elections and important State Propositions : Tuesday, October 10, 2023 Remind all your friends, coworkers, and college peers who haven't registered to get it done!!! [https://www.votetexas.gov/register-to-vote/update-voter-registration.html](https://www.votetexas.gov/register-to-vote/update-voter-registration.html) First Day of Early Voting by Personal Appearance Monday, October 23, 2023 (17th day before election day falls on a Saturday, first day moves to next business day) Source: [https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/voter/important-election-dates.shtml](https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/voter/important-election-dates.shtml)
I know you have to be unbiased but I don't, so I'll just come out and say it: Republican'ts know that they lose when an informed, educated populace votes. It's why they are pro-poverty and anti-education.
They also lose when **women** vote. If Taylor Swift were a boy country singer… who never spoke out ‘politically’… there would be no complaints.
Right. Taylor Swift fans are *overwhelmingly* young suburban-ish white women, a demographic the GOP did around 50-50 with until Trump and have been straight up hemorrhaging since the Roe reversal. Like, lost an election for an anti-abortion measure in *Kansas* by 18 points hemorrhaging.
If only women voted, the legality of terminating a pregnancy would win elections by 20+ points almost everywhere. Crazy, right.
Also, just generally, suburban white women are one of those demographics that win elections. When they go democrat, the democrats win. When they go republican (or stay home), republicans win.
And rather then try to give people a reason to like their party (like passing legislation that helps people) they’d rather just spend their time making it harder for people to vote
If they passed anything that helped people, they wouldn't be conservatives anymore.
[2020 interview where she starts to attack maga republicans](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhjSEkkZ2aA) and asks her dad to forgive her but she cant keep quiet. and [this "First of all, these aren't your dad's celebrities, and these aren't your dad's Republicans" said Taylor Swift, when asked during a recent interview why she has decided to speak out against the GOP.](https://twitter.com/theliamnissan/status/1653480629302902803) She wanted to stay out of politics, but couldnt stand it with trump and maga republicans.
When your agenda is to surpress voters, no surprise that they attack someone encouraging people to vote.
Straying off topic here... If Republicans can't even be Swift fans, why are there so many of them? Seriously. Isn't it just really frustrating? Most entertainment media nowadays shits on them constantly. Even if they do manage to do enough mental gymnastics to find logic in their principles, aren't they just tired of being the bad guys?
Answer: Taylor Swift encouraged her fans to register to vote. The GOP does not like people voting, especially young people (they've actually proposed raising the voting age to 25, because young people aren't voting for them).
In short, Taylor Swift supports democracy, voting rights, and America, and the GQP hates her, because the GQP hates all those things. And also because she's a woman and the GQP hates women.
Democracy is clearly democrat propaganda, its in the name!! We should replace with something with more of a Republican tone, like, I don't know.. Repression sound good
The funny thing about this is how much "we live in a republic, not a democracy" has started coming up in conservative talking points recently.
Hit them with "whats the difference"? And enjoy the panic in their eyes
They've been using that line for at least a decade or two, most often when they try to cram through some authoritarian BS and people complain and threaten to vote them out.
The post’s title had me laughing, at first I thought it was going to be about how they’ve sneaking her in and out of her concerts in totally no suspicious containers surrounded by security guards. This is way better.
This is around the same length of the original comment
Probably their long-term play is to go back to the Founding Fathers and advocate for restricting the vote to white male property holders. I’m only half joking.
answer: She told people to go out, register to vote, then vote. That's it. No political leanings. The GOP are pissed cause most younger voters are left leaning, so in their eyes, they feel she basically told them to vote for Democrats.
The larger the turnout, the better Democratic candidates tend to do, hence Republicans want to suppress vote totals. Winning the election is far more important to them than defending democracy.
Republicans are only for democracy when it's them that you're voting for. They are certainly very against having power belong to the people. Those spineless morons in politics also only ever see having power as the ultimate goal, instead of it being more of a tool or conduit used to achieve actual things. That's why they cling on to it like crusty barnacles to a rock and why they are wholly devoid of any actual principles.
Answer: Back in 2018, she came out against Tennessee republican candidate Marsha Blackburn. And stated she would be voting for one of the democratic candidates instead. It was her first time ever speaking about her political preference. She believes in and heavily supports human rights. For example, at the end of her "You Need To Calm Down" video, there was a petition to sign for The Equality Act. So when she posted recently about registering to vote. The GOP lost their minds over it. The GOP is terrified of the younger Millennials and GenZ. Especially after the midterms didn't go their way. And they knew it was because Millennials and GenZ showed up and voted en masse. That's another reason why the GOP wants to raise the voting age to 21. There are millions about to turn 18 that will be able to vote. As a GenX'r mom to two Millennials and one GenZ. I'm in awe and fully support how both generations are so intelligent and really vote for what counts and matters for their future. It's an amazing thing to watch.
>As a GenX'r mom to two Millennials and one GenZ. I'm in awe and fully support how both generations are so intelligent and really vote for what counts and matters for their future. It's an amazing thing to watch. As a GenX'r mom to one GenZ'er, I agree that he and his friends are delightful. As a Tennessean, I share Tay's complete and utter disdain for Marsha Blackburn. I really, really, hope that Gloria Johnson's higher profile in the wake of the Tennessee Three GOP debacle gives her a boost.
Answer: Taylor Swift knows full well at how influential she is. She told people to got out and vote. The GOP fears modern young people will vote Democrat and will hate anything that gets in their way. They feared to lose in the next election.
answer: Taylor Swift made a (nonpartisan) appeal to her fans to register to vote. Republicans despise Democracy with every fiber of their being, so are now attacking her.
Answer: I think it’s been brewing but came to a culmination with her new man friend being spokesman for Bud Light and Covid vaccines. She has already been outspoken about her disdain for the right nationally and in Tennessee with Marsha Blackburn. And many of the registered will likely vote blue for the Cherry on top.
Answer: She told people to register to vote. Those people happen to be young people. Young people overwhelmingly vote Democrat. GOP is big mad because people who won't vote for them are now registered to vote.
Answer: Taylor Swift started as a country singer, and we all “know” that means she’s supposed to be a conservative. She’s also a blonde-(ish), white, feminine woman, and we all “know” that means she should belong to the right wing. They feel a sense of ownership over her, and she is not only rejecting them but actively speaking in ways that hurt them. Also throw in: she’s a pretty woman, and she writes and sings songs that girls like, and songs that are about breakups, so she’s a trivial person, in their eyes. And now she has the gall to speak about substantive matters like endorsing Democrats and encouraging people to vote. That offends them as well.
This is so accurate that it hurts, especially your third sentence.
I would say she didn't endorse Democrats, she just said go vote. But yeah to the GOP that means oh \*\*\*\* ok [https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/16tqpat/comment/k2imo1f/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/16tqpat/comment/k2imo1f/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
she literally endorsed the Democratic candidate for governor in Tennessee and she endorsed Biden. I looked it up before I posted. You know, so I could be accurate. From 2018: https://www.npr.org/2018/10/08/655599374/taylor-swift-endorses-democratic-candidates-in-tennessee https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/taylor-swift-endorses-joe-biden-president-n1242483