“Joseph Sabino Mistick Predicts Victory for Taylor Swift”
The Super Bowl is a chance we get every year to gather around our televisions for a few hours and forget about all those things that divide us. Now, the far right is trying to ruin even that with crazy conspiracy theories about Taylor Swift and her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.
Fox News has been especially obsessed with Swift, and its hosts have come up with some real doozies to tantalize their fringe viewers. One story is that Swift was recruited as a psychological operations asset by the Defense Department to work with NATO. It became widespread enough on social media that the Defense Department had to issue a denial.
Swift is also suspect because “she managed to get hundreds of thousands of young Taylor Swift fans all of a sudden registered to vote.” Imagine that.
And former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy called Swift and Kelce “an artificially culturally propped-up couple,” wondering aloud about who would win the Super Bowl and if it would be followed by a presidential endorsement from Swift.
In 2020, Swift did endorse President Joe Biden, saying, “The change we need most is to elect a president who recognizes that people of color deserve to feel safe and represented, that women deserve the right to choose what happens to their bodies, and that the LGBTQIA+ community deserves to be acknowledged and included.” That’s what has the tinfoil hat crowd spinning conspiracies.
Rich Lowry, editor in chief of the conservative National Review, tried to take this craziness back to center when he wrote in Politico, “The image of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift kissing on the field after his victory in the AFC Championship game is arguably the most iconic American photo since the Trump mugshot.
“For anyone whose worldview hasn’t become twisted by politics, it’s a picture of normality. It’s the cheerleader dating the high school quarterback. It’s traditional femininity meets traditional masculinity. It’s the pinnacle of success.”
I don’t know much about football, but the Super Bowl is an all-American extravaganza that I never miss. There’s the game, the commercials and the halftime show — altogether enough to shut out the meanness and hypocrisy and self-destructive tribalism of the outside world for a few hours. We need that.
I know even less about Taylor Swift’s music, but as the father of three confident, independent and successful young women, there’s a lot I like about her. We need her, too.
Swift has changed the music business — from artists’ compensation to fair contracts to scalping reforms that protect her fans. And her success is ours, as we saw in a January Bank of America report that cited Swift’s Pittsburgh concerts to show that she’s as good for the local economy as hosting a Super Bowl.
Swift’s private and public generosity is legendary. She showers her fans and crew with gifts. She pays surprise visits at the weddings and family gatherings of her Swifties. She has saved food banks and libraries in the cities where she performs. She has donated millions for cancer research, disaster relief and other causes.
Those who readily praise self-made men sometimes reject the notion of a self-made woman. The astonishment is that in the year 2024, there are some American men who are so threatened by the arrival of powerful women in our business and public lives that they use conspiracy theories when those women seek to use their political voices. Taylor Swift has already won this Super Bowl.
Joseph Sabino Mistick can be reached at misticklaw@gmail.com.