Kansas City Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers to win last weekend’s Super Bowl. The Chiefs star player, tight end Travis Kelce, was hugged by his girlfriend megastar Taylor Swift. I don’t really know what a tight end is, but I do know this was the most watched event on US TV since the Moon Landing.
This should have been celebrated by American Conservatives – 2 white heterosexuals uniting their 2 passions; football and country music.
Instead they were furious. If anyone hasn’t noticed the American right has declared war on Taylor Swift, and by extension Travis Kielce, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Superbowl, and pretty much everything else. The first time right wing broflakes have cheered anything from San Fransicso for decades.
I am honestly not sure what Taylor Swift has done to earn their hatred other than some pretty anodyne comments about not liking Trump. She endorsed Biden over Trump in 2020, but so did most people on entertainment and the media, with the exception of Kid Rock and Ted Nugent. Liberals don’t get so angry about Ted Nugent, mostly because they don’t know who he is.
Travis Kelce made an advert with Pfizer promoting the Covid Vaccine, which automatically makes him part of a deep state conspiracy . This hatred goes so far as persuade people that the Super Bowl was rigged by Liberals as part of a campaign against Donald Trump, and Taylor Swift is a deep state Psy-OP. I guess if the deep state can rig an election, they can rig a super bowl.
These are some of the Taylor Swift threads on a pro-Trump message board:
These conspiracy theories are bonkers, but Conservatives have relentlessly vilified liberal America as Demon-crats. Once you believe that they are capable of anything it is easy to believe all kinds of madness.
This is about much more than celebrity endorsements. The hatred towards Swift extends beyond conspiracy theories to include the most unpleasant and degrading deepfake porn.
They are angry with her for being a successful independent woman, and for not doing what she is told. It reflects the anger that US Conservatives have for women in general, a misogyny which runs as deep on the right as racism. The US has had a black President, but never a woman.
On the other side there are lots of people in the US very angry that the Supreme Court over turned Roe Vs Wade against the wishes of the majority of Americans. This has become a huge political issues particularly among women
The fight between MAGA and Swift symbolises the fight that women all across America have against a misogynist right wing elite led by a man who “grabs them by the pussy”. While Swift was at the Super Bowl Donald Trump, found culpable in an NY court for sexual assault, was travelling to the American Conservative Union whose head is also accused of sexual assault.
This illustrates how far American Conservatives have left mainstream America. It’s not just that they have their own news networks which play to their prejudices. They have their own music, their own sports, (NASCAR and WWE wrestling entertainment). their own churches who follow a theology that is so at odds with the rest of the Christian communion I am not sure it counts as Christianity any more.
The fastest growing Christian sect on the right is the New Apostolic Reformation, an extreme dominionist movement outside of the Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Churches, who they regard as heretics. Dominionism is hardly known outside the US right, but is a big part of the MAGA coalition. This is the belief that Christians have a god given right to rule the US as an authoritarian theocracy, based on a novel interpretation of the Book of Revelation. It’s always the book of revelation these weirdoes read, never Song of Songs,. They believe that god grants them control over family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business, and government, according to Holy Law
They have their own movies too. Hollywood is rapaciously commercial and they target their output to people with disposable income. Streaming services the same. People in the US with disposable income tend to be liberal, tolerant and diverse, which means that a lot of the output of Hollywood and streaming reflects that world view. For years conspiracies have circulated that pop stars and movie stars are part of some satanic conspiracy to corrupt American youth and make them Trans. Tom Hanks apparently is in prison for child sex offences, and has been replaced by a look a like who is making his movies for him.
Instead they watch Christian films, and the QAnons were super excited when child abuse conspiracy thriller Sound of Freedom did well as the US box office last year.
Once upon a time being an Incel (involuntary celibate = a man who can’t get a girlfriend) was an embarrassment, now it is badge of honour among a section of US conservatives. Incelebrity squares. I grew up in a world in which to be white and male gave me an advantage, and where privately educated wealthy white men had the most advantages of all. The media amplified their views, even though they were often a minority opinion, and they were portrayed as the hero in drama. The privileges were so entrenched the assumed it was part of some natural order, an essential part of society.
But the world has changed, and white men don’t have quite as many advantages as before. Less well educated, less well paid white men have had their advantages eroded faster than the rich and privately educated. White men have to compete slightly more with women and minorities, and the lower you go down the income and education scale the harder the competition is. Gay people were once the subject of bullying and ridicule, now are successful and influential, hence the obsession with trans.
This competition isn’t just for jobs or money, but to be heard. They have to compete to have the views listened to, competing against younger, more diverse voices, often with something new to say. Their opinions aren’t treated with the same reverence they once were. The heroes in drama are no longer automatically white and male, although the overwhelming majority still are.
When people complain about woke they are really complaining that their white male privileges are being eroded, and people aren’t listening to their opinions any more. They are listening to Taylor Swift.
Not hard to work out why.
“There exists a subterranean world where pathological fantasies disguised as ideas are churned out by crooks and half-educated fanatics for the benefit of the ignorant and superstitious. There are times when this underworld emerges from the depths and suddenly fascinates, captures and dominates multitudes of usually sane and responsible people.”
Norman Cohn, Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World-Conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion
PS Trump now so desperate he is creating his own weird fan art:
