Taylor Swift’s Politics: A Timeline of Impacts and Criticisms
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Taylor Swift has grown up in the public eye, and we've gotten a firsthand look at her creative and political development. In this timeline tracking Taylor Swift's politics, we take a look at how the pop icon's views have evolved over the years — including the ways some fans feel they haven’t evolved enough. At the start of her career, Swift mostly kept her views to herself. But over time, she started to speak up, encouraging her fans to vote, calling out anti-LGBTQ politicians, and blaming Donald Trump for “stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism.”
Here’s what to know about Swift’s politics.
Early 2010s: Dodges the subject
At the beginning of her career, Swift famously avoided sharing her political views. In one 2012 interview with a Norwegian journalist, she explained why that was: "I just figure I'm a 22-year-old singer and I don't know if people really want to hear my political views. I think they just kind of want to hear me sing songs about breakups and feelings."
During this period, the only label Swift adapted was that of feminist, a term she’d previously skirted. But in a 2014 interview with the Guardian, she identified as a feminist and credited pal Lena Dunham with helping her embrace the word: “Becoming friends with Lena – without her preaching to me, but just seeing why she believes what she believes, why she says what she says, why she stands for what she stands for – has made me realize that I’ve been taking a feminist stance without actually saying so,” Swift said. (Not coincidentally, this was also the time Swift’s (very white) “squad,” which counted Dunham in its ranks, rose in girlboss-approved ascendancy.)
Taking Swift’s silence on other political topics as a green light, by 2016, some white supremacist circles were calling Swift their “Aryan goddess,” claiming she would make her alt-right views known once Trump had become president. At the time, Swift didn’t publicly address or, more importantly, denounce the alt-right’s adoption of her, waiting years to make her views on white supremacy known. But we’ll get to that.
October 29, 2015: Sues over sexual assault
In September 2015, a Denver DJ, David Mueller, sued Swift for defamation after losing his job two years prior when Swift reported he’d groped her at a meet-and-greet. Swift responded by doubling down on what had happened and countersuing Mueller the following month, taking her case to court and, in 2017, winning her requested single dollar in damages. By taking the case to trial, Swift said she’d wanted to serve as an “example to other women,” Later, she’d credit the experience with inspiring her to get political — although it would still be awhile before broader evidence of that was seen.
January 21, 2017: Women’s March tweet draws controversy
Swift, who hadn’t publicly shared any views about the 2016 election beyond a painfully neutral Election Day photo and didn’t attend the Women’s March, shared in a now-deleted tweet: “So much love, pride, and respect for those who marched. I'm proud to be a woman today, and every day."
The post immediately drew ire among some critics, who pointed out her silence during the run-up to Trump’s win and called the tweet “spineless” and “far too little, far too late.”
March 23, 2018: Posts in support of March For Our Lives
When Swift broke with her prior apolitical patterns to tweet in support of gun reform following the deadly Parkland High School shooting, some saw it as a potential turn in the pop star’s political tides.
“No one should have to go to school in fear of gun violence. Or to a nightclub. Or to a concert. Or to a movie theater. Or to their place of worship,” Swift wrote, referencing other major U.S. mass shootings and adding she was making a donation to “show my support for the students.”
October 7, 2018: Makes a political endorsement for the first time
In what’s widely seen as her first time getting head-on political, for the 2018 midterms, Swift came out in support of Tennessee Democratic candidates Phil Bredesen (for Senate) and Jim Cooper (for the House of Representatives) in a lengthy Instagram post that remonstrated Republican Senate candidate Marsha Blackburn and addressed Swift’s own record of political science.
“In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now,” Swift wrote, going on to say, “I believe in the fight for LGBTQ rights, and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is WRONG. I believe that the systemic racism we still see in this country towards people of color is terrifying, sickening and prevalent. I cannot vote for someone who will not be willing to fight for dignity for ALL Americans, no matter their skin color, gender or who they love.”
She concluded by encouraging fans to “please, please educate yourself on the candidates” and directing followers to Vote.org. What followed was a major spike in voter registrations; Vote.org reported that 169,000 people registered to vote within 48 hours of Swift’s post. Although Blackburn won regardless, Swift’s political influence had, for the first time, been made known, informing early references to the “Taylor Swift Effect.”
October 30, 2018: Continues repping her Senate choice alongside mom
In another Instagram post supporting Bredesen for Senate, Swift wrote that “we want leadership, not fear-based extremism.”
June 1, 2019: Writes an open letter urging support of the Equality Act
Within the first few minutes of Pride Month, Swift shared an open letter she’d penned to Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander urging him to support passage of the Equality Act, a bill meant to expand federal civil rights protections for LGBTQIA+ people by prohibiting discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity.
In addition to sharing her two-page letter, Swift appealed to fans both to write similar letters to their senators and to sign a Change.org petition she’d started in support of the act. “Let’s show our pride by demanding that, on a national level, our laws truly treat all of our citizens equally,” she wrote.
June 17, 2019: Releases “You Need To Calm Down” music video
Later that month, Swift promoted the Equality Act again, this time in the form of a music video wrapping with a call to sign her Change.org petition. Reception of the video was decidedly mixed, particularly among queer viewers.
In the video, Swift essentially makes herself the central resident of a technicolored LGBTQ+ trailer park populated by queer celebrities like Billy Porter, RuPaul, the “fab five” from Queer Eye, and Hayley Kiyoko. (Plus, for some reason, Ryan Reynolds painting a portrait of Stonewall?) Some called out the way homophobia was depicted in the video, which seemed to make anti-LGBTQIA+ views and rural, blue collar, and Southern identities synonymous.
Others took issue with the video’s finale, in which Swift reconciles with then-rival (and fellow straight woman) Katy Perry. Not only did it turn attention away from LGBTQ+ allyship and back toward Swift’s own personal drama, it played into a longer-standing pattern, per Vox’s Constance Grady, who wrote Swift was “playing one of her worst games here: She’s linking criticism of her as a celebrity and as a musician with homophobic and anti-feminist bullying, and she’s suggesting that they’re all equally wrong.”
Ultimately, a lot of listeners couldn’t un-see the video’s commodification of queerness; per Spencer Kornhaber in The Atlantic, it had, after all, been “released in the middle of Pride Month with all the precision of a bank’s new credit-card rollout.” But the video did also help drive a spike in donations to GLAAD, the LGBTQ+ organization Swift donated to and names in her lyrics, “Why are you mad? / When you could be GLAAD?”
For her part, Swift took to Tumblr to deny any claims of queer-baiting, writing: “To be an ally is to understand the difference between advocating and baiting. Anyone trying to twist this positivity into something it isn’t needs to calm down.” It was a response that, in essence, quickly shut the door to more nuanced acknowledgements of the concerns voiced by, among others, the queer fans for whom Swift was supposedly advocating.
March 6, 2019: Shares intention to “do more to help” in next election, criticizes Trump
In a “30 Things I Learned Before Turning 30” essay she wrote for Elle, Swift shared she was “finding my voice in terms of politics.”
“I took a lot of time educating myself on the political system and the branches of government that are signing off on bills that affect our day-to-day life,” she wrote. “I saw so many issues that put our most vulnerable citizens at risk, and felt like I had to speak up to try and help make a change.”
Referencing Trump without naming him, she added: “Invoking racism and provoking fear through thinly veiled messaging is not what I want from our leaders, and I realized that it actually is my responsibility to use my influence against that disgusting rhetoric. I’m going to do more to help. We have a big race coming up next year.”
August 24, 2019: Comes out as “obviously pro-choice” and says she would’ve endorsed Hillary Clinton
In an interview with The Guardian, Swift called Trump’s presidency an “autocracy” and shared her regrets about staying silent during the 2016 election. She hadn’t felt educated enough to speak about politics then, she said — and she also emphasized the number of times she’d heard in the country music scene to, at all costs, not be like the Chicks. “I watched country music snuff [the Chicks’] candle out,” she said. “The most amazing group we had, just because they talked about politics. And they were getting death threats. They were made such an example that basically every country artist that came after that, every label tells you, ‘Just do not get involved, no matter what.’”
Saying she would have “of course” endorsed Hillary Clinton had she been vocal about politics at the time, Swift vowed not to make the same mistake again, telling The Guardian: “I just wanna do everything I can for 2020. I wanna figure out exactly how I can help, what are the most effective ways to help.”
August 26, 2019: Calls out White House at the VMAs
While accepting the MTV Video Music Awards for video of the year for “You Need to Calm Down” — which won, despite the criticisms it had drawn — Swift spoke about the Equality Act petition featured in the video.
First addressing fans, Swift said that “you voting for this video means that you want a world where we’re all treated equally under the law.” The petition, she added, “now has half a million signatures, which is five times the amount that it would need to warrant a response from the White House,” looking to her wrist as if checking a past-due time.
January 23, 2020: Shares her “need to be on the right side of history” in Miss Americana
Swift’s Netflix documentary Miss Americana took fans behind-the-scenes of her choice in 2018 to come out against Marsha Blackburn, who she referred to as “Trump in a wig.” It also exposed some of the mandates Swift received from record label executives and advisors to not share that message.
In one scene, Swift argues with her father and a slate of all-male team members about her desire to publicly oppose Blackburn. One member of her team indicates that getting “involved in politics or religion” could cut her audience in half, and her father references a need to buy armored cars. But Swift responds that Blackburn has voted against LGBTQ+ legislation, as well as voting not to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act.
“I can’t see another commercial [with] her disguising these policies behind the words ‘Tennessee Christian values.’ I live in Tennessee. I am Christian. That’s not what we stand for,” Swift says while voicing regret for not coming out against Trump sooner. “I can’t change that…(but) I need to be on the right side of history.”
May 29, 2020: Responding to Trump’s stance on protests for Black lives and against police brutality, says: “We will vote you out”
After a tweet from then-President Trump referred to Black Lives Matter protesters as “THUGS,” adding that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts,” Swift took aim at Trump directly for the first time on Twitter.
“After stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism your entire presidency, you have the nerve to feign moral superiority before threatening violence? ‘When the looting starts the shooting starts’???” she wrote. “We will vote you out in November.”
June 9, 2020: Advocates for removing Confederate statues in Tennessee
On June 9, Swift tweeted, using the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag, that “racial injustice has been ingrained deeply into local and state governments, and changes MUST be made,” along with a (not super-specific) reference to the “need to elect people” who will make those changes. A few days later, in a series of 10 tweets, Swift zeroed-in on at least one concrete impact: the removal of Confederate statues.
“As a Tennessean, it makes me sick that there are monuments standing in our state that celebrate racist historical figures who did evil things,” Swift wrote, naming two such monuments. She added: “Taking down statues isn’t going to fix centuries of systemic oppression, violence and hatred that black people have had to endure but it might bring us one small step closer to making ALL Tennesseans and visitors to our state feel safe – not just the white ones.”
August 11, 2020: Celebrates Harris’ nomination as Vice President
With a simple, all-caps “YES,” Swift retweeted Harris’ message announcing she’d joined Biden as the Democratic nominee for Vice President. Swift fans have recently pointed to this message as they wait for a similar pro-Harris statement ahead of the 2024 election.
August 14, 2020: Criticizes Trump’s attack on the U.S. Postal Service
In a series of tweets, Swift condemned what she called Trump’s “calculated dismantling of USPS” during the COVID-19 pandemic, saying it proves “he is WELL AWARE that we do not want him as our president.”
“He’s chosen to blatantly cheat and put millions of Americans’ lives at risk in an effort to hold on to power,” Swift wrote before urging followers to “request a ballot early” and “vote early”
October 7, 2020: Endorses Biden for president
In her first-ever endorsement of a presidential candidate, Swift posted her plans to vote for the Biden-Harris ticket alongside the earlier-mentioned cookie plate and an interview with V Magazine.
She told V: “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. Everyone deserves a government that takes global health risks seriously and puts the lives of its people first. The only way we can begin to make things better is to choose leaders who are willing to face these issues and find ways to work through them.”
October 30, 2020: Allows music to be used in a political ad
On the heels of her first presidential endorsement, Swift allowed one of her songs — “Only the Young,” written as a protest song — to be used in a political ad for the first time. The ad, for California Democrat Eric Swalwell’s re-election campaign, was targeted at young voters.
February 25, 2021: Celebrates the Equality Act getting through the House
After the House voted to pass the Equality Act, Swift took to Twitter to voice her hope the Senate would do the same. (FYI: More than three years later, we’re still waiting to find out. Facing a filibuster in the Senate, the bill has still not become law — despite eight in 10 Americans supporting legal measures to protect LGBTQ+ folks from discrimination in jobs, public accommodations, and housing.)
June 24, 2022: Says she’s “terrified” by the overturning of Roe V. Wade
Retweeting an open letter by Michelle Obama, Swift used her message in the immediate aftermath of Roe’s fall to say that she was “absolutely terrified that this is where we are.”
October 19, 2022: Urges followers to participate in midterm elections
In a message posted to her Instagram Story, Swift told followers there were “only 20 midnights until the 2022 United States Midterm Elections on November 8” and included specific information for her fans in Tennessee. In a reminder post on the 8th, she made the stakes clear to fans: “This year, more than any year in modern history, the Midterm Elections will affect our access to fundamental rights, basic reproductive healthcare, and our ability to make our government work for us.” The post did not include any specific candidate endorsements.
June 2, 2023: Calls out anti-LGBTQ+ legislation from the “Eras Tour” stage
After performing “You Need to Calm Down” at a Chicago “Eras” stop, Swift referenced legislation across the country threatening the rights and well-being of queer Americans. “Right now and in recent years,” she said, “there have been so many harmful pieces of legislation that have put people in the LGBTQ and queer community at risk. It’s painful for everyone: every ally, every loved one, every person in these communities.”
Again, Swift’s call to action was to vote — though she didn’t name any specific candidates to back or bills to oppose. (Admittedly, it would be a long list to get through between songs.) Swift did encourage fans to ask candidates if they’re “advocates,” “allies,” and “protectors of equality,” though, before voting for them.
September 21, 2023: Drives voter registrations en masse
Following the success of her similar plea in 2018, Swift used National Voting Day in 2023 as an opportunity to ask fans to register to vote, directing them to Vote.org. Her Instagram Story ultimately netted 35,000 newly registered voters and drove 157,041 eligible voters to the site. Vote.org’s CEO, Andrea Hailey, called it a "highly encouraging sign of voter enthusiasm,” reporting they’d seen a “1,226% jump in participation the hour after Taylor Swift posted. Our site was averaging 13,000 users every 30 minutes – a number that Taylor Swift would be proud of.”
December 23, 2024: Attends a Gaza relief event — although it might not be what it sounds like
Alongside Selena Gomez, Swift was seen attending a comedy show organized by actor Ramy Youssef. Given Youssef had announced he’d be donating “100% of the proceeds” from upcoming shows to American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA) for “humanitarian relief to the people of Gaza,” fans who’d long called on Swift to break her silence about the war in Gaza, where Palestinian health authorities say more than 39,000 people have been killed, were hopeful.
But as Newsweek reported, there was “no indication that Swift or other celebrities at the event donated money, and Swift has not publicly spoken about the war.” Swift, whose involvement was also sought by Israeli leaders to locate a “19-year-old Swiftie” they said had been missing since Hamas’ October 7th attack on Israel, has additionally not spoken about the release of Israeli hostages.
As of this writing, her silence has continued — despite pro-Palestine Swifties penning an open letter to her in May urging her to speak up, saying her “silence has been deafening.”
March 5, 2024: Urges fans to vote on Super Tuesday
Posting to Instagram Stories, Swift made her first and (so far) only reference to voting in 2024, keeping her message basic: “Today, March 5, is the Presidential Primary in Tennessee and 16 other states and territories,” she wrote. “I wanted to remind you guys to vote the people who most represent YOU into power. If you haven’t already, make a plan to vote today.”
By this point, time had considerably lapsed since Swift last named a candidate or shared a more specific voting message. Calling the post “brief and nonpartisan,” The New York Times wrote that “Taylor Swift wants you to vote today, though she’s not saying for whom” while also noting that even this vague message still had the potential to “provoke outrage on Fox News.”
September 8, 2024: Embraces alleged Trump supporter Brittany Mahomes at the US Open
Swift draw rare harsh criticism from her own stans after embracing Brittany Mahomes at a US Open match. The warm interaction came weeks after the wife of Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes had liked an Instagram post of Trump's that contained anti-LGBTQ campaign promises. Fans said they felt betrayed to see Swift dancing and hugging Mahomes, pointing to the pop star's lack of endorsement in the presidential race and her tearful Miss Americana clip about wanting to be “on the right side of history.”
September 10, 2024: Endorses Kamala Harris in an Instagram post calling herself a “childless cat lady”
Intense speculation over whether Swift would weigh in on the 2024 race finally came to an end on September 10, when she shared an Instagram post enthusiastically backing Harris.
“I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them,” Swift wrote. "I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos. I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate @timwalz, who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.”
She signed the note “Taylor Swift, Childless Cat Lady," and posted a photo of herself and her cat — a pointed reference to Trump’s running mate JD Vance’s comments about “childless cat ladies who are miserable.”
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Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue
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