What in the hell are you people even talking about anymore?!
It seems increasingly clear the right-wing punditry machine has no idea how to rationally reckon with the power of Taylor Swift. (Oh, also they really don’t want people to vote!)
On Fox News Tuesday night, host Jesse Watters amplified a truly bonkers conspiracy theory that seems as desperate as it is demented: Taylor Swift is a Pentagon psyop.
Video: Even Jesse Watters’ MOM Told Him To Chill Out On Conspiracy Theories!
He asked his audience if they “ever wondered why or how” the I Knew You Were Trouble singer “blew up like this?” He then platformed the ludicrous notion it was a government conspiracy:
“Well, around four years ago, the Pentagon psychological operations unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset during a NATO meeting. What kind of asset? A psyop for combatting online misinformation. Yeah, that’s real. The Pentagon psyop unit pitched NATO on turning Taylor Swift into an asset.”
So… they pitched using Taylor Swift against misinformation? What the eff is this, misinformation fighting back?? Watters then insinuated the pop star was “a front for a covert political agenda” — though he admitted he “obviously has no evidence.”
First off, no, we never wondered why Taylor Swift got so popular. We’ve wondered why the Minions got so popular. With Tay, it’s actually pretty obvious. She just keeps releasing catchy, relatable, moving songs. And her fight to regain her rights to her music with the Taylor’s Versions of her past albums actually did her a huge favor, serving as a reminder to the world just how many bangers we can thank her for. See? Simple. Maybe if Watters knew some women to ask he wouldn’t have to wonder…
Is Taylor Swift a Pentagon PsyOp asset? pic.twitter.com/yHp8WywKh8
— Jesse Watters (@JesseBWatters) January 10, 2024
Second, the entire basis for the supposition is wrong. It wasn’t some Pentagon psyop unit that suggested using Taylor Swift — the footage Watters pulled this from is actually from a talk by a research engineer at Johns Hopkins University. At the International Conference on Cyber Conflict in August 2019, Alicia Marie Bargar (who now works for Shopify, not the US government) was talking about possible ways to combat misinformation with trustworthy voices. She used Taylor as an example of someone trusted by millions, saying:
“The first one, and the most common [example of influence], is working with famous people or influencers to share information of a particular message. I include Taylor Swift in here because she’s a fairly influential online person, I don’t know if you’ve heard of her.”
Seems reasonable. And this was a researcher mentioning a hypothetical celeb for a hypothetical strategy that wouldn’t even be a trick, as is being suggested here. It would just be employing a trustworthy celeb to pass on information. AND Bargar noted the problems with doing this at all — like celebs might not say things accurately, only causing more confusion. But it was all hypothetical. So yeah, nothing like what Watters is suggesting.
Especially when he brought on a former FBI agent named Stuart Kaplan who said:
“It is possible that Taylor Swift doesn’t realize she is being used in a covert manner to swing voters.”
They’re really suggesting Taylor is a puppet for Joe Biden. Such a gross, condescending way to refer to a brilliant businesswoman and pop icon. As if Taylor doesn’t know exactly the image she’s putting out at all times.
So the question is, why would Fox want to paint Taylor and her fame as some kind of fake government conspiracy? Oh, because she offended them by… telling people to get out there and vote. See, Bargar used as an example in her talk how Taylor once encouraged her young fans to vote in an Instagram post, and it worked — there was a huge surge in voter registration. Taylor didn’t even say in that post whom to vote for. She just said to vote. That’s something we should all be in favor of, right? More people voting? Since it makes democracy work better?
Well, not Republicans. As we’ve seen time and again the past few years, they actually HATE when more people vote. They make voting locations fewer and farther, they try to purge voters, they do everything they can to make voting as inconvenient as possible. Why? Because when everyone votes, they tend to lose. Their ideas just aren’t very popular with society as a whole. They want to energize their base with nonsensical ideas like “the government is trying to mind-control you with Taylor Swift” — and get them to vote. But you? They’d really rather you stay home.
So… who’s the “psyop” again??
[Image via Fox News/Twitter.]