MAGA’s Siege on Taylor Swift as a “Pentagon Psyop”
Taylor Swift performing during the Eras Tour. Photo by Paolo V via Wikimedia Commons
In a report published in 2022, Meta discovered a psychological operation, or “psyop,” consisting of thousands of fake social media accounts with ties to the Department of Defense acting to control online discourse. Officials would order an audit, but few results were made public, demonstrating that psyops are not only the domain of 20th-century CIA projects, but have also taken advantage of social media to advance American interests.
There is little that is publicly known about these operations, but they are often smaller scale, involving a small part of the military and focusing on narrow issues. However, social commentators who support former President Donald Trump have recently alleged a much more elaborate scheme where singer-songwriter Taylor Swift is a Pentagon asset being used to rig the 2024 presidential election through mass media manipulation and the fixing of NFL games.
The theory is convoluted, but it centers around the fact that Swift became an unavoidable phenomenon last year. This was primarily due to the Eras Tour, her first international one since the COVID-19 pandemic. It quickly emerged as the highest-grossing concert tour ever and has become an economic boon at every stop, with world leaders even inviting her to play in their countries, according to Time. The tour also gained unprecedented media attention, with articles on Swift released daily. Her relationship with Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce has only added gasoline to the media fire, attracting her fanbase of “Swifties” to football and inflating NFL viewership.
The surge in attention piqued the interest of many Trump supporters. While not as politically outspoken as some celebrities, Swift has made her preferences known. In 2020, she voiced her support for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign on Instagram, and his 2024 operation has signaled they are courting her endorsement once again. Major MAGA commentators, already suspicious of the massive attention Swift has attracted, began arguing that her rise in popularity was inorganically boosted by the military.
“These are mascots for the establishment. High-level ops used as info tools of statecraft for the regime,” wrote Jack Posobiec on X. Right-wing political commentator Benny Johnson provided a more comprehensive theory in a Jan. 29 episode of “The Benny Show” — the Pentagon not only artificially inflated Swift’s media presence, but her relationship with Kelce was faked and NFL games were rigged to get the star to Super Bowl 2024, so she could endorse Joe Biden and sway millions of fans against Trump. He argued that Swift is nothing more than an avatar for the Pentagon-backed deep state to get its way and re-elect Biden.
It’s an extraordinarily bizarre conspiracy theory, even for a movement that indulges in them often. The government asset theory assumes Swift had little relevance before her resurgence last year. And even if this was true, the popularity of the Eras Tour could not have been manufactured by bots online. Fortune reports the tour generated $5 billion in consumer spending in the U.S. as of June 2023, and attendees spend an average of $93 million per show, according to software company QuestionPro, as reported by The Washington Post. This means that it would be outright irrational from an economic standpoint to not appeal to the massive base of Swifties. These fans are yearning for a return to a pre-pandemic environment, and the Eras Tour provides the most comprehensive social experience for them in years, the Pentagon need not apply.
There is some justified concern from the right regarding Swift’s influence, however. One September 2023 Instagram post led to 35,000 people registering to vote. Her political opinions carry weight for many potential voters. Yet when everyone from bakeries to media outlets can generate massive revenue from tapping into “Taylormania,” as some are dubbing it, there is no malicious collusion necessary for Swift to rise in popularity.
Rather than addressing the lack of conservative cultural powerhouses that could be a counterweight to Swift, the MAGA movement has resorted to accusations of military puppetry. There is no explanation for why the Pentagon would not just jail Trump without trial if they had the power to execute such convoluted plans. It is a poor attempt to ground a potential political liability in broader conspiratorial narratives, and Republicans would do well to ignore it before they inadvertently push Swift to become more involved in Democratic campaigns.