Conspiracy theory about Swift and Kelce takes on not only young love but football
The MAGA suspicion that the Pentagon and the NFL have somehow created a fake couple and a fake football powerhouse — yes, this plot had to have been years in the making — to get President Joe Biden reelected almost makes even the fevered pazzia of Pizzagate look rational.
Of course it’s sheer silliness to imagine that Taylor Swift needs the deep state to tell her what to think. Is Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce just a useful idiot in this scenario? I tremble to ask, but is Patrick Mahomes in on the conspiracy, too? And — oh, now it all makes sense — how about Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Zay Flowers? Nice touch, puppet masters, making him cut his hand like that.
This is the level of goonery that rightwing media is forever pushing.
But now, they’re taking on not just real and imagined lefty excesses but old-fashioned young love. Also the most popular musician in the country, who despite her immense success also happens to have her head on straight.
I have not written about Taylor and Travis before, both because so many others had that covered and because “Wish you all the best!” is a card and not a column.
But now it isn’t only the Trumpiest of Trumpublicans who are ranting that together, the pop idol and her football star boyfriend are a threat to their own idol, and so must be unmasked as fake news.
Fox News host Jesse Watters said Swift could be “a front for a covert political agenda.” A guest on his show agreed, allowing, “It’s possible that Taylor Swift does not know that she’s being used in a covert manner to swing voters.” But either way, “the Biden administration is savvy, identifying how many voters she can influence.” Wait, I thought they were fools, and Biden the head fool? Yet now they’re running not just the U.N. but the NFL?
“I wonder who’s going to win the Super Bowl,” Vivek Ramaswamy, the failed presidential candidate, posted sarcastically on X, formerly known as Twitter. “And I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall.”
“It’s not a coincidence that current and former Biden administration officials are propping up Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce,” posited Laura Loomer, the anti-muslim white supremacist Trump has called “terrific.”
Democrats are so powerful that they are “artificially” propping up both Time’s person of the year and a beloved Chiefs player? If that were true, it would be the best news for the future of our democracy that I’d heard in a while.
MAGA is certainly bold, challenging the primal forces of pro football: “The NFL is totally RIGGED for the Kansas City Chiefs,” said pro-trump talker Mike Crispi. “All to spread DEMOCRAT PROPAGANDA.”
OAN host Alison Steinberg, whom I’m going to do the disservice of quoting accurately and at length, went even further: “America’s pop star celebrity sweetheart joins forces with the top dog in the NFL playing for the team that’s going to the Super Bowl? I mean, let’s be real here. This is bread and circuses on steroids. Major league sports in and of itself is nothing but a psy-op.
“Get kids plugged into the cycle of going to public indoctrination camps, playing sports for their school, and going to games. Many end up devoting their entire childhood to competing in various sports only to be cut from the team, at which point they become brainwashed into supporting professional teams because they know their dreams of becoming a pro athlete will probably never happen. So then they become obsessed with some grown man who gets paid millions of dollars every year to throw a ball around while promoting poison death shots.”
By “poison death shots,” she means the life-saving COVID-19 vaccines that Kelce has promoted. But when did team sports and boy-meets-girl stop being all-american on the One America News Network?
These voices are not going to silence Swift, and might even increase support for Biden among her fans.
But how will Chiefs Kingdom push back against the slander that their wins aren’t real?
Could the out-there idea that the Swiftkelce romance is a sham and the Super Bowl rigged, all to help Biden, get some of those who love both Donald Trump and the Chiefs to question other conspiracy theories? I’m not overly hopeful, but as always, that’s between them and their gods.