Sidelined
The eyes of America are glued to their TV sets on this tranquil night, February eleventh, two-thousand and twenty four. As snow falls in Oklahoma, the sun sets on the gleaming lights of Las Vegas. The San Francisco 49ers will be playing against last year’s champions, the Kansas City Chiefs.
The significance of the Super Bowl could rival that of Independence Day or New Year’s Eve in the U.S. No matter where you go, Super Bowl Mania is sure to follow, from Christmas Day to zero hour, when two teams of muscle-bound millionaires will go head to head, and be crowned the “champions,” forever engraving their names in American football history.
But this year is quite different from the ones before: the Chief’s tight end, Travis Kelce, is dating country-singer-turned-pop-superstar Taylor Swift. Celebrity relationships are nothing new to the professional sports world, but a handful of sensitive NFL fans are quite upset to see Ms. Swift’s face on the TV, taking precious time from their treasured sport; I don’t understand why.
Cutting to fans and cheerleaders in the moments between plays has never struck a nerve with NFL fans until now, and Taylor is definitely a fan with the looks of a cheerleader, so what gives?
One thing I’ve heard from more vocal spectators online is that she’s “girlifying” the sport. The same sport that regularly has female halftime performers, female cheerleaders, and female fans. It’s true that the Chiefs have boosted their revenue with the influx of female fans buying tickets for a chance to see Taylor, but this does not justify the juvenile “no girls allowed” rule favored by angry fans.
The root of the problem is buried deeper. In my search for the truth, I found a fringe conspiracy that Taylor Swift will endorse Joe Biden if the Chiefs win the Super Bowl. Most people I’ve spoken to have never heard this theory, and of those who have, none believe it. So how did we get here, how do we get away from this, and why does actual reality have no bearing on the false reality created by those who perpetuated this conspiracy?
To start, we’ll look at Vivek Ramaswamy, a former Republican candidate who dropped out after being wildly unpopular in the Iowa caucus. Ramaswamy, who just fifty years ago would not have been welcome in the right-leaning South, proposed that the Super Bowl has been rigged for the Chiefs to win in order to give Taylor Swift a broader platform to endorse Joe Biden. Vivek has since been ridiculed by political commentator Meghan McCain who said: "whatever nutjob 'republicans' are floating ugly and insane conspiracy theories about Taylor Swift are total idiots."
Does Taylor Swift, who’s “Eras” tour amassed over a billion dollars and has over one hundred and three million monthly Spotify listeners, need the NFL as a platform? If Taylor Swift wanted her fans to vote for Biden, she could request this of them via Twitter at three in the morning on a Tuesday and it would be done. Her fans are plugged in to her around the clock, and it is doubtful that she could reach anyone new if given the chance to endorse the incumbent at the Super Bowl. This alone should put the conspiracy to rest, but like a virus, it spread, mutating as it went.
Ramaswamy built the shaky foundation for the Taylor Swift conspiracy, and right-wing hacks ran with it, claiming the whole Kelcey-Swift romance was artificial and that the games leading up to and including the Super Bowl have been rigged to ensure a Chiefs victory. What force could pull off such a move? What entity could possess such power? A shadowy group pulling the strings from behind the scenes, who have manufactured every moment and movement since the foundation of this country, and maybe even the world: The Deep State.
Deep Shit, more like. A belief in the “deep state” reflects a feeling of political impotence after years of consuming propaganda, voting, and seeing the same politicians beg for your campaign donation again and again and again, promising that this time they’ll get it done. But instead of accepting that politicians serve no purpose other than to pilfer the working person’s pocketbook and enjoy the privileges of the fortunate few, the voter blames a dark and mystical force, a shadow government, that only their ballot and their billfold can defeat. This understanding is not the result of propaganda, but rather a lifetime of training, immersing the American mind with the irrefutable idea that the status quo, greed, must be upheld at all costs.
The “deep state” is a boogeyman created by the right wing to keep their voters returning to the polls. If it were real, it would probably resemble the lobbyists, inside traders, and corrupt politicians who are very real and very much indifferent to the fate of the American Worker. And if these puppeteers really were pulling the strings, why do something as tame as a political endorsement? If they’re going to install Biden anyway, why use Taylor Swift? And why at the Super Bowl?
The seconds dwindle down in the final quarter. Snow falls heavy outside. I keep checking the score. The Chiefs are down with less than a minute left. I start to resign myself to 49ers victory, when suddenly: the Chiefs tie the game, sending it into overtime. They still have a chance to win, but the big question remains: will she do it?
Of course not. It’s not unexpected that Taylor would be the DNC’s darling, having endorsed Democratic candidate Phil Bredesen in the 2018 Tennessee senate election, and Joe Biden in the 2020 election. It’s no secret that he’s seeking her endorsement again this year. But, ever protective of her assets and reputation, she wouldn’t do something as bold as endorse Joe Biden on the most watched event of the year, reaching an average of 123.4 million viewers, the largest viewership of any Super Bowl so far. Doing such a thing could potentially alienate some of her right-leaning listeners, threatening a small portion of her income. To sell tickets, CDs, posters, general merchandise, and multiple releases of the same album is the sole purpose of one of the world’s only female billionaires. And if the fear is that a billionaire could disrupt or influence American politics, I have some alarming and unfortunate news for those concerned.
The clock ticks down on overtime. I check the score. With three seconds left, the Chiefs lead by three points. San Francisco has no chance now. Someone celebrates in the alley behind as the rest of the Red Kingdom rejoices. For the first time in ten years, a team has won the Super Bowl two years back-to-back. I can’t get the broadcast, so I miss the celebration. I drink a toast to the Chiefs and retire to bed, eagerly awaiting what’s to come.
Dawn’s light shines on the fallen snow and the whole world is cast in a blue hue. I comb the headlines expectantly. Surely she’s said SOMETHING.
But alas, nothing.
Nothing at all. As expected, Taylor has said nothing about the 2024 election. The Chiefs won, the game ended, and she was silent, saying absolutely nothing about Biden. But the irony is that she didn’t need to. When the conspiracy spread, the possibility was admitted into American canon as a hypothetical, an ugly twin in the womb of possibilities that was naught to come. She didn’t say it, she was never going to, and even if she does later on, it wouldn’t matter. It was heard that she could, so she didn’t need to. The word unspoken has already been perceived as spoken, and the conspiracy theorists had done all the work for her. Reality had happened before it had a chance to meet the present moment, forming a second “timeline” where she DID endorse Biden running parallel to the true timeline, set in the future, observed in the present. When the moment came and she said nothing, the timeline should have expired, but it continued on like a runaway train, fueled by speculation, anticipation, and attention. Taylor never said anything, but the silence spoke volumes.
The ugly twin lives on as a ghost, haunting those who accept it as real, whispering into their ears that the Super Bowl was still rigged, regardless of a Swift endorsement. The ugly twin is the embodiment of a dogmatic belief that no matter the facts, the truth is what agitators like Ramaswamy say it to be, proof or logic be damned. He made a fairly innocuous speculation about the Super Bowl, and was dismissed by most people as a “nutjob,” especially following his statements at the December GOP debate. But for those who believe him, his fringe conspiracies are the truths that no one else is willing to speak. What will happen when the stakes are higher? When it’s a terrorist attack or an election, and not just a presidential endorsement?
We still haven’t answered the question as to why Trump loyalists have vowed to wage holy war against the pop idol. How could America’s Sweetheart earn the ire of conservatives and rally them behind the 49ers? The same team that inspired them to boycott the NFL after their quarterback took a knee in 2016.
The seeds were planted on the eve of the 2020 election. Ms. Swift took to social media to criticize Donald Trump and his handling of the pandemic as well as the George Floyd protests. Since then, she has been in the crosshairs of conservative pundits and campaign strategists, demonizing her for daring to speak out against their idol. Her 2020 endorsement of Biden was pretty clear, but she also said this:
"I always have and always will cast my vote based on which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights I believe we all deserve in this country."
“Human rights” isn’t clearly defined depending on who you ask. Her fans, a large portion of which is made up of young women, especially. With Roe v Wade being overturned and the U.S. funding the massacres in Gaza, it is doubtful that Taylor could endorse Biden in good faith this election.