WASHINGTON – You knew Taylor Swift was influential, but Republicans are now crediting the singer with James Bond villain-level powers in a wacky conspiracy theory claiming her romance with National Football League (NFL) star Travis Kelce is really a plot to rig the Super Bowl and get President Joe Biden re-elected.
The relationship between the pop powerhouse and the Kansas City Chiefs tight end has gripped the nation for weeks, with television cameras repeatedly panning from the field during the team’s surging NFL season to a cheering Swift in the stands.
Fascination peaked over the weekend when the Chiefs defeated the Baltimore Ravens to book their berth in February’s Super Bowl and, in the midst of celebrations, Swift descended onto the field to kiss Kelce, fresh from playing one of the best games of his life.
Fairy tale? Well, not for Republicans.
Right-wingers – who, like their leader Donald Trump, increasingly see conspiracy theories under every stone – detected not a love story but a deep-state psychological operation against the American people and the November presidential election.
Fox News hosted a discussion with a former Federal Bureau of Investigation agent, asking: “Is Taylor Swift a Pentagon asset?”
A Trump media booster, Ms Laura Loomer, told her more than 800,000 followers on X, the former Twitter, that “the Democrats’ Taylor Swift election interference psyop is happening in the open”.
And Mr Vivek Ramaswamy, a failed Republican presidential candidate now fully behind Mr Trump’s bid for a second term, suggested there is a plot to boost Mr Biden through a faked Swift-Kelce relationship and a rigged Chiefs victory in the Super Bowl.
“I wonder who’s going to win the Super Bowl next month. And I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple,” he wrote on X. “Just some wild speculation over here, let’s see how it ages over the next eight months.”
A major pro-Trump broadcast personality, Mr Mike Crispi, said it all even more clearly: “Everyone knows Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce is fake and the Super Bowl is rigged. You’re a wacko at this point if you don’t believe it.”
Swift will appear on stage at the Super Bowl half-time show, he said, and endorse Mr Biden.
Dark territory
The nutty furore has roots in long-running hatred on the right for Swift, who is not only a global entertainment megastar, but also openly liberal and against Mr Trump.
She endorsed Mr Biden in his successful 2020 bid to unseat Mr Trump and flexed her muscles again in September 2023 by urging fans to register to vote – tens of thousands did.
Kelce, something of a legend for his outsized personality off the field and heroics during games, has become an unlikely target of the right himself after promoting Covid-19 vaccines and, now, for being the boyfriend of an even bigger female celebrity.
The saga has already veered into distinctly dark territory. Artificial intelligence-faked pornographic images made to look like Swift had millions of views on X before being removed last week.
And things may get weirder.
The Chiefs will face the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl on Feb 11 and the right-wing media-sphere is lining up behind the Californians – even though their team represents one of the most liberal cities in the world.
“I know we’ve all been roasting your city for years,” posted Mr Rogan O’Handley, a hard-right personality with 1.3 million X followers.
“For two weeks, 99 per cent of America will be 49ers fans, but in return you must defeat the Chiefs,” he wrote. If they do not, Biden will get re-elected and “WW3 will likely follow”. AFP
