Taylor Swift Reveals Why She Didn't Endorse Hillary Clinton and Only Recently Got Political
08/09/2019Taylor Swift has been known for a lot of things over the years. Back when she first came out, it was her curly locks and her guitar. And then as she got older, she started being associated with completely obliterating her exes in all of her music. And at one time, she was even best known for being the girl that Kanye West interrupted at the VMAS.
But the one thing that Swift was not recognized for was being political. At least not until recently. Under this current administration, Swift has taken a much more brazen stance than she ever had before. From her music to her social media, Swift has promoted equality and made her liberal values very clear.
But what most fans have been wondering is, why now?
Why didn’t Swift endorse Hillary Clinton?
In the 2016 election, many celebrities rushed to endorse Hillary Clinton, but Swift stayed quiet.
“Unfortunately in the 2016 election you had a political opponent who was weaponizing the idea of the celebrity endorsement,” Swift told Vogue. “He was going around saying, ‘I’m a man of the people. I’m for you. I care about you.’ I just knew. I knew I wasn’t going to help.”
Swift thought she would do more damage than anything.
“Also, you know, the summer before that election, all people were saying was: ‘She’s calculated. She’s manipulative. She’s not what she seems. She’s a snake. She’s a liar,’” Swift continued. “These are the same exact insults people were hurling at Hillary. Would I be an endorsement or would I be a liability? Look, snakes of a feather flock together. Look, the two lying women. The two nasty women. Literally millions of people were telling me to disappear. So I disappeared. In many senses.”
Swift on LGBTQ rights
Among other issues, Swift has taken a strong stand for LGBTQ rights. She first made her political affiliations known before the 2018 midterms when she endorsed the Democrats for the Tennessee Legislature.
“She believes businesses have a right to refuse service to gay couples,” Swift wrote of Marsha Blackburn, the Republican running for Senate. “She also believes they should not have the right to marry. These are not MY Tennessee values.”
According to Swift, the post was in part to inform her fans that in order to vote, they would need to register first.
In the 24 hours after her post, over 65,000 people registered to vote, according to Vogue.
In April, she continued to fight for LGBTQ rights. She donated $113,000 to the Tennessee Equality Project.
What spurred Swift to stand up for the LGBTQ community?
Though Swift previously never spoke against the LGBTQ community, she never really stood up for them either. But something changed all of that.
“Maybe a year or two ago, Todrick [Hall] and I are in the car, and he asked me, ‘What would you do if your son was gay?’” she told the outlet.
“The fact that he had to ask me . . . shocked me and made me realize that I had not made my position clear enough or loud enough,” she continued.
“If he was thinking that, I can’t imagine what my fans in the LGBTQ community might be thinking,” she said. “It was kind of devastating to realize that I hadn’t been publicly clear about that.”
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