This is how it goes:
Next Monday morning, the Kansas City Chiefs will roll to a prearranged victory in the Super Bowl, the biggest event in American football.
Chiefs star player Travis Kelce he brings his female friend, a singer, drunk with victory Taylor Swift’s onto the field, gets down on one knee and proposes to one of the world’s most famous pop stars.
The media freaks out over the engagement for days, robbing Swift of an opportunity to announce her support Joe Biden for a further term in the November presidential elections. And after this, millions of Swift’s fans, or Swifties, will vote for Biden’s second term.
Or so it goes according to conspiracy theorists. They are spreading their nutty theory that the US Department of Defense’s Pentagon psychological warfare experts have created a plan to keep Biden in power by exploiting Taylor Swift.
The theory has proven to be too delicious to be left only to conspiracy theorists.
The theory is swimming towards the mainstream
The conservative Fox News and the far right media outlets were the first to take the bait.
on Fox News weeknights by Tucker Carlson replaced by Jesse Watters on his political talk show last month showed his viewers a video from the 2019 NATO cyber security conference, where the host of the event mentioned Taylor Swift as an example of an influential influencer.
– It’s true. The Pentagon’s psychological warfare unit proposed to NATO to edit Taylor Swift as a tool against misinformation on the web, Watters concluded to his audience of millions.
More conservative than Fox, Newsmax went even further. Presenter Greg Kelly resented, without a hint of irony, the worship of Taylor Swift to his Donald Trump-following audience.
– Worship is a sin, just look at the Bible, Kelly announced.
They followed with their opinions Sean Hannity, Jeanine Pirro and other right-wing media talking heads.
So they’re commenting on something that doesn’t exist.
The Pentagon’s counterattack
Over the past couple of weeks, a conspiracy theory about the world’s most famous woman has irresistibly risen from the conservative bubble into mainstream news.
The Pentagon had to officially take a stand on the matter and calls for calm.
– In connection with this conspiracy theory, we are going to – Shake It Off – shake it off our shoulders, Pentagon spokesman Sabrina Singh said in the release based on Swift’s chart hit.
A conspiracy theory about Swift is actually a textbook example of how one ends up from the echo chambers to the mainstream.
– In the end, it became news that The Washington Post, The New York Times and Ylekin took a stand for, says the research doctor Oscar Winberg From the John Morton Center of the University of Turku.
Winberg has studied the relationship between politics and the media in the American right wing.
He reminds us that the fundamentally conservative talk media is part of the same entertainment industry as Swift.
The big questions and characters of the time are tied into the conservative message that is wanted to be spread.
A story, a good narrative, is more important than the truth. At the moment, there is no better figure to take part in a conspiracy theory than Taylor Swift.
Nowadays, you come across Swift not only in streaming services, music videos or award galas, but also on the cover of Time magazine, in the speeches of MPs or White House spokesmen.
– It was quite natural that at some point he would become the main character in the right-wing media, Winberg says.
Is there a cover for the right-wing’s fear of Swift?
The American right is therefore afraid that Taylor Swift would have the influence to harness her followers to vote for Biden. On Instagram, for example, he has 280 million followers worldwide, most of them in the United States.
Swift, who rose from country music star to pop queen, has not been shy about waving the political flag before.
In the 2018 congressional elections, Swift supported Democratic candidates in her home state of Tennessee.
During the last presidential election, Swift supported Biden in a newspaper interview and shared on Instagram of his Biden/Harris 2020 shortbread.
– In the United States, celebrities support political candidates. However, it is difficult to verify what kind of effect it has, says Dr. Oscar Winberg.
Winberg turns the angle so that Swift’s support is significant because the media and politicians think it is important.
When support is important to them, Swift is talked about, written about, and events are built around her support.
– It then becomes a much bigger deal than if the supporter were a lesser-known figure.
Nobody talks much Donald Trump supportive About Ted Nugent, About Kid Rock or Happy Days From Chach.
The dangers of conspiracy theories
It’s easy to laugh at the conspiracy theory swirling around Taylor Swift, but the dirty waters of the Internet have consequences in real life as well.
In 2016, the conspiracy theory surrounding the presidential election almost led to a violent outcome.
The incident became known as Pizzagate. The conspiracy theory claimed that the Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton the leaders of the presidential campaign engage in sexual abuse of children from a pizzeria in Washington.
A man from North Carolina arrived with a semi-automatic rifle to verify the theory and opened fire inside the restaurant.
In a police operation, the man was arrested and later sentenced to four years in prison.
Overall, the threshold for political violence in the United States has decreased.
The takeover of Congress, the plan to kidnap the governor of Michigan, Nancy Pelosi spousal abuse at home, using a gun against Black Lives Matter protesters.
Seemingly isolated cases are connected as the right-wing media and the Republican Party communicate that this is permissible in the name of victory over the enemy.
– It feels like Swift is being warned that if you go along, it’s going to be a dangerous game. And that’s worrying, says Winberg.
The Super Bowl starts in Las Vegas on Monday morning at 1:30 Finnish time.
AP, Reuters
Also background sources: CNN, Fox News, Politico, The New York Times, V Magazine, Variety, The Washington Post