Taylor Swift is at the centre of far right conspiracy theories over a possible presidential announcement at the Superbowl

It can be difficult to escape Taylor Swift.

Not content to just stay in her musical lane, she’s crossed over into movies and sport.

Politics might be her next conquest.

Swift’s art is deeply personal and many of her songs autobiographical, drawing in legions of devoted fans who feel she has given voice to some of their deepest feelings.

But for most of her career, the singer has carefully avoided any mention of her political persuasion.

“Throughout my whole career, label executives would just say: ‘a nice girl, doesn’t force their opinions on people, a nice girl, smiles and waves and says thank you,'” Swift revealed in her 2020 documentary Miss Americana.

“I became the person everyone wanted me to be.”

But that changed in 2018 when she endorsed two Democratic candidates in her home state.

Now Swift is facing questions over whether she’ll deploy some of her star power in the battle for the White House.

Whispers about the singer’s possible endorsement of US President Joe Biden come on the heels of another week of milestones for the star, which kicked off with a historic achievement at music’s night of nights.

Swift became the first person to win Album of the Year for the fourth time at the Grammys, surpᴀssing the records of Frank Sinatra, Paul Simon and Stevie Wonder.

It was the icing on the cake after the singer’s mic drop moment earlier in the evening.

Knowing the world’s attention was even more squarely trained on her than usual, she announced a surprise new album, The Tortured Poets Department, would be released on April 19.

From the Grammys, Swift’s domination continued as she made her way to Japan for four sold out shows as part of the next leg of her mammoth Eras tour.

The singer’s final performance in Tokyo has been a source of speculation on social media given its possible scheduling conflict with another event close to her heart.

Straight after her last show, Swift is expected to board her private jet for a 12-hour flight to Las Vegas, hopefully landing in time to watch her boyfriend – Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce – play in the Super Bowl.

If she makes it, she will be the world’s biggest star at America’s biggest sporting event.

“If you were trying to design a public relations campaign or situation that would maximise her appeal to the American electorate and to her fan base, you couldn’t do better,” political scientist Richard Bensell from Cornell University says.

And it’s this power that has some on the right feeling unsettled. Her ever-expanding presence in the American cultural sphere has fuelled rumours she might use it to influence an even more important 2024 contest.

Former Republican presidential candidate-cum-surrogate for Donald Trump Vivek Ramaswamy has joined others in peddling conspiracies that the singer’s relationship with Kelce is part of an elaborate plot to rig football games and deliver Biden the presidency.

How Taylor Swift broke the far-right
The theories are as convoluted as they are untrue.

But it has not stopped influential right-wing figures from speculating that Swift is part of a “psy-op”, code for psychological operation, coordinated by the Pentagon to influence public opinion.

While Ramaswamy has only speculated about Swift’s influence, Fox News host Jesse Watters has been far more blatant with his theories.

“Yeah, that’s real. The Pentagon psy-op unit pitched NATO on turning Taylor Swift into an ᴀsset,” he claimed in a segment on his show.

The Pentagon has denied the suggestion, with a spokesperson telling Politico “as for this conspiracy theory “we are going to shake it off”.

But Waters has been joined by others, like conservative commentator Mike Crispi, who suggested Swift is part of a scheme to spread “Democratic propaganda”, and Jack Posobiec, an influential right wing conspiracy theorist.

He said in a video posted on Truth Social that he thinks “they” — it’s not entirely clear who he is speaking about here but presumably the Democrats, or anyone opposed to Trump — are “using Taylor Swift right now”.

“They’re gearing up for an operation to use Taylor Swift in the election against everything: against Trump, for Biden, they’re gonna get her and all you know they call them the Swifties they’re going to turn those into voters, you watch,” he said.

The conspiracies appear to centre around Swift once posting a link on how people can register to vote and Kelce’s promotion of the Pfizer vaccine, which far-right users say are signs their relationship is manufactured.

Together, these figures claim, the “artificially culturally propped-up couple” are faking their romance to pave the way for a major endorsement of Biden at the Superbowl.

It is suggested the game has been rigged to enable Kelce’s defeat of the San Francisco 49ers on February 12, setting the stage for the presidential announcement.

There is no evidence to indicate the Super Bowl is rigged in Kansas City’s favour, with the NFL’s commissioner dismissing the idea as “nonsense”.

And there is no proof that Swift and Kelce’s relationship is artificially propped up.

But the swirl of intrigue around Swift started around the same time reports surfaced that the Biden campaign may be courting the singer for her support.

Swift endorsed Biden in 2020 and with the US election shaping up to be a re-run of Biden versus Trump this year, there is a possibility she could be leaning the same way again.

“I have no idea if Taylor Swift would actively offer herself or not, but of course he’d love to have her endorsement,” Mitch Landrieu, a co-chair of the Biden re-election campaign, told the Washington Post.

But what began as a wishlist of endorsements from aides involved in Biden’s re-election campaign, quickly spiralled into far-right conspiracies that reflected a real fear Swift could influence her huge fanbase to vote a particular way.

“I think that Fox News, Jesse Waters … [going] after her is a sign that they’re scared of her, because that’s what people do when they’re scared, they make things up,” Wendy Schiller, a professor of political science at Brown University, said.

It’s a marked reversal from eight years ago when Swift was experiencing backlash for keeping well away from the political arena.

The political evolution of a country star
Taylor Swift made her entry into America’s tough music industry as a teenager in the deep Republican red state of Tennessee.

The musician kept her political leanings in the dark, which seemed a savvy business move. The risk of holding a strong partisan position is that you may alienate a segment of listeners who might otherwise consume your music.

But Miss Americana documents the turning point when she decided to let her political colours fly during the 2018 midterm elections.

She came out with endorsements for two Democrats who were running for office from Tennessee, Phil Bredesen — a former governor who was running for the Senate against Republican Representative Marsha Blackburn — and Jim Cooper — who was running for re-election to the House of Representatives.

Swift explained her decision to her legion of followers, revealing that “due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now”.

“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,” she wrote in a post on Instagram.

Her decision was H๏τly debated by her supporting team, with her father fretting that an overt political position could ruin her career.

Growing up, Swift had witnessed the downfall of the country music trio formerly known as The Dixie Chicks, when they spoke out against George Bush on the eve of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, and it had stayed with her.

“What happened to the Dixie Chicks was real outrage. I registered it – that you’re always one comment away from being done being able to make music,” she told Variety in 2020.

Her father was right to be concerned about her coming under attack.

Then-president Trump struck out at the time, telling reporters: “I’m sure Taylor Swift has nothing – or doesn’t know anything about her [Blackburn].”

He added, with a laugh: “Let’s say that I like Taylor’s music about 25 per cent less now, OK?”

But it did little to dissuade her from voicing her views and may have inspired the singer to deliver her own karmic twist years later.

In 2020, Swift endorsed Biden on social media and vowed America would vote Trump out.

Her cultural power and influence has only grown in the years since the last election, sparking fears among Republicans over the singer’s powerful fan base at this year’s vote.

“Taylor Swift represents the Achilles heel for Donald Trump in the 2024 election because she represents the group of suburban, generally white, women and their daughters,” Ms Schiller said.

“Taylor Swift has the capacity to innovate to activate a voting base that is now undecided.”

But the increasing attacks on Swift have done little to dent her reputation.

Unlike in 2016, when Swift retreated from the spotlight following intense online backlash and high-profile feuds with Calvin Harris, Kanye West and Kim Kardashian, Swift now appears to be too big for a small army of trolls to tear her down.

Swift’s star power as the most famous woman on earth
2024 has begun seemingly where 2023 left off, with Taylor Swift everywhere, all at once.

“If you don’t know Taylor Swift, you’re living under a rock,” says David Allan, a former radio broadcaster and marketing professor who delivers a course on the musician at St Joseph’s University.

Last year she was credited with helping to lift the global economy with her record-breaking, generation-defining Eras world tour.

The career-spanning, three-hour stage show has already broken records as the highest grossing of all time.

Swift was also the world’s most listened-to artist on Spotify last year, with 26 billion streams.

Her gift for storytelling, along with a snake-like ability to shed musical genres and emerge with a distinctly new style, has built her a global fandom of Swifties, a group so powerful their collective anger over ticketing for Swift’s tour led to a congressional hearing into price gouging in the industry.

But her popularity transcends those who would classify themselves in the fanbase. More than half of Americans say they like her.

Her influence became so undeniable last year that she was named Time’s 2023 Person of the Year, in a break from the magazine’s tradition of recognising (mostly) men with political and financial power.

“No-one else on the planet today can move so many people so well,” Time wrote of Swift’s fame last year.

“Achieving this feat is something we often chalk up to the alignments of planets and fates, but giving too much credit to the stars ignores her skill and her power.”