Story by Michael A. Cohen
msnbc.com
When the history books are written, 2023 will be remembered as the year of Taylor Swift.
No, my 11-year-old daughter has not taken over my computer — though she did contribute to this op-ed.
Swift’s “Eras Tour,” which began earlier this year, has played for 66 sold-out audiences across the United States and grossed more than $1 billion. On secondary markets, fans are paying thousands of dollars for even the worst seats in the house. Her very presence in a new city creates a mini-economic boom.
According to one estimate from QuestionPro Research, Swifties spend approximately $93 million per show on everything from tickets to travel, lodging, food, and merchandise. By the end of the tour that will amount to a $5.7 billion jolt to the US economy. “If Taylor Swift were an economy,” claims Dan Fleetwood, President of QuestionPro Research , “she’d be bigger than 50 countries.” Illinois’s Governor J.B. Pritzker credited Swift with reviving the state’s tourism business, and the tour’s economic impact on that industry was so profound that it was mentioned in a report issued by the Federal Reserve.
That’s all before Swift released her concert film of the tour , which has already grossed $250 million globally, and is still in hundreds of theaters more than two months after its release.
Dollars aside, her cultural impact might be just as significant. There are now ten college courses decided to the study of Swiftology — including one at Harvard. After she started dating Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, there was even a marked increase in television viewership for Chiefs games — all the more remarkable given football’s ratings dominance.
More than half of all Americans count themselves as Swift fans . In a recent NBC News poll, she had the highest favorability rating of any person tested — a 40/16 positive/negative rating that puts her above President Biden, former President Trump, and every other major political figure in the country. In naming her the Person of the Year, Time magazine called Swift “the master storyteller of the modern era.”
In short, it’s Taylor Swift’s world, and we’re all living in it. But one question about Swift’s influence remains unknown: can she impact American politics?
Swift is quite clearly a Democrat. In 2018, she endorsed two Democratic candidates in her adopted home state of Tennessee — Rep. Jim Cooper and former Gov. Phil Bredesen in his Senate race against Republican Marsha Blackburn.
In an Instagram post , she said Blackburn’s “voting record in Congress appalls and terrifies me” and criticized her “for voting against equal pay for women” and “the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act,” supporting businesses that “refuse service to gay couples” and opposing same-sex marriage.
Swift’s motivations for breaking her political silence were shared in an emotional exchange with her parents and senior staff , filmed just before that post and included in her 2020 Netflix documentary.
And would Republicans dare attack Swift and risk the wrath of enraged Swifties? Ask John Mayer or Kanye West how getting on the wrong side of Swift and her fans has worked out for them.
At the very least, it’s difficult to see how it would hurt the 81-year-old incumbent to appear on the campaign trail with a 33-year-old superstar who has her finger on the pulse of young America and is the most beloved cultural icon in the country.
If Biden knows what’s good for him, he'll let Swift know, “You belong with me.” Together, they could write their own political “love story” and “shake it off” down the campaign trail until they reach their “wildest dreams.” After all, with Swift telling Trump he’s too “mean,” touting Biden as the “better man” and making clear her preference for a hero, not an “anti-hero” the political “wonderland” could be in sight. Otherwise, it could be a “cruel summer” and “blank space” for Democrats as they think about what “would’ve, could’ve, should’ve been” and wonder, “Is it over now?”
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
