I've been astonished and appalled by the coverage in the last few days, with supposed "journalists" on Fox News reporting with apparent straight faces that it's quite likely that Taylor Swift (her career in general!) is a Pentagon psy-op manufactured to endorse President Biden and strengthen the Democratic Party.

Seriously!

This is, to say the least, a deranged conspiracy theory.

Apparently, the right began to become infuriated with Swift last September when she urged young people to register to vote, and about 35,000 of them did so. (She did not suggest who anybody should vote for. She hasn't endorsed anybody this year, though she did endorse Biden for president in 2020.)

I remember when celebrities used to be lauded for encouraging young people to vote. But the Republican Party knows that when young people vote these days, they are very unlikely to vote for Republicans.

The right is also furious that Swift is an outspoken ally to and advocate for LGBTQ people.

These wild conspiracy theories about her, however, are beyond the pale, without respect to whatever the NFL is doing.

(Part of the conspiracy theory is that the NFL is supporting the Democratic Party, which anybody who knows anything about the NFL knows is silly.)

I'll agree with you that the NFL should not be broadcasting images of her if she doesn't want them to. But the tremendous hostility toward her arising on the right is not a mere byproduct of those broadcasts. The NFL did not create the attacks.

The attacks are an intentional, cynical ploy based on the presumption that Swift holds leftist social values and that she supports queer people.

I believe the real villains here are right-wing media who don't care about facts, who simply attack anyone they can to bring down the people they perceive as their political enemies.

In this case, I don't see them succeeding. Young people adore Taylor Swift, and they don't adore Fox New or right-wing conspiracy theorists.

I think this manufactured conspiracy theory is going to backfire spectacularly.

And Swift is probably just going to sell more music than ever.