Taylor Swift has a bit of a reputation (come on, we had to) for keeping silent on her political opinions, famously not endorsing a presidential candidate in 2016 despite wave after wave of fellow superstars, like Katy Perry and Beyonce, standing up and speaking out. While this earned her some backlash at the time, critics accusing her of letting her voice and influence go to waste, she stood by her previous decision to keep her opinions to herself. However, on Monday, she released a statement on her Instagram endorsing democratic candidates in the midterm elections.
Via WSMV
Swift says in the past she’s “been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but 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.” Swift — although silent on many political issues — has always remained outspoken in her belief that “the fight for LGBTQ rights, and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is wrong,” and that “the systemic racism we still see in this country towards people of color is terrifying, sickening and prevalent.”
Related: Lessons Taylor Swift Has Taught Us
She goes on to critique Marsha Blackburn’s, the incumbent Republican Senator, voting record that both “appalls and terrifies” her and states that although she’s always supported women running for office — and plans to continue doing so in the future — she simply cannot support a women who doesn’t support other women. In Congress, Blackburn has voted against equal pay for women, the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act that works to protect women from domestic violence, stalking and date rape and has stated her belief that public businesses have the right to refuse service to gay couples, whom Blackburn also believes shouldn’t have the right to legally marry. “These are not MY Tennessee values,” Swift says.
The candidates she feels reflect those values are Phil Bresden for Senate and Jim Cooper for the House of Representatives. Bresden served as the Governor of Tennessee from 2003 to 2011 and Cooper has represented Tennessee’s 5th district since 2003 in the House and previously represented the 4th district from 1985 to 1995.
Related: Hey, teens, these Taylor Swift puns from a Tennessee Democrat are on fleek
Swift then urges young people to get educated, register and go out to vote on November 6th, whether they’ve found a candidate or party that they fully align themselves with or not, because “so many intelligent, thoughtful, self-possessed people have turned 18 in the past two years and now have the right and privilege to make their vote count.” We honestly couldn’t agree with her more.
Beyond just being a major change for how Swift addresses her political views to her massive following of over 112 million people on Instagram, this post became monumental for the immediate impact it had on voter registration in the final days to register in many states. According to Kamari Guthrie, director of communications for Vote.org, there were over 65,000 new registrations in the 24 hours after Swift made her post. To put this in perspective, 190,178 registrations occurred nationwide in September and 59,669 occurred in August. There was a similar spike in Swift’s home state of Tennessee, who had received 5,183 registrations so far this month– over 2,144 of them occurred in the 36 hours following her post.
Related: I Registered to Vote. Now What?
Despite widespread praise for Swift’s post, she may now have some bad blood with Marsha Blackburn and the White House. Blackburn responded to Swift’s comments by insisting that she’s always supported women while in office, citing her work with abuse shelters and child advocacy centers and saying that she’s been working to gain equal pay for women since she was 19 years old. Blackburn also goes on to reference her work with the Music Modernization Act to be signed into law on Thursday. This will affect payments to songwriters, royalties and performance copyrights, which she says “Taylor Swift will benefit from.” President Donald Trump attempted to shake it off by not only disagreeing with her assessment of Blackburn, saying she is “doing a great job,” and discrediting her research and knowledge by saying “I’m sure Taylor Swift doesn’t know anything about her,” but also adding that he likes “Taylor’s music about 25% less now.”
Thanks, but we think we’re going to have to agree to disagree on this one. There’s nothing that makes us love a celebrity even more than them stepping up and using their stature and voice for something even more powerful than a Billboard Top 100 hit.