David Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
Superstars voicing their opinion on social and political issues is nothing new in America.
Movie and music stars have always had an enormous influence on politics, including Edward G. Robinson, Ronald Reagan, Harry Belafonte, Jane Fonda, Charlton Heston, Warren Beatty, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Barbra Streisand, Beyoncé, and Lady Gaga. They have all entered the political fray from both the left and the right.
In more recent times, Kanye West joined the fray when he entered the White House wearing a “Make America Great Again” hat and Billie Eilish, at the age of only 18, debuted the first live performance of her single “My Future” at the Democratic national convention in 2020. After the shooting of Jacob Blake in 2020, NBA stars LeBron James and Jamal Murray, as well as many other NBA players, expressed their support for social justice by sitting out a playoff game against the Orlando Magic. Their path was influenced by Colin Kaepernick, who knelt to honor Black lives and became an NFL pariah.
Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez joined protesters in Los Angeles in June of 2020 in a demonstration against racism and police brutality. In 2021, Barbra Streisand, a lifelong activist, criticized Republican efforts to introduce new voting restrictions as GOP legislators throughout the country proposed bills to tighten election regulations.
Whether celebrity political activism does more harm than good is a subject of much debate, yet in this age of social media the ease of harnessing one’s stardom has increased dramatically. Where in past eras, stars needed movie studios and record labels, many artists own their music and have direct access to their fans. So, today there should be little surprise that Taylor Swift, the biggest star of them all, is entering the political arena and garnering both praise and criticism for doing so.
The number of Taylor Swift fans is staggering. According to a 2023 survey by Morning Consult, in the U.S., 53% of adults said they were fans of Swift, of whom 44% identified as “Swifties” and 16% as her "avid" fans. Of the fans, 52% were women while 48% were men. As of August 12, 2023, the current population of the USA is 339,996,563, and Swift had nearly 519 million followers on all her social media platforms, reaching an international fan base. Her impact when she chooses to voice her opinions should not be underestimated by anyone.
As with the superstars of previous generations, many of Swift's positions do not sit well with those opposing her views. However, raging a war against her could backfire given the loyalty of her supporters. After Taylor Swift supported the democrat candidate for the Senate in 2018 running again Republican Senator Marsha Blackburn (who won), then president Donald Trump dissed Swift by saying, “I'm sure Taylor Swift doesn't know anything about her,” (Blackburn) and then added, with a laugh: “Let's say that I like Taylor's music about 25% less now, OK?”
In commenting on her interest in politics Swift says, “In the past I’ve 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.” She went on to say, “It’s not enough to just want change…you have to go and make change by voting.“
In an interview with The Guardian, Swift explained more fully about her politics, mentioning Trump’s presidency specifically, which she said is an “autocracy.” “We’re a democracy — at least, we’re supposed to be — where you’re allowed to disagree, dissent, debate.”
While most of Swift's music stays away from politics there are exceptions. Her 2019 hit song, “You Need to Calm Down“ unambiguously takes an equality-first stance as she criticizes haters and homophobes, and ends with a powerful statement to support a Senate petition in favor of the Equality Act which would protect all people from discrimination.
Released in January of 2020, “Only The Young” is considered a protest song by many as she includes topics such as school shootings, Donald Trump and voter tampering in her lyrics.
“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,” Ms. Swift added that “I cannot vote for someone who will not be willing to fight for dignity for ALL Americans, no matter their skin color, gender or who they love.”
The extent of her influence was evident in September when Swift posted a short message on Instagram encouraging her 272 million followers to register to vote. Afterward, the website she directed her fans to — the nonpartisan nonprofit Vote.org — recorded more than 35,000 registrations, according to the organization.
Whether Taylor Swift chooses to dive deeper into the political fray or not remains to be seen. Some of her fans believe she has a duty to speak out and some think she should just stick to music and dance. Given that she was once apolitical and now she is speaking out, the path seems predictable. Of course no one knows for certain where the life journey of Taylor Swift will lead.
One thing that is certain, no matter her choice, she is exercising her freedom of speech and everyone else will have opinions about her views. That’s the American way.
image of U.S. President Donald Trump is displayed on a digital billboard in Times Square in New York on April 8, 2026.
Trump is stuck between two realities. Neither serves the American people
Normally, I worry that events may overtake a column. But not so with the Iran war.
I don’t worry about running afoul of a headline or Truth Social post from the president because what is said about the situation is no longer very relevant to the reality.
On April 8, Nick Catoggio, my Dispatch colleague, dubbed an earlier stoppage with Iran “Schrödinger’s ceasefire.” This was a reference to the famous thought experiment by the physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who was trying to explain the weirdness of “superpositionality” in quantum physics. A cat in a box is both dead and alive at the same time until you open the box. Schrödinger meant to illustrate the absurdity of the idea that particles aren’t any one thing, but a “cloud of probabilities.”
The Trump administration is stuck in a word cloud of probabilities of his own making. The war is over. The war is on. The war isn’t a war. We have a deal, but we don’t have a deal, but we’re about to have a deal. We destroyed Iran’s military. No, we left it intact. We want regime change. No we don’t. We already accomplished it. We “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program a year ago. We had to go to war in February to prevent nuclear war. The Strait of Hormuz is open, closed, or something in-between. No deal without “unconditional surrender.” Let’s make a deal!
This everything-all-at-once vibe can be disorienting, particularly since most Americans didn’t have a war with Iran on their bingo cards until the shooting had already started. President Trump didn’t prepare the country or consult with Congress beforehand because he thought it would all be a smashing success in a matter of weeks.
The miscalculation that started it all: killing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and much of Iran’s senior leadership, on the first day of the war. To “the great proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand,” Trump announced on Feb. 28. “When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations.”
I support regime change in Iran and shed no tears for Khamenei or his goons. But when you start a war by killing the regime’s top leaders, it’s not unreasonable for the remaining ones to conclude that you really intend regime change.
Khamenei was a murderous fanatic, but he was a fairly cautious one. He liked to threaten closing the Strait of Hormuz or attacking our regional allies, but he was reluctant to actually do it, fearing it would invite a regime change war. The mullahs and IRGC goons believed, not unreasonably, that if they lost their grip on power, they’d be lynched by the Iranian people they’ve brutalized for decades.
By starting with a regime change war, Trump removed any reason for the regime not to go for broke. When you have nothing to lose — particularly when you are a millenarian religious fanatic — a Persian Alamo strategy makes a lot of sense.
So Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and attacked its neighbors.
But it turns out this wasn’t the Alamo. In the contest of wills, Trump blinked. The Iranian regime’s tolerance for punishment proved — so far — to be greater than Trump’s and that of our gulf allies. Militarily we could finish the job, but that would require ground troops and much greater economic turmoil. In a conflict Trump launched unilaterally without the prior support of Congress, NATO or the American people, Trump doesn’t have the political capital for that.
But that’s only half the problem. Trump wants the war over, but he doesn’t want to pay — militarily, economically, politically — what that would cost. So he wants to make a deal that ends it. But there is no deal available that wouldn’t come at an equally undesirable cost. Any deal that looks like what President Obama struck with the Iranians would be too embarrassing to bear. But the Iranians are convinced that they can get just such a deal, and they’re willing to drag things out as long as it takes.
The result: Trump’s in a box of his own making. He thinks he can talk his way out by simply asserting a reality that doesn’t exist. When the financial markets get nervous, he announces a breakthrough that is, at best, a possibility. When the Iranians agree to a deal that looks similar to one Obama might negotiate, Trump goes back to his threats.
It can’t go on forever. But I’m sure it’ll last until long after this column is forgotten.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.