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Taylor Swift urges a new generation to get engaged in ‘Only the Young’

Taylor Swift - Only The Young (Featured in Miss Americana / Lyric Video)

Taylor Swift used to prefer not to speak of her political ideas. In 2012 she made that clear. "I don't talk about politics because it might influence other people," she told Time. "And I don't think that I know enough yet in life to be telling people who to vote for."

The first sign of a change happened in the fall of 2018 when rumors circulated that she was a big fan of MAGA and President Donald Trump. Shortly thereafter she put an end to that rumor and entered the political fray with an Instagram post calling out Sen. Marsha Blackburn from her home state of Tennessee for having voted against the Violence Against Women Act as well as LGBTQ-friendly bills:


"I can't see another commercial [with] her disguising these policies behind the words 'Tennessee Christian values.' I live in Tennessee. I am Christian. That's not what we stand for."

She went on to say "I need to be on the right side of history."

In 2020, at the age of 30 her hit song "Only The Young" portends a new desire to speak out on the issues most important to her as she urges young people to get involved and calls out to them with passion about her concern for the escalating gun violence in America:

So every day now
You brace for the sound
You've only heard on TV
You go to class, scared
Wondering where the best hiding spot would be
And the big bad man and his big bad clan
Their hands are stained with red
Oh, how quickly, they forget."
The strengthening and perhaps even the survival of our democratic republic depends on young people. They are our future. Yet in 2024 it is quite possible that we will have two men in their late 70s running for president of the United States.
Taylor Swift sings out unequivocally to the young in "Only The Young":
"Don't say you're too tired to fight
It's just a matter of time (can run)
Up there's the finish line
So run, and run, and run.

At a time when many suggest that young people are politically apathetic, "Only The Young" is a powerful message that our democracy so badly needs.

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Iguanas on the Tombstones: A Poet's Metaphor for Colonialism​
Photo illustration by Yunuen Bonaparte for palabra

Iguanas on the Tombstones: A Poet's Metaphor for Colonialism​

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(Photo by Eloisa Sanchez/Getty Images)

Does One Battle After Another Speak to Latino Resistance?

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There are moments in a nation’s cultural life that feel, at first, like passing storms—brief, noisy, and soon forgotten. But every so often, what begins as a squall reveals itself as a warning: a sign that something far bigger is at stake. The initial cancellation of Jimmy Kimmel by Disney, along with the coordinated blackout from network affiliates like Nexstar and Sinclair, is one of those moments. It’s not merely another skirmish in the endless culture wars. Actually, it is a test of whether we, as a society, can distinguish between the discomfort of being challenged and the danger of being silenced.

The irony is rich, almost to the point of being absurd. Here is a late-night comedian, a man whose job is to puncture the pompous and needle the powerful, finding himself at the center of a controversy. A controversy bigger than anything he’d ever lampooned. Satire that, depending on your perspective, was either too pointed or simply pointed in the wrong direction. Yet, that was not the ostensible reason.

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From Woodstock to Super Bowl: Bad Bunny and the Legacy of Musical Protest

As Bad Bunny prepares to take the Super Bowl stage in February 2026—and grassroots rallies in his honor unfold across U.S. cities this October—we are witnessing a cultural moment that echoes the artist-led protests of the 1960s and 70s. His decision to exclude U.S. tour dates over fears of ICE raids is generating considerable anger amongst his following, as well as support from MAGA supporters. The Trump administration views his lyrics and his fashion as threats. As the story unfolds, it is increasingly becoming a political narrative rather than just entertainment news.

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