After the Bell: Did Taylor Swift just decide an election?

I wish I could say I was a devoted Swiftie, but sadly I can’t. But then again, I’m not her target audience – too old, too male, too entrenched in different functions of the art form. Yet, as a devoted music appreciator (if that doesn’t sound too pompous) it’s impossible to be blind to her spectacular talent. 

And it’s not just her dexterous abilities as a musician or her wonderful way of weaving delicate song narratives into catchy tunes. The thing is, she is the whole package: beautiful, strong-willed, energetic, ambitious, thoughtful, principled, and consistently well-judged. She is a marketer’s dream.

In the history of popular music, we have rarely seen the likes of this before – someone who is so definitively of their time.

In some ways, her only real competition is The Beatles, who ushered in the flower-power revolution with its sweeping changes in attitudes to gender, race, identity, sexual freedom and more. By contrast, Swift is complicit with the world with all its arguments, righteous but not revolutionary, experimental but not mutinous.

When I listen to Swift’s songs, I often wonder, are interpersonal relationships really the only thing worth writing songs about? And can they only be presented, as glorious and varied as they are, in mid-tempo, 4/4 time, in four verses, a chorus and a bridge? Obviously, there is lots of variety and styles and topics that I’m caricaturing here, but generally speaking, in the modern world the answer to that is “no”. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and, OMG, how people are eating.

The Tortured Poets Department album went straight to the top of the Billboard 200 albums chart, securing Swift her 14th chart-topping album. She ties Jay-Z for the most No. 1s among soloists in the 70-year history of the chart.

She has broken about a gazillion other records, too. She is just a tour de force.

Outside of her obvious talent as a songwriter, why is she so successful? Music professor Samuel Murray once explained that her songs use melodrama as a narrative device to celebrate emotional vulnerability as she shares her innermost thoughts. The whole process creates an associative bond which generates this ongoing, intimate relationship with listeners and fans. They may be strangers but they don’t feel like strangers because they are invited into an inner circle of their own imaginings. How else do you explain not just the support, but the devotion?

So that’s all interesting, but what does it mean now that she has endorsed a presidential candidate in this race? I think the effect is going to be bigger than people imagine. If you think about how crucial celebrity endorsements are for high-value products; how successfully they are utilised, and how jealously they are defended, there is more here than meets the eye. 

Swift said in her Instagram post (obvs) that after seeing the debate with Trump, she would be voting for Harris whom she considered a “steady-handed, gifted leader”, adding “... I believe we can achieve so much more in this country if we are led by calm not chaos”. And you can detect a life of songwriting in that zippy, concise, alliterative phrase. Followed up of course with a joke – a picture of her with her cat, signed, “Childless, cat lady”. The photograph is gorgeous, natch, and not just the cat.

Personally, I’m absolutely with Swift: I find Trump gargantuously appalling for all the completely obvious reasons. Perhaps, unlike Swift, I worry whether Trump is permanently destroying the Republican brand. People may forget that this is the party of Lincoln; the party that took the country to war to end slavery, and arguably the party that cemented American economic prowess. There is a reason why the US has 4% of the world’s population and 25% of the global economy.

But you know, for all of us caught up in this melodrama, it’s worth remembering that politics is not America, just as politics is not South Africa. It’s what we, the outsiders, get to see. The facts are that over the past century, economic growth in the US has happened almost equally under Democratic and Republican governments; more recently perhaps a bit more under the Democrats.  

Until I visited the US, I always thought the country owed much of its prowess to its heritage as a creation of the Enlightenment with largely, at that stage, a multi-European identity. This is a stereotype, but for illustrative purposes, you could say it has a German industrial heritage, a French political heritage and a British commercial heritage.  But then you go there and it’s different. The self-confidence and outgoing character of the people are wonderful; the rampant individualism, and the widespread business suss, are all built on materialism and a sense of ever-expanding progress. It’s intoxicating. And nothing of this is new: Alexis de Tocqueville recognised all this a century ago.

It would be so sad if Trump undermined all of this in an orgy of bitter, vituperative self-loathing. Make America Great Again. I mean, FFS, it has problems but it's pretty great now. Burger flippers are getting paid more than journalists in SA; it’s no wonder so many people are clamouring to get in. 

So, you know, when all is said and done, as they say in the modern parlance: Taylor – you go, girl. DM