Miss Americana and The Upcoming Election 🇺🇸

I would very much like to be included in this narrative

Hello out there! This is the final part of a four-part series on Taylor Swift as a cultural topic. You can read part one, part two, and part three of the series here. To listen to me read this post instead, become a paid subscriber (for $5 a month or $30 a year) and scroll to the bottom of the post for the audio. Happy listening!

Also, guess what? The Saturday Letter, my personal newsletter, is returning to your inbox soon! Stay tuned x

Speaking…now

It is right before 6am in Greece. We are on the last leg of our honeymoon and I have no business being up, but it’s particularly hot tonight and I can’t sleep. I’ve lied to everyone. I said I was off of Instagram, but what I really meant was: I’m not responding to anything in a timely fashion. I’m drawing boundaries, I decided! And I was drawing boundaries…with everyone except my damn self!

There I was — after watching two straight episodes of Gossip Girl because Girlfriends was not available on Netflix overseas (…) — refreshing my feed yet again during my dawn doom scroll. A mere eight minutes after it was posted, a new post was at the top of my feed. “Lmao,” was my first reaction. Blondie actually did it. She endorsed Kamala Harris for president.

taylorswift

A post shared by @taylorswift

“I will be casting my vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in the 2024 Presidential Election,” Swift said via Instagram. “I’m voting for @kamalaharris because she fights for the rights and causes I believe need a warrior to champion them. I think she is a steady-handed, gifted leader and I believe we can accomplish so much more in this country if we are led by calm and not chaos. I was so heartened and impressed by her selection of running mate @timwalz, who has been standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades.”

Now, not only was I having sleepless hot flashes, but I was having flashbacks to her 2020 debut as a person who cares.

Did we really just bully Taylor Swift into an endorsement? Lmao again!!!

So back?

“My team is not really happy with me right now,” Swift said in her 2020 documentary titled Miss Americana, confessing to her recent decision to disclose her political values. “All I’ve talked about for the last couple of months is the election in Tennessee.”

Speaking up is not always easy, especially depending on your surroundings, and I have to give her credit for how scary it must have been and can be (this, admittedly, pains me to write, because life is far from easy or comfortable many times and often for lots of people who don’t live with a majority identity). Speaking up is not always easy, especially when it threatens someone’s perceived or real sense of power or control over you. Speaking up is not always easy, even when you’re speaking about something as simple as equality — which no longer allows that person to exercise that perceived or real sense of power or control over you.

But what we say matters, and how we say those things seems to matter more than ever. How we say something is a matter of driving someone away, or having a productive conversation. I sense, in her statement, that she doesn’t want to push people away. I sense that she doesn’t want to tell people what to think. So she talks about what she herself wishes for.

This is smart. Her statement focuses on her and her choice. It is authentic; powerful. But then I think about it once more and I can’t seem to decide: Is it clever or cowardly — especially in the face of this particular election?

“If you haven’t already,” she says in the post, “now is a great time to do your research on the issues at hand and the stances these candidates take on the topics that matter to you the most.”

The topics that matter to you the most. When I read it again, this is what I get hung up on. For the first time in many of our lifetimes, life or death is actually on the line for those of us who are: A) at child-bearing age (and can no longer receive life-saving medical procedures in some places when needed), B) not white (history has informed us over and over that hateful rhetoric leads to mass physical violence, civil wars, and international division), and C) who are not straight or cisgender (some can’t comprehend living when they aren’t allowed to be their full selves, and that’s devastating).

The topics that matter to you the most. This little loophole excuses people who are willing to tolerate continual hate speech if it advances their other interests. This specificity in her statement allows intentionally or unintentionally bigoted, supremacist, racist, homophobic, xenophobic — and even lukewarm, neutral views in a dire time — to take root.

“Your research is all yours to do, and the choice is yours to make,” she says later in the statement. This is true. But if that alone is true, then Swift is encouraging you to make any choice as long as it’s established based on the topic that matters to you the most — even if it causes your neighbors anguish. Which is the antithesis, really, to the values in her songs and in her documentary and in this very statement she allegedly promotes…right?

“With love and hope,” she signs it, “Taylor Swift, Childless Cat Lady.” Taylor Swift, my beautiful amazing Problematic Queen, is always missing some shit. And with this, she seems to be missing that we’re actually, kind of, sort of, not just voting for whatever “topics” she’s talking about this election. We’re voting for someone who will or will not decay democracy entirely. It’s actually, kind of, sort of that simple.

Tolerate it.

This kind of “tolerating” is what Taylor Swift is known for and is great at. She has made it clear the past year that she wants to live her life regardless of what we say about her or who she associates with or whatever kind of behavior that person supports or allows.

Take Brittany Mahomes, for example. After becoming serious with NFL player Travis Kelce, Swift befriended Brittany Mahomes, the wife of his teammate and friend Patrick Mahomes. Not long ago, Brittany Mahomes liked a social media post by former president Donald Trump. When internet trolls discovered this and caused a stir, Mahomes disregarded her actions entirely and called them “haters.” When Trump thanked “beautiful Brittany Mahomes” for “so strongly defending me,” Mahomes did not confirm or deny this support. So when Swift was seen hanging out with and embracing Mahomes at the U.S. Open not long after (and with no statement at the time on where the pop star stood as far as the upcoming election following being so vocal about her beliefs and values in the past) you can imagine the many ways in which onlookers were left suspicious — especially when everything Taylor does is by design.

Coexisting with all kinds of people — especially those with different beliefs — is crucial to our survival and can even be a beautiful display of unity. But if you don’t make your values clear when it matters the most, it’s fair to ask: what are you willing to tolerate?

Real values.

A friend Kate recently shared this post with me highlighting a great example of a huge star (that is not a person of color) who displays her values consistently without needing to make any explicit statements.

@maddiemonologuesits good when good things happen! #swift #harristrumpdebate

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“I understand not wanting to talk about politics all of the time,” the user in the video says. “But there’s a way to show your values without saying anything.” She brings up the country singer Dolly Parton. “She definitely plays both sides. She’s primarily a business woman. And she does not make explicit political statements.” But Parton, she says, lets her actions speak for what she does and does not believe in. The user gave the example of attending a show recently where Parton sent a guitar as a gift to a drag queen who testified against drag bans. “I can piece together what I think she believes in.”

Swift has poked her head out here and there when it comes to doing what she said she wanted to do in her 2020 Netflix documentary (“trying to be as educated as possible on how to respect people,” “stand[ing] up for the double standards that exist in our society,” and “tell[ing] you how I feel about politics”). Per the New York Times, in 2023, she encouraged a total of her then 272 million social media followers to register to vote with a link to Vote.org and the site later reported 35,252 new registrations that day. She’s cut her Eras tour crew huge bonus checks. She’s allegedly donated a large amount to food banks at a number of Eras tour cities. She attended Ramy Youssef's fundraising comedy event for a Gaza charity (unclear whether this was known ahead of attending the event). She recently gave $5 million to Feeding America’s Hurricane Milton and Hurricane Helene efforts (ahead of going to Florida for her first tour stop back in the U.S., of course).

All of this is fantastic. But I would be remiss not to point out that while she says she supports “LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body,” all of her efforts — at least the ones that are made public — are as generic and non-offensive as possible. And Ms. Swift does have a track record of what she chooses to be non-offensive about.

Lyrical ethics.

It’s no secret that Swift loves escapism, and, like many Americans, has a fetish for romanticizing the past. In a song off of her latest album, "I Hate It Here," she sings:

"My friends used to play a game where we would pick a decade we wished we could live in instead of this / I'd say the 1830s, but without all the racists and getting married off for the highest bid.”

To casually cheapen the country’s history of racism and sexism, is, um, a bit weird. There was public uproar about the “regressive” lyric, so much that Taylor and her team surely heard about it. But from her? Silence.

This is particularly interesting because one of Taylor’s earlier tracks “Better Than Revenge” from 2010 originally included the lyric: “She’s better known for the things that she does on the mattress / woah.” In an effort to embrace her more feminist values, when re-recording the song for Speak Now (Taylor’s Version), in 2023, she decided to change the lyrics to: “He was a moth to the flame / She was holding the matches / woah.”

When Swift released the music video for “Anti-Hero” from her 2022 album Midnights, it originally showed her weighing herself on a scale that read “fat” where numbers might be. Although Swift has been vocal about previously struggling with disordered eating, and this visual was her well-intentioned way of expressing how she viewed herself at a time when she was unwell, there was an outpouring of distaste over this. One week later, it was removed from the video.

“I'd say the 1830s, but without all the racists and getting married off for the highest bid,” is not necessarily bad. But neither is, “She’s better known for the things that she does on the mattress” (okay, slay) or a scale displaying how you viewed yourself when you were unwell. And only one of these things have yet to change.

“I’m trying to be as educated as possible on how to respect people,” Swift said in her 2020 documentary, Miss Americana. I have a serious question. But are you, though? Sigh. A person can only speak up about so many things, right? 

A mastermind.

As you know by know, I love thinking and talking about the celebrity PR machine. It’s my crossword, my Sudoku, my Wordle. (Nothing, though, can replace the great Supreme: Connections.) It’s a fun mystery to which we’ll never know the inner workings, even though we can try all we want to guess. What are public figures trying to hide or promote, and what does all of it say about what they — and what they think we — view as unlikeable?

The reason Taylor Swift is more analyzed than most female celebrities, perhaps, is because she is now famous for making her every move an intentional statement. From easter eggs in her outfits and her songs to her Instagram photos and captions, she is a self-proclaimed “Mastermind.” This is what makes her so great; so endlessly fascinating. But it is also what makes her every move — knowing they are calculated or intentionally left alone — even more glaring.

Was happily hanging out with alleged Trump supporter Brittany Mahomes Taylor’s Version of an empty, miscalculated Kumbaya statement? Or were her give a fucks just on vacation? Was releasing her presidential endorsement after the debate always her plan? Or did she move up her endorsement to push Beyoncé praising young artists out of the news cycle and combat the noise around her hanging all over Mahomes?

Did she do it because of public pressure? Or all three? Was it done to get back into America’s good graces after a rocky few weeks? And does that take away from the endorsement itself, or not?

More interestingly — is people wanting Taylor Swift’s Endorsement© so badly — and then pushing this “breaking news” narrative that Taylor Swift Has Spoken — absolutely crazy? Is us pining for her endorsement our moral failing? Or hers?

The thesis.

On Tuesday, I went to the Taylor Swift Style: Fashion Through The Eras book signing at the Brooklyn Barnes & Noble, and there was standing room only. I was the only person of color in the room that I recall seeing, other than the author. 

For the first time in a while, as both an adoring and able-to-be-critical fan, I wasn’t as excited about an event or conversation pertaining to Taylor’s cinematic universe as I had been in the past. It had less to with the book (which is entirely fabulous, by the way), and more with Taylor and her, ahem, State of Grace.

I sat in the room as we discussed what Taylor has wore during varying eras; how she has chosen to express herself publicly over time and at different points in her life. We smiled as we talked about her iconic purple Speak Now dress, the symbolism in her updated Taylor’s Version looks (listen, Red [Taylor’s Version] is That Girl), and what all the *plaid* might mean. But it felt like something, overall, was missing in the conversation. Because it was. It always is with Taylor Swift.

Taylor Swift, her brand, and her empire is a masterclass in ambition, in desire, in passion, in talent, and reclamation in so many ways. It is also a microcosm for many intriguing and important modern conversations: freedom, girlhood, sexuality, change, growth, feminism, sexism, race and racism, religion. While she — or we? — may have dubbed her as “Miss Americana,” (or could it have just been a name in contrast to her previously British romances?) Taylor doesn’t fully represent America. But if she does, there is one thing about it that she specifically represents: choice. 

Just like the folks she criticizes, and just like you and me, what she chooses to say or not say or sOrT oF say is part of the track she lays. And the ambivalence can be quite loud to those who like to listen to each note.

We don’t all — or always — need to speak now. But whether and when we do or do not: that is the song we sing, the melody that soothes or stings, the music that we leave behind. 

So Taylor Swift can’t help but see the world — her upbringing, her access, her level of fame, her lack of privacy, her experiences, the ageist and sexist and unfair criticism she’s received — through her lens. And much like Taylor Swift, as it turns out, I can’t remove my lived experiences from my own input on the discourse and my every day life. And, just like Taylor teaches us: my experiences — our experiences —matter, too.

What Taylor Swift has taught me — and continues to teach me — is that many ideas, truths, opinions, and perspectives can co-exist in, about, and around one thing. Sometimes there’s harmony. Sometimes there’s dissonance. But by the end, you get the fullest and most robust experience when you listen to all the voices; to every part of the song.

With love and hope,
Mia Brabham Nolan
Catless Child Lady

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Thanks for reading In Deep with Mia Brabham Nolan! Subscribe to receive all new posts, or become a paid subscriber to help support my time and work (and pay my incredible editor, Rebecca). All silly little opinions are my own.

I also want to thank you for letting this series take as long as it needed to, and for following along until the end (if you did, leave a comment letting me know!). It was so thrilling to write, and has made me feel more alive as a creative than I have in a very long time. I’m extremely grateful for this space.

Now, I promise I’m going to talk about things other than Taylor Swift, America, and pop stars! (Like the Netflix doc that has me spinning, the one reality show I never stop thinking about, and secret content for paid subscribers that’s too juicy, too bold, and too forward to be hanging out in Public public…)

So, leave a comment! What role, if any, do you think Taylor Swift or any other celebrities will/can play in the rest of the election cycle? What do you want to dive into next? Thanks again. I’ve had a marvelous time ruining everything <3