Member Since: 5/27/2016
Posts: 2,324
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"Taylor won't speak out because it doesn't benefit her"
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While many other celebrities, including her close friend Lena Dunham, came out in support of one candidate or another — though mostly Hillary Clinton — Swift remained decidedly neutral. She never once acknowledged the election, or even so much as reminded her almost 82 million Twitter followers, 93 million Instagram followers, or 75 million Facebook fans to vote.
Until today — Election Day.
After months of silence, Swift posted a picture of her standing in line to vote with a simple message: “Today is the day. Go out and VOTE.”
With all due respect to my Vox Media colleagues at Racked, the idea that this picture is an endorsement of Hillary Clinton because Swift is wearing a shoulderless sweater like Clinton did once is about as thin as the sweater itself. This is, as with most things Taylor Swift, a carefully crafted image of neutrality.
This is not the Hillary Clinton endorsement nor the damning Trump critique that some wanted from her — or even expected, given the fact that many of her celebrity lady squad members, like Dunham, have been vocally supporting Clinton for months. The only thing it tells us is that Swift is indeed aware that the election is happening, after avoiding expressing any and all political inclinations in 2016.
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But her absolute silence on anything politics-related, in an election that saw a higher than usual number of celebrities, public figures, magazines, and even TV shows endorsing — or at the very least discussing — the candidates, is extraordinary.
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She is meticulous about managing her public persona in a way that makes her both nonthreatening and appealing to as wide a cross-section of fans as possible. Though she was born in Pennsylvania, she found her footing in Nashville and country music 10 years ago, and has since crossed over to straight pop — and exponentially multiplied her empire without isolating her original fan base.
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That didn’t happen by accident; it happened because Swift made sure not to piss off fans by expressing anything resembling a radical opinion. Neutrality is her safest option; some people who find her silence disappointing might be fans, but more will be people who never counted themselves as such.
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Sorry, fans. Taylor Swift is never, ever, ever going to tell you whom she’s voting for, because speaking up is never, ever, ever going to benefit Taylor Swift.
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http://www.vox.com/culture/2016/11/8...trump-election
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