Is Joe Biden going to be reelected in November? Obviously, at this point, nobody knows. But should the president go on to win another term, a not-insignificant number of Americans will believe there was one reason and one reason alone for the victory: a secret government plot involving—you guessed it—Taylor Swift.
A Monmouth University poll released on Wednesday shows that a disturbing percentage of Americans—18%—believe “a covert government effort for Taylor Swift to help Joe Biden win the presidential election actually exists.” Eighteen percent! Sure, 73% don’t think this secret effort exists (and 9% answered “don’t know”). But 18% is much higher than you’d expect for a sane society, which, based on the results of this poll, is something we clearly do not live in. “The supposed Taylor Swift psyop conspiracy has legs among a decent number of Trump supporters. Even many who hadn’t heard about it before we polled them accept the idea as credible. Welcome to the 2024 election,” Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, said Wednesday. On that note, in case you were wondering:
Unhinged conspiracy theories involving Swift and the 2024 election began circulating earlier this year, with one Fox News host notably declaring, “Around four years ago, the Pentagon’s psychological operations unit floated turning Taylor Swift into an asset during a NATO meeting.” In the run-up to the Super Bowl, right-wing conservatives claimed that, as part of the government plot, the game would be rigged in favor of the Kansas City Chiefs. Apparently not worried about adding fuel to the forest fire of crazy, the Biden campaign posted this on Sunday night after the Chiefs won:
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This story originally appeared in Vanity Fair.
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