Bill Lueders noted that intellectually and morally diminished right-wing sycophant Ben Shapiro addressed, in 2016, the criticism that refusing to vote for Trump “might lead to a Hillary Clinton win, saying that outcome would be better than ‘diluting conservatism into the vacillating, demagogic absurdity of Trumpism’ and turning it into ‘the crypto-racist, pseudo-strong, quasi-tyrannical, toxic brew leftists have always accused it of being.’ Shapiro beat his chest and thundered: ‘I will not be complicit in that. I stand against the establishment that sowed the seeds of Trumpism. I stand against the Republican Party that insists that victory matters more than principle, because victory without principle isn’t just meaningless, it’s counterproductive to my belief system.” He has since come around and endorsed Trump all 3 times he ran. Lueders called that an example of a “Broken Moral Compass Syndrome” and predicted we will soon be watching the exact phenomenon in Nikki Haley and Mike Pence.
It’s part of what Tom Nichols referred to as The GOP’s Ongoing Moral Surrender to Trump, asserting that “The elected officials who quietly defend Donald Trump’s immorality even though they know better are just as bad as the comically devoted Trump courtiers.
In reality, he wrote, most Republican senators “seem to care only about whatever Trump wants at any given moment, and what Trump wants is to take refuge in the Oval Office from his multiple legal problems… For years, Trump has attacked and obliterated anything like virtue in the Republican Party, a process that regularly features Republicans pulling their political souls from their bodies and handing them to Trump in jars for display on his mantle at Mar-a-Lago. (Ted Cruz going from the potential conscience of the 2016 GOP convention to a Trump-praising, phone-banking flunky is only one such example.) But some of the less noticed enablers in the GOP are those who remain quiet in the face of Trump’s ghoulish attacks on others rather than risk Trump turning his ire— and his MAGA mob— on them. When challenged, they speak up only long enough to make excuses for Trump and engage in moral obfuscation over issues that they must certainly know are not remotely complicated, such as whether the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party should defame a woman he’s been found liable for sexually abusing.”
They’re afraid of him— afraid for their diminished careers. And for them there’s a greater good than breaking with Trump: ensuring “that Republicans can keep living in Washington, D.C., and exercising power on behalf of a shrinking political minority. Republicans might phrase this differently: The party’s overall position is that the Democrats are so awful, and so dangerous to the nation, that the ends will now always justify the means. Rather than oppose or even criticize Trump, they retreat into the fog of ‘supporting the nominee’ and saving the country from Biden and the left-wing deep-state cabal that supposedly controls him. A tiny handful of elected Republicans have said that they will not vote for Trump. (They won’t vote for Biden either, of course, and if Trump wins— well, such is the price of saving the republic while keeping one’s hands clean.)”
Reporting yesterday for Rolling Stone, Nikki McCann Ramirez wrote about the deranged right-wingers who are claiming that the Super Bowl is rigged so Taylor Swift can endorse Biden. Some even say Swift will replace Biden! “For months now,” she wrote, “the digital fever swamps have been fuming over everything and anything Swift-related. Her popularity, the success of the Eras Tour, her relationship, her appearances at NFL games, and especially her politics. The Chiefs won the AFC championship on Sunday, punching the team’s (and potentially Swift’s) ticket to the Super Bowl in February. In response, long-standing conspiracy theories around the NFL’s “scriptwriting” for football seasons clashed with right-wing conspiracy theorists claiming Swift’s involvement with Kelce is part of a deep state plot to gin up support for President Joe Biden in the 2024 election. The result is as ugly as it is stupid.”
Former presidential candidate and MAGA blowhard Vivek Ramaswamy tweeted on Monday that he wondered “who’s going to win the Super Bowl next month,” adding, “I wonder if there’s a major presidential endorsement coming from an artificially culturally propped-up couple this fall. Just some wild speculation over here, let’s see how it ages over the next 8 months.”
Ramaswamy was responding to a tweet from Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec suggesting a suspicious shift in Swift’s political leanings over the past several years.
Posobiec and Ramaswamy weren’t the only right-wingers to suggest Swift is part of a left-wing conspiracy. Trump sycophant Laura Loomer wrote on X that “the Democrats’ Taylor Swift election interference psyop is happening in the open… They are going to use Taylor Swift as the poster child for their pro-abortion GOTV Campaign.”
Loomer also described an interaction between Swift and former Dallas Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo that was caught on camera as “staged propaganda” aimed that boosting TV ratings. Swift has not yet announced if she’ll attend the Super Bowl— as she has a concert in Tokyo, Japan the night before— but Loomer suggested in another post that Swift would be seated next to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom at the game. “Just in time for 2024,” Loomer wrote.
Far-right influencer Rogan O’Handley went so far as to suggest that if the Chiefs won the Super Bowl, Swift and Kelce would trigger an apocalyptic chain of events that would kill millions. “You MUST defeat the Chiefs,” O’Handley wrote in an X post addressed to the San Francisco 49ers. “If you don’t, Mr. Pfizer and his girlfriend are going to tour the country as ‘world champions’ helping elect Joe Biden WW3 will likely follow in a 2nd Biden term and millions will die. The fate of the free world rests upon your shoulders.”
“Mr. Pfizer” references past right-wing attacks against Kelce over his promotion of the Covid-19 vaccine.
Failed GOP candidate Jack Lombardi II wrote on X that he has “never been more convinced that the Super Bowl is rigged. With all the unneeded and unwanted Taylor coverage at the games. KC’s journey to the Superbowl– totally scripted … KC wins. And then later [they announce] their support for Biden. Coincidental? No. Bought and paid for couple. SMH.”
“Taylor Swift is nothing more than a controlled influencer who has been put to work by those who seek to destroy America,” Lombardi added in a separate post. “She is a very talented operative working for the same group responsible for the timely and coincidental covid-19.”
Podcast host Mike Crispi raged that “The NFL is totally RIGGED for the Kansas City Chiefs, Taylor Swift, Mr. Pfizer (Travis Kelce). All to spread DEMOCRAT PROPAGANDA,” he wrote.
“Calling it now: KC wins, goes to Super Bowl, Swift comes out at the halftime show and ‘endorses’ Joe Biden with Kelce at midfield.” Crispi added.
Republican Georgia politician Kandiss Taylor wrote that she “tried to warn yall back in October that the influence of [Taylor Swift] on our youth with witchcraft was demonic, evil, and Luciferian.”
“Of course, Satan wants to use her now to elect Joe back into the White House to destroy what’s left of America,” Taylor added.
The right-wing troll accounts “End Wokeness” and conservative commentator Benny Johnson freaked out over an image of a magazine stand at a Barnes & Noble that had been stocked exclusively with Taylor Swift covers.
“What’s happening with Taylor Swift is not organic and natural. It’s an op. We all feel it. We all know it,” End Wokeness wrote.
Johnson echoed the sentiment, writing that “Taylor Swift is an op. It’s all fake. You’re being played.”
One must really stretch the depths of credulity to convince oneself that Swift’s success isn’t a result of her record-breaking songs, albums, tours, movies, and a career that has redefined the music industry, but rather a government psyop that forced her to date an NFL star and take up entertainment as a career.
It’s incredibly idiotic, but then again the online right-wing worldview has chosen bizarre conspiracies as their default setting for any event that captures the public interest. Taylor Swift is simply caught in their crosshairs.
Do you know what the “G” stands for in GOP? It’s been around since the 1870s and became really accepted as the Republican Party’s moniker in 1888 when the Chicago Tribune used it to describe Benjamin Harrison’s party as he went on to beat incumbent Grover Cleveland, serve one extremely mediocre terms as president and then lose to Cleveland in 1892, making Cleveland the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms as president. Maybe the "G" should stand for "Grandiose" instead of "Grand" going forward.
