The post was sandwiched between a screed about capital-gains taxes and a video clip from a Donald Trump rally. Four words, all-caps: “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!”
Haters gonna hate (hate, hate, hate, hate), Taylor Swift has observed, and the claim has been validated, now, by an expert. Yesterday morning, Trump made his current feelings about Swift known on Truth Social—an extremely belated reaction, it would seem, to the pop star’s endorsement of Kamala Harris, issued last Tuesday evening. While “I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!” was not a proportional response, it was a revealing one—because Trump’s anger did not come out of nowhere. It came, instead, from the same place so many of his declarations of hatred do: indignation.
And so, as his fellow Americans were going about their Sundays, he took his revenge. He hates Taylor Swift now, the former president would like you to know. He hates her in all caps. He hates her with an exclamation point.
Swift’s endorsement of Harris might have been unexpected, but it was not, strictly, a surprise. She has made no secret of her political leanings; she has, in fact, starred in a documentary whose entire premise was her unwillingness to keep her political leanings to herself. In the past, Swift has made her feelings known through direct endorsements—of the Tennessee congressional candidates Phil Bredesen and Jim Cooper in 2018, of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in 2020—and through blunt commentary. Trump “thinks this is an autocracy,” she said in 2019. Trump spent his presidency “stoking the fires of white supremacy and racism,” she said in 2020. She has criticized his attempts to “subvert and destroy our right to vote and vote safely.” In August 2020, Swift said that Trump had “chosen to blatantly cheat and put millions of Americans’ lives at risk in an effort to hold on to power.”
