8 October 2018

The alt-right are devastated that Taylor Swift endorsed a Democrat

“They took her from us and turned her into one of their brain dead zombies.”

The notorious alt-right chat forum, 4chan, is beside itself with grief at the news that popstar Taylor Swift has officially endorsed a Democrat.

Swift broke her silence on party politics last night in a lengthy Instagram post, in which she announced that she would be voting for two Democrats in Tennessee in the upcoming American mid-term elections. “In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions,” she wrote before going on to condemn Republican candidate for Senate, Marsha Blackburn, “but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now.” The singer has previously remained almost silent on politics, to the extent she has been the subject of widespread criticism for not publicly denouncing the views of the far-right (especially Donald Trump), for not coming out in support of Democratic candidates, and remaining neutral during political elections for her entire career.

And the bros on 4chan are devastated at the change.

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I’m writing this post about the upcoming midterm elections on November 6th, in which I’ll be voting in the state of Tennessee. In the past I’ve been reluctant to publicly voice my political opinions, but due to several events in my life and in the world in the past two years, I feel very differently about that now. I always have and always will cast my vote based on which candidate will protect and fight for the human rights I believe we all deserve in this country. I believe in the fight for LGBTQ rights, and that any form of discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender is WRONG. I believe that the systemic racism we still see in this country towards people of color is terrifying, sickening and prevalent. I cannot vote for someone who will not be willing to fight for dignity for ALL Americans, no matter their skin color, gender or who they love. Running for Senate in the state of Tennessee is a woman named Marsha Blackburn. As much as I have in the past and would like to continue voting for women in office, I cannot support Marsha Blackburn. Her voting record in Congress appalls and terrifies me. She voted against equal pay for women. She voted against the Reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, which attempts to protect women from domestic violence, stalking, and date rape. She believes businesses have a right to refuse service to gay couples. She also believes they should not have the right to marry. These are not MY Tennessee values. I will be voting for Phil Bredesen for Senate and Jim Cooper for House of Representatives. Please, please educate yourself on the candidates running in your state and vote based on who most closely represents your values. For a lot of us, we may never find a candidate or party with whom we agree 100% on every issue, but we have to vote anyway. So many intelligent, thoughtful, self-possessed people have turned 18 in the past two years and now have the right and privilege to make their vote count. But first you need to register, which is quick and easy to do. October 9th is the LAST DAY to register to vote in the state of TN. Go to vote.org and you can find all the info. Happy Voting!

A post shared by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift) on Oct 7, 2018 at 4:33pm PDT

“Goodbye Tay”, “They took her from us”, “She was supposed to be our girl! Why did she break our hearts” are just a few of the hundreds of posts that have poured in over the last 12 hours from hard-right, alt-right, and neo-Nazi 4chan users stunned by the loss of their Aryan poster girl. Users are so shocked that many are hypothesising that she was paid to do this and her statement was ghost written, parsing out the message to argue that it linguistically didn’t match her usual style. “Ever notice how every celebrity seems to be reciting the exact same script,” one user posited. “That looks ghostwritten.” “All PR nonsense,” wrote another, “She just doesn’t want to be labelled as a white nationalist. Probably got paid to say all this.”

It’s a rough day for 4chan Nazis who had convinced themselves Taylor Swift is secretly a huge racist Trumper pic.twitter.com/FtEL8I8iLI

— PeterNorway (@classiclib3ral) October 8, 2018

nazis on 4chan starting to suggest that someone wrote Taylor Swift’s endorsement for her pic.twitter.com/mBfcklt3Ao

— John Whitehouse (@existentialfish) October 8, 2018

Taylor Swift has been an alt-right icon since her first record dropped; her blonde hair and blue eyes made her a magnet for neo-Nazi fandom. Her legal team has had to legally request bloggers to stop sharing her pictures and lyrics alongside Hitler quotes. She was also the inspiration of the now disappeared “Taylor Swift for a Fascist Europe” meme page (which accrued 20K likes), and her picture is plastered all over online Aryan fan boards on sites like Reddit. In a Broadly piece from 2016 entitled “How Taylor Swift Became A Nazi Idol”, Mitchell Sunderland wrote, “Every demographic chooses a pop icon. Gay men worship Cher, black women love Beyoncé, and neo-Nazis worship Taylor Swift.” The piece goes on to speak to a writer of the The Daily Stormer blog, Andrew Anglin, who explains who Swift is a “pure Aryan goddess” and “Athena reborn” and argues that Taylor Swift was secretly a Nazi, but was just waiting for Donald Trump to be elected to say so.

While many of Swift’s fans will be rejoicing after this news, there’s one sub-section now in full mourning. Now the alt-right will have to take time to refill the spot in their white arsenal after the fall of their original “Aryan princess”.