It was the embrace that launched a thousand tweets: on Sunday, Taylor Swift hugged Brittany Mahomes – the wife of NFL quarterback Patrick Mahomes – at the US Open. A photo of the hug immediately had tongues wagging.
If you’re not Extremely Online, the only thing that might stand out from the innocuous-seeming hug photo is that Swift’s boyfriend, Travis Kelce (also in the photo) has horrendous taste in hats. The broader context, however, is Mahomes’s link to Donald Trump. Last week the former president thanked Mahomes for “strongly defending me” after she liked one of his Instagram posts back in August. That post, titled “The 2024 GOP Platform”, outlined what a second Trump term would consist of – things such as “the largest deportation operation in American history”. Mahomes did not appreciate people criticising her for liking the post (which she seems to have later unliked), calling them “haters” with “deep-rooted issues … from childhood”.
This drama matters because Swift is one of the most influential people on the planet. There has been intense speculation about whether the pop star will endorse a presidential candidate this election cycle. In the absence of any such endorsement, people have been scrutinising her actions for clues about her political leanings. Hugging Mahomes after her Trump controversy? Well, that’s been taken by some as a sign that Taylor is Team Trump.
The Mahomes hug isn’t the only evidence people are citing to suggest Swift, who endorsed Democratic candidates in 2018 and Joe Biden in 2020, might be leaning to the right now. There’s also the fact she was tight-lipped when Trump recently shared a bunch of AI-generated images on his Truth Social platform that implied Swift and her fans were endorsing him. “The Swifties for Trump movement is real!” the post, originally created by a murky rightwing non-profit, read. “I accept!” Trump wrote above the fake photos.
A presidential candidate using your image without your consent to claim you support his racist and regressive views is a big deal. If you think his views are abhorrent, you’d want to publicly distance yourself from him, right? There are scores of famous musicians, from Céline Dion to Beyoncé, who have made it very public that they don’t want Trump using their music at rallies. “Don’t even think about using my music, you fascists,” Jack White said last month, after a Trump aide used a White Stripes song in an online video. White added that he would sue the Trump campaign. If you’re angry a man like Trump is associating himself with you, then that’s how you act. Meanwhile, various media outlets reported that Swift’s “spokesperson did not return multiple messages seeking comment” after Trump posted the fake endorsement photos.
To be clear: I don’t think Swift is a secret Trump supporter. She’s been critical of him in the past, after all. But it can’t be stressed enough that Swift isn’t a billionaire just because she sings catchy songs. She’s a billionaire because she is a brilliant businesswoman who exerts meticulous control over her personal brand. Everything she does is intentional, done with the knowledge that her fanbase will scrutinise and attempt to decode even the most banal action like it’s the Rosetta Stone. One imagines the reason her spokesperson didn’t comment about the fake Trump photos wasn’t that they were too busy, it was that they’d decided silence was the savviest choice.
Swift may have endorsed Biden-Harris in 2020, but that was a very different time. After the George Floyd protests, “Brands, which often remain silent when it comes to social justice issues, began speaking out,” a 2021 AdAge article noted. They did so because they knew that being in tune with the zeitgeist was good for their business. Now companies are being targeted by the right with boycotts and harassment if they align with progressive causes. That bullying has worked: industry experts have warned of a worrying trend of brands taking significant steps back from diversity and sustainability initiatives. Swift is one of the biggest brands there is; it’s only natural she’s shying away from politics.
That said, I hope Swift proves me wrong and speaks up this election cycle. We live in a world where everything is political. Swift isn’t avoiding politics by staying quiet: her silence speaks louder than words.
• Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
