It wasn’t long after Vice President Kamala Harris dominated Donald Trump in their debate when the Democratic nominee received some additional good news: Pop star Taylor Swift issued a written statement endorsing her 2024 candidacy.
Predictably, much of the right did not respond to the news well. Assorted far-right media personalities threw online tantrums; conspiratorial billionaire Elon Musk published a creepy message to the social media platform he bought; and Trump whined on Fox News, predicting that the entertainer will “probably pay a price for it … in the marketplace.”
Swift, it’s worth noting for context, also endorsed Joe Biden’s candidacy four years ago — and as my MSNBC colleague Hayley Miller noted, “she’s arguably more popular today than ever before.”
But it was the reaction from Republican vice presidential hopeful JD Vance that stood out as especially amazing. This was the message the Ohio senator pushed on Fox News, just hours after the former president’s related rant:
We admire Taylor Swift’s music, but I don’t think most Americans, whether they like her music, are fans of hers or not, are going to be influenced by a billionaire celebrity who I think is fundamentally disconnected from the interests and the problems of most Americans.”
He added that the celebrity hasn’t been “hurt” by “grocery prices.”
For now, let’s not dwell on the fact that grocery price inflation has already cooled significantly in recent months. Let’s instead consider the latest in a series of examples of Team Trump flunking tests of self-awareness.
Americans are unlikely to be influenced by a billionaire celebrity who is fundamentally disconnected from the interests and the problems of most Americans? Unless Trump is planning to drop out of the 2024 race, Vance’s running mate happens to be a billionaire celebrity who is fundamentally disconnected from the interests and the problems of most Americans. In fact, it was of particular interest that the GOP senator referenced Swift and grocery prices, given that Trump has repeatedly made public comments suggesting he has no idea how grocery stores even work — including suggestions that he thinks consumers need to show identification to buy boxes of cereal. Vance, in other words, probably ought to come up with a different line of attack against Swift. As for the entertainer’s impact, the General Services Administration confirmed with NBC News that, as of midday Wednesday, more than 337,00 people visited a custom URL that Swift posted on Instagram. The custom URL directs people to vote.gov, a website that helps people to register to vote.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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