Taylor Swift breaks silence on politics by backing Tennessee Democrat

Taylor Swift has renounced her long-held political neutrality and waded into the US midterm elections, urging her 112 million Instagram followers to vote for Democrats in her home state of Tennessee, and enraging alt-right sympathisers who saw her as their poster girl.

An analyst on Good Morning America, a leading breakfast show, mused over what “a weaponised Taylor Swift will look like”, while alt-right chat boards exploded in disgust at her announcement.

“She was supposed to be our girl! Why did she break our hearts?” wrote one person on the 4Chan forum, while another added: “They took her from us”.

The 28-year-old, who moved from Pennsylvania to Nashville to pursue her musical career aged 14, rose to fame as a country music star and, in a bid to avoid alienating fans, has vehemently avoided the subject of politics.

But on Sunday night she broke her silence and announced her support for the Democrat candidates in her state.

“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,” she wrote.

“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.”

She said she could not support senate candidate Marsha Blackburn, despite wanting to see more women in politics, because “her voting record in Congress appalls and terrifies me.

She continued: “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.”

Swift said she will, instead, vote 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,” she said.

“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.”

Swift also urged all her fans – many of them young girls – to make sure they register to vote.

Her post had been “liked” by almost 1.5 million people within 24 hours, but not all embraced her new-found political voice.

Katrina Pierson, a former spokesman for Donald Trump, tweeted: “So, over the weekend Taylor Swift announced that she doesn’t support women and endorsed a rich old white privileged man who supported the Kavanaugh SCOTUS confirmation instead? Weird and extremely tone deaf.”

Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and father of White House spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders, mocked her attempt to rally support.

“So @taylorswift13 has every right to be political but it won’t impact election unless we allow 13 yr old girls to vote,” he tweeted. “Still with #MarshaBlackburn.”

Many of her fans refused to believe it.

“That looks ghostwritten,” one wrote.

“All PR nonsense,” said another. “She just doesn’t want to be labelled as a white nationalist. Probably got paid to say all this.”

George Takei, the Star Wars actor and outspoken anti-Trump activist, said it was a sign of the times.

“Guys, things have gotten so dire that even Taylor Swift had to say something,” he tweeted. “#VoteBlue.”