Why Some Leftists Once Suspected Taylor Swift of Being a Closet Conservative
And what we can learn about the left from that
Looking back, the fact that some leftists once suspected Taylor Swift of being a ‘closet conservative’ sounds like nonsense. However, this paranoid idea was indeed brought up from time to time, by various people on the left, from around 2009 to 2017. Today, I want to revisit an article that went viral 14 years ago, titled ‘ Why Taylor Swift Offends Little Monsters, Feminists, and Weirdos’. Somehow, this article has been stuck in my mind all this time. I guess the reason is because it marked the beginning of me sensing that there was something fundamentally wrong with a particular strand of thinking on the cultural left. All these years later, I think I have finally worked out what’s wrong. Re-reading the article, I actually think it is a very good example of some of the most fundamental things that have gone wrong with the left in recent years.
Firstly, the article goes to great lengths to portray Taylor Swift as conservative. There are phrases like ‘she irritates me much like John McCain irritated me for most of 2008’ (remember that McCain was the Republican Presidential candidate in 2008), and ‘[if] you’re one of those mothers who insist on conservative role models who compose girl-bashing boy-crazy rain-soaked anthems and you value a starlette’s “purity” over intelligence or even raw singing talent, then fine; better Taylor than Bristol Palin or G-d forbid, her mother’. There’s even the claim that ‘[the] rush to exalt Swift is (I believe) a desperate attempt to infuse our allegedly apocalypse-bound country with a palatable conservative ideology in the form of a complacent, repressed feminine ideal’. Of course, this was all before she began to speak out on her politics, and it does look pretty ridiculous in hindsight. It’s just a good example of how some people on the left like to see things that are not there, and think of people as politically right-wing when they are not.
The article goes on to interpret various elements from Swift’s songs, supposedly as evidence to prove that she is ‘a feminist’s nightmare’ (again, ridiculous in hindsight, given her strong embrace of feminism just a few years later). The video for You Belong With Me is interpreted as a storyline upholding the ‘madonna/whore complex’, when there is clearly no objective evidence for this. The line ‘Abigail gave everything she had to a boy, who changed his mind, and we both cried’ from Fifteen is interpreted as Abigail losing her virginity (everything she had) to a boy who wouldn’t marry her, thus the accusation that the song is digging up an ‘ancient Puritan ideal’. Again, there is no evidence that this is what Swift actually intended to say. Overall, it seems more like an exercise in force-fitting things into pre-determined academic theories, rather than looking at what is really there. This, again, is one of the biggest problems with contemporary leftist thinking.
Throughout the article, the supposedly conservative Swift is contrasted with the ‘fresh potential revolutionary’ Lady Gaga, who was arguably the biggest pop star back in 2009. It seems that one can’t like both Swift and Gaga, even though many people were actually fans of both back then! The point here is that everything has to be politicized, and divided into ‘conservative’ and ‘revolutionary’, even music and entertainment. What is ‘revolutionary’ is good, and what is not revolutionary is inherently conservative, and therefore bad. In recent years, I’ve found this form of thinking very prevalent in some parts of the left, and trust me, it is not a good thing. It only leads to polarization and extremism. The fact is, having some (cultural, rather than political) conservatism might not be a bad thing, and is certainly not a barrier to reformist progress at all. Thinking of ‘conservatism’ as inherently an enemy of progress is, in my opinion, very immature and superficial. This demonization of all things conservative is also, I think, what is behind that paranoia that almost anyone who disagrees with the left on almost any issue could be a ‘closet conservative’. This attitude is extremely unhealthy.
As you can see, even back in 2010, almost all the most problematic elements of contemporary cultural leftist thought were already present. Now, you might say that the aforementioned article only represents the viewpoint of one person. However, these forms of thinking, i.e. seeing things that are not really there, force-fitting reality into academic theories, and paranoia that certain people are closet right-wingers, have been quite prevalent on the left for some time, across a wide range of issues and contexts. I think it reflects the strong influence of certain problematic philosophical theories on the left in recent decades. It really is a widespread problem, one that the left needs to face up to, and have a serious conversation about.
Originally published at https://taraella.substack.com.
TaraElla is a singer-songwriter and author, who is the author of the Moral Libertarian Manifesto and the Moral Libertarian book series, which argue that liberalism is still the most moral and effective value system for the West.
She is also the author of The Trans Case Against Queer Theory and The TaraElla Story (her autobiography).
