Donald Trump pokes the bear, starts posting A.I. Taylor Swift endorsements

Donald Trump appears to be fabricating an endorsement from Taylor Swift and her fans with computer generated images

By Mary Kate Carr  |  August 19, 2024 | 10:12am
Photo by: Michael M. Santiago; Andreas Rentz/TAS24 (Getty Images)
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Donald Trump pokes the bear, starts posting A.I. Taylor Swift endorsements

Taylor Swift has enough on her plate lately without having to deal with Donald Trump’s dangerous desperation. Amid reports that the former president is disgruntled that Joe Biden dropped out of the race and possibly suffering PTSD from the campaign rally shooting, Trump’s latest endeavor is to fabricate an endorsement from the pop star and her fans. Over on his personal soapbox Truth Social, Trump shared a variety of images including a photoshop of Swift in an Uncle Sam getup with the caption “Taylor wants you to vote for Donald Trump.” “I accept!” Trump captioned this array of photos. 

All but one of the photos of “Swifties for Trump” also appear to be fake or A.I. generated. In a statement to Deadline over Trump’s postings, the former president’s campaign spokesman Stephen Cheung said that “Swifties for Trump is a massive movement that grows bigger every single day.” There no doubt are some Swifties out there voting for Trump (statistically, given the amount of Swifties in the world, there must be some Trump supporters in there), but it’s unclear if this is really a “movement” or a handful of outliers. Swifties4Kamala, on the other hand, is a centralized and mobilized subset that already has more than 180,000 followers across social media platforms and organized a Zoom kick-off call, just for comparison. 

And therein lies the crux of the issue—everyone has been salivating for Swift’s endorsement because Swifties are a powerful force. When she has gotten involved, she was able to inspire thousands of people to register to vote. Her name has come up time and again in this election cycle, whether it was the Democrats hoping she’ll hop in the race or the Republicans encouraging her to stay out of politics. Spectators have been so eager to see what she might do that many got duped by a silhouette in one of her Eras Tour Instagram posts that kind of looked like Kamala Harris. (It was just one of her dancers, obviously.) 

Trump in particular has been obsessed with the singer: “There’s no way she could endorse Crooked Joe Biden, the worst and most corrupt President in the History of our Country, and be disloyal to the man who made her so much money,” he boasted about signing the “Music Modernization Act for Taylor Swift and all other Musical Artists” earlier this year (per The New York Times). And in the Apprentice In Wonderland book published in June (via Variety), he’s quoted as saying, “I think she’s beautiful—very beautiful! I find her very beautiful. I think she’s liberal. She probably doesn’t like Trump. I hear she’s very talented. I think she’s very beautiful, actually—unusually beautiful!” (For some reason, the Reputation lyric “I never trust a narcissist, but they love me” comes to mind…)

For her part, Swift has remained conspicuously absent from the 2024 race so far. In 2020, she endorsed Joe Biden after expressing regret that she didn’t speak out against Trump in 2016. Ironically, this could be the thing that drags Swift into the melee, in order to quash Trump’s misinfo campaign. Swift is known for being protective of her image and litigious about her trademarks. Frankly, if she were to take legal action, it could set an important precedent over the use of false computer-generated images, which is only becoming a more and more concerning issue with the proliferation of artificial intelligence. Swift’s team did not immediately respond to The A.V. Club’s request for comment.  

 
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