TnT is Da Bomb
There are plenty of reasons to be a little irritated with Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. Being forced by one’s daughter to listen to nothing but Taylor to and from school every day for several semesters is one example. Your hometown football team facing Travis in the Super Bowl is another. But beyond these minor infractions, there’s not much to complain about when it comes to TnT (Taylor ‘n Travis). One could argue that no couple better represents conservative American values. She’s a wholesome, talented, self-made billionaire who combines talent and remarkable business savvy. He’s a sure thing first ballot Hall of Famer on one the best-ever teams in a sport that, according to viewership numbers, Americans love more than any other form of entertainment. So, even in this Eras era when pretty much nothing can still surprise it, Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce have managed to blow the last vestiges of right wing media sanity to smithereens. (I don’t call them TnT for nothing).
Things all started out simply enough. A girl named after James Taylor born in the right-leaning town of West Reading in swing state Pennsylvania meets the son of a steel industry sales rep from Westlake in the swing state of Ohio (the boy is also the brother of the person who perhaps best embodies America). It was a nice, little story. At least until the Pentagon, Biden, and the NFL got to work. Right-wing media figures target Taylor Swift with absurd conspiracy theory ahead of the Super Bowl. “With the Kansas City Chiefs headed to Super Bowl LVIII, influential MAGA Media personalities have started circulating conspiracy theories about the pop superstar, promoting the deranged notion that she is part of a sprawling psychological operations plot staged by the NFL and Democratic Party to deliver the 2024 presidential election to President Joe Biden.” (For what it’s worth, this is the first time I hope their conspiracy theory is true.) I suppose this theory is just a subtle twist on the classic story arc: Boy meets girl. Toddler loses election. Country regains sanity.
+ “The implication (again: forgive my telling you something obvious) is that the Chiefs are being ushered to the Super Bowl … somehow … to secure Swift’s endorsement for President Biden. This makes a lot of sense because the Chiefs haven’t been to the Super Bowl since, uh, last year, when they won. But before that they hadn’t been since, well, two years before. But that one they lost! But they’d won the year before that. You can see why they need … someone … to give them a boost. Because otherwise, Taylor Swift wouldn’t endorse Biden, something she hasn’t done since 2020 — the last time Biden ran.” WaPo (Gift Article): The uncomplicated, dumb engine driving political false claims about Taylor Swift. Hey, it’s crazy. But maybe not any crazier than the hundreds of other lunatical stories—designed to distort and distract—that have worked their way from the fringe to the mainstream of one of two political parties. And give the conspiracists some credit for creativity. Who could have imagined that San Francisco would make it to the Super Bowl and Fox News would be attacking Kansas City…
+ David Letterman tells Taylor Swift NFL haters to ‘shut up,’ her Travis Kelce romance is ‘a lovely thing.’ (If Jon Stewart can come back to the Daily Show one night a week, how about we bring back David Letterman back to late night? We’ll even waive the facial hair restrictions…)
