Taylor Swift Gets Political at Video Music Awards, Fires Shot at White House
Pop icon Taylor Swift got political at Monday’s MTV Video Awards show by lobbying for passage of the Equality Act and getting snarky with the Trump administration.
Swift won the best video award for the video for her song, “You Need To Calm Down.” In the video, everyone supporting the gay rights agenda and the video’s celebration of a gay wedding is decked out in happy, bright colors while protesters opposed to the LGBTQ party are ragged, dirty, missing teeth and, in essence, caricatures of Americans who oppose gay marriage as seen by Swift and the entertainment industry.
Swift performed the song at the awards, but for all those who did not get the message, she also touted the Equality Act during her acceptance speech.
“I just want to say that this is a fan-voted award. So, I first want to say thank you to the fans because in this video, several points were made, so you voting for this video means that you want a world where we’re all treated equally under the law,” she said.
“Regardless of who we love, regardless of how we identify, at the end of this video there was a petition — and there still is a petition — for the Equality Act, which basically just says we all deserve equal rights under the law,” she said.
“And, I want to thank everyone who signed that petition because it now has half-a-million signatures, which is five times the amount that it would need to warrant a response from the White House,” said Swift, dramatically tapping her wrist where a watch would be to indicate her impatience with the lack of response she has received.
In an Op-ed on the Heritage Foundation’s website, writer Monica Burke said the misnamed Equality Act “would penalize Americans who don’t affirm new sexual norms or gender ideology” and “enable sexual assault.”
“The Equality Act defies the purpose of anti-discrimination laws. The original Civil Rights Act was enacted to protect African-Americans from being denied access to material goods and services. The Equality Act, by contrast, would be used as a sword to attack people and force them to adopt new ideologies about human sexuality,” Burke wrote.
“This extreme and dangerous legislation would create unprecedented harms to businesses, charities, medical professionals, women and children, and entire families. The writing is on the wall: The Equality Act is anything but,” she wrote.
Swift’s performance Monday night fired up commentary on Twitter.
#VMAs Taylor Swift lip singing is actually really bad. And I really enjoy seeing her perform. But sorry honey, it’s off!
— hello (@SummerLeighAnna) August 27, 2019
John Travolta accidentally giving Taylor Swift’s award to a drag queen is OBJECTIVELY FUNNIER by the fact that literally one minute earlier he made Queen Latifah read the envelope so he WOULDN’T MESS UP pic.twitter.com/jfzkDPI2Fd
— Marc (@MarcSnetiker) August 27, 2019
Although Swift won the voting for the video awards, she did not win last fall when she tried to use her fan base and social media to get her fans to oppose Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee in Blackburn’s successful campaign for a U.S. Senate seat. Since that failure, Swift has increased her political advocacy.
Swift said in an interview with The Guardian that the era of President Donald Trump triggered the change.
“The things that happen to you in your life are what develop your political opinions. I was living in this Obama eight-year paradise of, you go, you cast your vote, the person you vote for wins, everyone’s happy! This whole thing, the last three, four years, it completely blindsided a lot of us, me included,” she said.
“The thing I can’t get over right now is gaslighting the American public into being like ‘If you hate the president, you hate America.’ We’re a democracy –- at least, we’re supposed to be -– where you’re allowed to disagree, dissent, debate.” She then referred to Trump without using his name.
“I really think that he thinks this is an autocracy,” she said.
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