Taylor Swift made it clear that she voted in the 2016 presidential election and encouraged others to do the same, but at the time was notably quiet about who she was voting for and what platforms she endorsed. This led some to wildly extrapolate and turn her silence into an alignment with the alt-right, and many more to reasonably express frustration about the singer’s decision to not put her weight behind a candidate that wasn’t Donald Trump. In a new interview with the Guardian, she’s “really remorseful†about that. The election happened during Swift’s self-imposed media blackout, following her very public dustup with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. “I was just trying to protect my mental health — not read the news very much, go cast my vote, tell people to vote. I just knew what I could handle and I knew what I couldn’t,†she says in the interview. “I was literally about to break.†Swift also thought her dip in public image had rendered her “just useless†and “maybe even like a hindrance,†which contributed to her not speaking out for Hillary Clinton, who she says she would have endorsed.
Swift’s Lover drop was preceded by a big “gay rights!†PR push and a call for legislators to sign the Equality Act, and Political Taylor says she’s going to be a lot more vocal during the 2020 election cycle. Additionally, Swift also said she’s “obviously†pro-choice, that Donald Trump is “gaslighting the American public,†and that he’s acting like an autocrat. At this rate we can expect an anti-Swift presidential tweet storm before Halloween.