I rarely buy into any “poor Taylor Swift” narrative – she’s arguably the most powerful white woman in American culture (if not America entirely), she’s a billionaire with access and a global platform, and she’s shown time and time again that she can ruthlessly handle her business. But one area in which I have sympathy for Taylor is that there’s absolutely no way for her to respond to any of the creepy, pro-natalist, MAGA fantasies being pushed on her. It’s been this way for a while – creepy conservative men projecting all kinds of disgusting commentary on Taylor and what she “really wants,” i.e. to get married, have babies and vote Republican. So, as you can imagine, MAGA World and the Nazi natalist contingent had a lot to say about Taylor’s engagement to Travis Kelce.
MAGAworld had a completely normal reaction to Taylor Swift’s engagement to NFL star Travis Kelce. Conservatives celebrated the pop star’s earth-shattering announcement on Tuesday as a “huge blow to the woke movement” as they promoted natalism and stirred theories about Swift secretly leading a right-wing lifestyle—despite her extensive history of being an outspoken liberal.
MAGA youth leader Charlie Kirk had a lot to say about the engagement on an episode of his eponymous podcast, where he expressed optimism that the power couple’s marriage will “conservatize” both of them. “Maybe one of the reasons why Taylor Swift has been so just kind of annoyingly liberal over the last couple of years is that she’s not yet married and she doesn’t have children. I say this non-sarcastically,” he said. “Taylor Swift might deradicalize herself. She might come back down to reality…. Deep down, I think Taylor Swift actually was raised as a conservative that has gotten kind of caught up in this metropolitan liberal stuff, and she doesn’t quite have an attachment to the conservative backbone that she was raised in, but this might reattach her in the best possible way.”
Kirk and several other MAGA influencers were elated by the news of the engagement over what it could do for the declining birth rate in the U.S.
“I think the greatest contribution they could make to western civilization at this point would be to have a bunch of babies and persuade all these people who mindlessly follow them to also have a bunch of babies,” conservative pundit Scott Jennings said on CNN’s The Arena with Kasie Hunt. “I just think if they have a bunch of babies, it would help the birth rate.”
Collin Rugg, co-owner of conservative news website Trending Politics, wrote in an X post that “millions of liberal Swifties just got the ‘ok’ to get married,” claiming that millions of adults “hang onto everything Swift says and does.”
Right-wing commentator Ben Shapiro similarly hailed the engagement as “unironically an excellent thing. I hope many other single people follow their example,” he said on X.
“I think Taylor Swift getting married is a massive net-positive for society and a huge blow to the woke movement,” conservative influencer Matt Van Swol wrote. “Showing people who have spent a lifetime not growing up, now taking responsibility and commitment is great.”
Timothy Carney, a senior fellow at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, declared pregnancy as “contagious” following the announcement. “Familism and Natalism are conveyed culturally. If Kelce and Swift have kids and quickly, this could trigger a Baby Boom,” he mused on X.
Even President Donald Trump had a surprisingly warm reception to the news that Swift, whom he previously claimed to “hate,” got engaged. Swift endorsed Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in the election against Trump last year. “I think he’s a great player and he’s a great guy and I think that she’s a terrific person,” Trump told reporters. “So I wish them a lot of luck.”
“Maybe one of the reasons why Taylor Swift has been so just kind of annoyingly liberal over the last couple of years is that she’s not yet married and she doesn’t have children.” The thing is, in the pre-Trump era, there was actual data to back this up – when (white) women got married and became mothers, they used to become more politically conservative. But that’s shifted a lot in the past two decades, especially because of college-educated women and Millennials, who trend Democratic no matter their marital status. While Taylor is not college-educated, she’s following the trends of college-educated Millennials – a first marriage in her 30s, likely starting a family in her 30s or 40s, and most importantly, becoming more politically active and liberal as she gets older. This is also why these men (the ones name-checked by the Daily Beast) are the same ones arguing against girls’ education and arguing in favor of early marriages for girls and women. Like, in their ideal world, no woman would go to college and all women would be married and popping out babies by the age of 21, because that would “guarantee” their conservatism. Also: these simpering man-babies continue to be confused because Taylor doesn’t use her white privilege in the voting booth. They cannot wrap their heads around a rich white woman saying “actually, I think women and marginalized communities should have rights too.”
Photos courtesy of Taylor’s IG and Travis’s IG.
So(alot) white men haven’t progressed in oh,say…300 years. Still deep down want a momma for a wife and side pieces for funsies. If they want to diminish one of the most powerful women in her industry by relegating her to an incubator, wtf do you think happens to the rest of us.
Creepy. These men are all just. So. Creepy. Maybe she can write a song about just how sad and cre-to-the-eepy they are.
Not all men are pricks like these guys.
The Venn diagram comparing
“these men” and
“all men”
is not 2 completely overlapping circles.
Just like the devil never needs an advocate, we never need to say “Not All Men”.
That’s true. Unfortunately bad behavior for men is incentivized in society, so the outliers don’t impress me much (when it’s in their favor, they’ll act like asses too).
Just my two cents of course.
They don’t deserve a song. They’d probably take that as a badge of honor and just get worse. Maybe a song about what to look for/dumping them?
This take is…..weird (the MAGA take.) Like her fans are going to get married because she’s getting married? while that may be true for some of the more extreme swifties, i have to hope that most of her fans aren’t basing major life choices off of Taylor Swift. to me the takeaway here would be “if the guy you’re dating in your 20s doesn’t work out, its not the end of the world, you can still find love and happiness.”
Also, its not like taylor is the most political music star out there. yes she endorsed Harris and I think shes pro choice (not sure why I think that though, is that true lol). She’s been a MAGA target for years and doesn’t like trump and seems to skew liberal, but let’s be honest, she’s not leading the wave of protest music (which is fine, don’t @me swifties, lol.)
basically if she does start to skew more conservative with age and marriage I still don’t think it will make her pro trump or MAGA.
But also, i’m a married white woman who keeps getting more and more liberal with age, soooo 🤷♀️ Taylor may follow my lead haha.
Right? I’m a white woman raised in a conservative suburb, and while I’ve always been left-leaning, I got a LOT more liberal after I got married and had kids. My parents, who STILL say I’ll get more conservative as I age, are appalled.
I can’t get over how WEIRD conservative men are. Conservative women just seem bitter and mean, but the men are giant weirdos. Everything they say gives me the uber-creeps.
She didn’t save democracy. I spent a full year believing she had that power. I started listening to her music and got excited about her. But the most culturally influential white woman in America is not more powerful than the billionaire white men who bought the election. IDK I guess I think she’ll continue to be a super star who basks in the spotlight. My prediction is that she’s done with political endorsements but she won’t have a baby. She’ll be like Dolly Parton and continue to use her money for non partisan good causes.
They’ve both said at different times they want kids. Travis has been especially vocal on the topic, so while I won’t bump watch I do expect them to have kids.
Maybe they will. It’s their life to live as they choose and more power to them. But if they, for example, chose adoption, and specifically special needs children, the Broverse would lose their friggin’ minds. And I’d enjoy that.
I volunteered with so many Swifities (all ages) that thought they could save it, though. And I like her music! But watching the focus that people were putting her towards her/the Eras tour directed to volunteering simultaneously was amazing. The despair for them (and all of us) was was very real. It will always be heartbreaking and soul-crushing that it wasn’t enough.
Travis wouldn’t marry someone who didn’t want kids, it’s that simple. (New Heights watcher from early on) It would not have lasted 6 months if Taylor didn’t have the same vision. Travis wants kids so badly Jason had to completely shut him up from talking about it recklessly on stream, given her fan base. Travis literally said “I can’t wait to start”
Unless you’re a pair of Supreme Court justices no one or two people can save democracy. Election integrity is a big problem.
@Calliope – Thank you for that perspective. I want to still feel joy listening to Swift.
@Truthiness – The millions of people who were eligible to vote but chose not to in 2024 could have saved democracy. Do not give them a pass by saying that only the SC has that power.
Molly – At first I thought you were saying Taylor’s endorsement in general could save democracy but now it sounds like you would like Taylor to convert the millions of nonvoters into “active-voters-who-vote-blue” and I would love that for our country too!
Reasons for nonvoting are quite varied, it’s no single source/cause. I know non-voters and it’s no single reason amongst them, my state kept its blue trifecta despite them. Plus no endorsement in our country’s history has accomplished the conversion of millions of nonvoters into millions of active registered voters.
MAGA filth like Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro are convinced that Taylor Swift fans are all 13 year old girls. They think that once a fan hits 18, they no longer listen to Taylor Swift and no male could ever listen to Taylor Swift in their view.
I want to be happy for them, but is anyone worried about his well known temper? I am, and a spidey sense I have is that that’s part of what’s making the maga men like this pairing. Ugh.
I did not know that. I know he can be emotional on the field–not unusual for an NFL player-but I’ve never heard anything about him having a temper in regards to his interpersonal relationships.
Even for an NFL player his temper stands out. I have a friend who was at the AFC Championship game a few years ago and she said she had NEVER heard a player yell at the other team the way he did, yell at the refs, yell at the fans, etc (she was near the endzone.) her commentary after the game was that it was the worst sportsmanship she had ever seen. And the chiefs won!
This friend has season tickets to the games so goes a lot. And she’s also a HUGE Swiftie (She saw the Eras tour 20 times, including England and Paris) so her opinion wasn’t anti Taylor at all – she loves them together – it was more like “yikes did not expect that from Travis.”
That said – that doesn’t mean it translates to off the field relationships in any way.
The guy had a long term relationship before, no? If he was an abusive partner, we would hear about it. I don’t think you need to worry about that.
Yeah, if he had a temper in his relationships it would have been blasted all over the internet and lmao it would be in Taylor Swift songs.
Especially because his one ex has been very critical of him but hasn’t said anything about him being abusive.
Lol! The 🍊 felon’s dementia is really bad. He doesn’t remember he’s supposed to hate Taylor Swift. And Scott Jennings will always be an idiot.
Ben Shapiro has been extremely creepy and disgusting over this
No one was more disturbing than Charlie Kirk and his unhinged rant. There was A LOT. But what struck me the most was when he talked about Taylor finally finding her proper place as nothing more than Mrs. Travis Kelce. He actually shouted “submit to your husband, Taylor!!”. Even other Conservatives were disgusted by his rant.
Why are MAGA men convinced that pregnant women are controlled women? Now that women can have their own checking accounts, are actually educated and good at science, we have discovered that pregnant and barefoot doesn’t hold women back. Taylor may not be a science geek, but she’s obviously good at math. So the bros attempt to bring back the 1950s looks bleak.
(this entire comment is sarcastic and true)
I think it’s more about the eugenics stuff that Jay describes below. They’re terrified of a future where white people are the minority in the US.
The odd thing is though that, in restricting abortion, they’ll get an increase in minority babies too. I guess the important thing is overall numbers (since they’re obsessed with birth rate especially as we reduce immigration) but they need whites to keep ahead of the curve. They’re so gross.
The self-proclaimed “thought leaders” of MAGA tell their minions that women, no matter how educated or accomplished, can only be happy if they are stay at home moms. Shapiro loves to point out that his wife is a MD, but has chosen be a stay at home mom. They also advocate that such women home school not only their own kids but other people’s kids too.
They love to domestic well educated women, but why do these doctors and lawyers tolerate these men??
20% of women who are abused, the abuse starts when they’re pregnant. That’s why they think a pregnant woman is a controlled woman. Abuse starts at whatever stage an abuser thinks the woman is “owned.” That’s my personal theory anyway.
Also these guys are disgusting trash monsters who are consuming poisonous rhetoric all day every day.
These pathetic, fragile “men” are so f–king threatened by an intelligent, savvy woman who has worked her ass off to get where she is today, who is marrying a guy she actually WANTS (and who happens to worship her) rather than needs. THAT, not “must settle for an insecure turd and make babies now!”, is the message her fans are going to take away from her marriage.
Unsurprisingly, pretty much all the weird creeps who denied being into eugenics after that terrible American Eagle ad are SUPER invested in Taylor and Travis producing some blue-eyed babies. They always manage to tell on themselves, eh?
And speaking of telling us about himself, how about that senior fellow at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute, declaring pregnancy as “contagious” – uh, no dude.
Gawd I can’t stand it when these men (and some women) talk about having a “bunch of babies” as though kids were like pets or something. Like how many is a bunch? Five? Seven? A baker’s dozen? It’s one thing to talk about starting a family, becoming a parent, having children. But a “bunch” is flower bouquet, spread-your-seed language and it’s really freaking creepy and weird.
I was the youngest of four children and while my parents were/are very good, enlightened people and for the most part good parents, they were definitely overwhelmed. Raising us didn’t turn my mother into a submissive Trad Wife, far from it. As soon as I was in pre-school she went back to finish her degree. She couldn’t wait to get out of the damned house at least for part of the week. And she wasn’t alone. If they think having and raising young kids is some kind of recipe for lobotomizing women, they are sorely mistaken.
You can’t put this genie back in the bottle, dudes. We know we have brains and rights. You try to throw up all the road blocks to self determination, we will find a way around them if that’s what we want to do.
My grandmother was a very traditional 1950s housewife who never had the chance to go to college. And she made damn sure her daughters and granddaughters valued education. She got increasingly liberal over the years, but still valued marriage and children quite a bit, while also actively supporting women candidates in her community. Women can make it all happen and plenty of men are allies in this. The rest need to go extinct and let us get on with society.
I am a white, gen x woman who has always been liberal. I married a white man a little older and more conservative than me. If anything, he’s gotten more liberal.
My husband has gotten more liberal since we got married 30 years ago. When we met he was a right-leaning moderate and now he’s progressive if not what I’d call Far Left. Even his family got more liberal (at least his parents did) and I think the two of us had something to do with it. They’re close and they respect his opinion.
It’s particularly galling to be lectured about fertility from a slew of men who sound like their nutsacs haven’t dropped yet. Their rabid obsession with women’s reproductive choices is classic incel shit.
Reading this after the “Kate Middleton doesn’t work because she’s a good Mum” article sure is a depressive morning coffee chaser.
I have some news, chuds. When Millenial women start families, it means we have to work more, not less. We become more ambitious, less willing to settle, and we double down on our desire for a more just world. Children are not little dolls to be collected and shown off on instagram. They are independent humans who didn’t ask to be here, and we owe them a hell of a lot more than the world MAGA wants. Fighting you is what it means to be a good parent in 2025.
Reagan, Bush et al painted patriotism, law enforcement as GOP/right wing/ conservative things … but nope, those things used to cut across party and political leaning lines. And these days are much more likely to be jettisoned by GOP operatives, MAGAts. They may give lip service, but look at their actions – law breaking, anti-Constitutional, anti-patriotic
They are trotting out the same narrow-minded, short-sighted thinking here.
No MAGAts, you don’t own the rights to love and marriage and people wanting to start families. Those are human behaviors that cut across party lines – liberal folks get married and start families all the time. A prominent couple getting engaged isn’t a “win” for red hats. It’s a reflection of *choice*
The liberal stance includes basic human rights for ALL – including the right to fall in love, choose to share life with whoever they please, the right to marry a willing partner, the right to try and have a family but also the right to freely NOT do those things, as one chooses, without persecution or prosecution or unlawful arrest.
MAGA’s don’t own marriage or babies or heterosexual couples or white couples or any couples or families or children* any more than they owned the flag or the US Constitution (which the not spit on and try to destroy daily now) not matter what propaganda trolls and talking heads spew.
* get back to me on that one when MAGAts promote serious gun control laws and reinstate SNAP / WIC for kids and vaccines for kids instead of fighting against all of that.
He’s a white man who used to date black women that is marrying the woman they’ve long claimed as their aryan princess, there’s a lot there for white supremacists to love. He is the tough guy sports bro that they all imagine themselves to be who is no longer lost in the wilderness of being a “race traitor,” and she’s the white feminine ideal who was getting out of hand (having ideas and what not) who is being “tamed” by the traditional macho man who will put some babies in her. All of the worst people have plenty of inspo to write their own pro natalist fanfic.
They’re sleeping with her, vicariously. It’s sick.
Not only that, but they’re fantasizing about her submitting to THEM. They see Travis as their proxy.
It’s pathologically creepy.
The funny thing is- Jason and Travis Kelce are out here supporting and championing their partners in whatever they do. It is very anti-maga.
Yeah, Kylie keeps having adorable blond babies, but she also is a field hockey coach, has a podcast where she hosts strong female role models, and stans for pbs on the regular.
Jason is not too “manly” to get a bikini wax and show up in a speedo (he lost a bet, and there was a charity fundraiser involved).
They are all about non-toxic masculinity.
And Taylor is the BOSS of her organization. There is no svengali or puppetmaster.
She sets her schedule, she makes decisions. She is an excellent business woman, who also donates to food banks in every city she performed in on the Era Tour.
I think she said it plainly: i like sparkly things, i like to bake, but i get to have opinions on politics too.
Also, we must remember, maga is not in any way about reality or truth.
They will pretzel themselves to make any fact pattern fit their preferred narrative.
Facts do not have any effect on them. They live in a weird fantasy.
And the only thing i want to see in this hellscape before i die, is them suffering mightily for things they voted for- but somehow refused to know that is what they were voting for. And are deeply surprised and troubled by – when the nasty thing they wanted actually hurts them.
Travis is also anti-MAGA. Before kneeling to Taylor to propose, he took a knee during the national anthem in 2017 in support of Colin Kaepernick and other Black football players.
If he veered right, Kylie Kelce would kick his ass.
Also, Kylie Kelce is a liberal and stated she would love to interview Michelle Obama.
Michelle Obama has been on Kylie’s pod and… Michelle said she wanted to keep in touch! Kylie just about died and went to heaven over the whole episode. Go Michelle and go Kylie.
Yo, Charlie Kirk: I’m married and have lots of babies and am liberal af! I protest, I boycott, I rally, I vote, I volunteer, I canvas and I put my money where my damn mouth is, so you better watch out.
Lol Taylor is not woke or ‘annoyingly liberal’, seriously, at least publicly facing
MAGA really just love shitting on everything and trying to put us in a box of their choosing. “See, we’re the masters of the universe” to other insecure garbage.
I think Taylor Swift said it perfectly already:
God save the most judgmental creeps
Who say they want what’s best for me
Sanctimoniously performing soliloquies I’ll never see
Thinking it can change the beat
Of my heart when he touches me…
It’s so gross how the MAGA/conservatives lay claim on certain basic things so they can demonize liberals as being strange and radical. Um, liberals like love, marriage (for all), and kids too (we just want them safe from gun violence, having access to healthcare, education, food, and a promise of a beautiful unpolluted planet to live in without war and poverty). Liberals also like gyms, and some even like to hunt and fish and farm.
It’s pretty clear those guys have not watched a single interaction between Taylor and Travis.
If this is the American Royal Wedding, that dude knows he’s the consort. There hasn’t been a single part of their interactions that should make anyone think he ‘wears the pants’. He hypes his partner up, supports her career, knows she’s the much bigger deal. I suspect girls actually watching their relationship are getting a very different message about what to expect from a partner than the MAGA bros think.
I think they’ve both been reasonably open about wanting kids, so I’m guessing that will happen sooner rather than later (poor Taylor with bump-watch) and she’ll manage touring etc like Beyoncé has.
The conservative link to married women with children is likely more correlative than causative. Religious people tend to marry more and have more children, and the religious here are mostly conservative.
This being said, it’s always funny to watch the hard right take on people like Swift. The woman is practically a billionaire. All of this is performative at the end of the day, mainly because she’s wealthy enough that it’ll never touch her. If anything’s going to make her conservative, it’s the dollar signs after her name. Telling, though, that many of these right wingers see marriage as a form of control.