Singer Chappell Roan is getting the Taylor Swift treatment.
The rising star is under intense pressure by progressives to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris. She did everything but do just that, and she’s faced a withering social media blowback as a result.
She even canceled gigs to protect her mental health in the “scandal’s” wake.
Chappell Roan cancels NYC & DC festival shows due to health concerns amidst backlash over political stance. Prioritizing well-being to ensure her best performance for fans. https://t.co/8I1rey2ZKi pic.twitter.com/dE2KeuHnRE
— Digital Dynamo (@digitalDynam0_) September 30, 2024
Some suggested a recent “Saturday Night Live” skit targeted Roan for not endorsing Harris. Show regular Bowen Yang denies it.
Swift faced a similar attack following the 2016 presidential election. At the time she stayed neutral on the Hillary Clinton/Donald Trump matchup. When Trump shocked the world by winning, the press came for Swift. The Daily Beast’s reportage proved the most brutal, suggesting she had a soft spot for White Nationalists.
We don’t know if Roan will change course, but it’s increasingly clear Swift’s decision to endorse Harris isn’t paying off as anticipated. The move didn’t buoy Harris’s presidential poll numbers.
Harris and Trump remain neck in neck in polls.
Much worse? It’s hitting the Swift brand. Hard.
A recent poll showed the singer’s popularity drooped following the Harris announcement. She’s not running for any office, but a superstar who calculates her brand as carefully as Swift does won’t ignore those numbers.
More recently, we learned the singer’s Spotify streams similarly took a hit.
When Swift publicly endorsed Harris in an Instagram post on Sept. 10, 94 million unique Spotify listeners had streamed at least one of her songs in the past month. A little more than a fortnight later, on Sept. 27, Swift’s monthly unique listeners had dropped to 91.9 million, per Chartmetric.
Her YouTube channel also slumped, according to The Wrap:
The number of people viewing Swift’s YouTube videos in the U.S. dropped nearly 10% post-Harris endorsement, according to Chartmetric’s data.
This was all avoidable.
Swift didn’t have to say a peep about the 2024 presidential election. She could have promoted voter registration via her powerful social media accounts and avoided partisan bickering.
Yes, that would have triggered a new wave of “think pieces” in the media, all designed to bully her into endorsing Harris. It would have gotten ugly, especially if Trump wins come November.
Woke bullies eventually move on, by and large (J.K. Rowling remains a chilling exception). Swift could have held her ground and waited for the mob to sic another target.
Staying above the political fray has worked wonders for Swift.
Remember that she became a superstar without the benefit of political posturing. She ended that stance in 2018 but resumed her apolitical mien last year. Her 2023 Eras Tour rocked America and made her even more famous.
If that were possible.
That stance worked from a business point of view. She sang. People listened. And how.
Now, she’s viewed in a different light. To conservatives, she’s a super rich diva who can shake off rising gas prices, exorbitant food costs and other inflationary woes. The average American? Not so much.
The endorsement may have endeared her to progressives, but chances are they were already on Team Taylor. Anyone enraged by the lack of a Harris endorsement would likely forgive her.
There’s no one needs to pass the hat for Swift. She remains the biggest pop star on the planet. She shrewdly positioned herself that way based on beauty, skill, talent and a well-oiled marketing machine.
Said machine is spitting out a few sparks at the moment.
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